Canada : Saturday 11th August 2007 - Jasper National Park

We awoke to.. a beautiful blue sky, the first we'd seen in a while. After consulting the guide books and maps, we decided to head back down the Icefields Parkway and walk the Wilcox Pass trail, described in many guidebooks as the best in the Rockies. But first, Martin found a bank in Jasper and managed to replenish our all important supply of cash!

The Wilcox Pass trail starts just south of the Icefields centre and as such we had to drive 100km of the Icefields Parkway to get there. This was..great! Because the weather was excellent and it was possible to see why it was regarded as the world's most beautiful drive, making up for yesterday's disappointment.

The walk itself was excellent, the best trail so far. We climbed quite steeply through forest to begin with and then broke out onto a ridge, continuing to climb. Across and along the valley we had a glorious view of the Rockies and also the most prominent glacier in the area, the Athabasca Glacier. We didn't see much by way of wildlife apart from a few of the extraordinary mountain sheep but we were kind of glad about that as we'd somewhat stupidly left our bear sprays back at the tents!

It took us a couple of hours to climb to the end of the trail, about 5km from the start. It was quite chilly at the top and from the point that we'd broken out from the shelter of the trees. We rested for a while and then headed back down. All the way, we played the most bizarre variant of the alphabet game, with "diseases and ailments" as the theme! A is for Astma. B is for Bronchitis....

After the walk it was early afternoon and we were all starving, so we drove up the parkway to the Icefields Centre for coffee and lunch.

The drive back was as lovely as the outward journey. On arrival back in Jasper, Martin and Bekky had some internet time. We then chilled for an hour back at the campsite before returning to Jasper to watch the Simpsons Movie, which we followed up with a chinese meal (which apparently we "owed" Jack!).

On the start of the Wilcox Pass trail with the Athabasca Glacier in the background.

People on the glacier....