Eliza_4

Well I’d have to be a pretty poor Canadian tourist if I didn’t visit the Canadian Rockies at some stage wouldn’t I?! So today, with my tour group we had an early start to travel to Jasper National Park, which is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies spanning 10,878km. The bus trip there was kind of exciting. I felt like a real Canadian tourist, the scenery we passed was just like the wilderness that Canada is renowned for in the movies, books etc. Our tour guide accompanying us today was named Stephanie; she was very passionate about the “outback experience”, as she called it. She had been doing Canadian Rocky Mountain tours for 10 years, and she spoke very fluent English and French (and even good Spanish and bits of Native American) which was good for our tour group which consisted of a group of French Americans, who weren’t good with English. Our group was to camp for a night in Jasper Park… Yes even amongst the wildlife which included elk, mountain goat, moose, beaver and wait for it… Grizzly bear!! I think our nerves added to the excitement a bit. As we pulled into the park, Stephanie told us that it was named after Jasper Hawes, who operated the sole trading post in the region for the North West Company. The park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984 so we were only allowed to camp in the designated camping grounds and had to keep our hikes to the allowed of paths. The coach pulled up at the main look out of Jasper Park, and Stephanie gave us a quick run down on the special mountain peaks, glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons and limestone caves. Apparently the park also contained fossil sites, which I thought was pretty cool. From the lookout we could see the Tonquin Valley, which showed parts of the three main river systems in Jasper National Park; North Saskatchewan River, Athabasca River and Smoky River. Here is a picture of the [|peak] of some of the mountains as we approached in the bus In winter, Jaspers Park is home to the famous Columbian Icefield; however the temperature felt like we were already in the midst of the winter chill. We pulled away from the lookout towards our campsite on Whistlers Mountain, all eager and nervous about what to expect next from this exciting “outback experience”.