Jasper to Lake Louise, Alberta

Another great drive is Jasper National Park to Banff National Park - or vice versa.  At first you follow the Athabasca River all the way to the Columbia Icefield.  The color of the river is just too pretty for words, backed up by the spruce trees and the granite mountains in the background.

Here's another photo of the same river. 

 Along the way we were lucky enough to see a black wolf and a bear.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of the people animals taking copious photos of the bear.

The bear didn't care about us - he or she grazed around and then took a swim in a little pond and wandered off.

I had remembered that we had hiked "Wilcox Pass" when we drove our Toyota 4 Runner up from Tampa in 1999.  Hannah read Harry Potter books and slept the whole way.  We camped out at Wilcox Campground and I hiked up without the girls and saw a dozen Dall Sheep right next to the trail.  I made them walk up, and they were (fortunately), still there.

Anyway, ML and I walked up again.

This photo looks down on the Columbia Icefields (glaciers) from Wilcox Pass trail.

We're up walking through the pass.  No sheep this time, but it was still worth it.  I always like walking up through the last of the trees and above the treeline.

Now we're past the Icefields driving toward Lake Louise.

We didn't really want to stay in Lake Louise, but ML copped us a nice room with a view of the mountain behind Lake Louise.  And the price could have been worse.