Yeesh

We get it, Jasper. You're beautiful. Yeesh.

Edith Cavell

I went fifth-wheeling in Jasper this weekend with Steve, Kristen, Lisa, and Sorin and had a great time. We got to camp, whitewater-raft, and check out a few glaciers I hadn't seen before. All on Saturday.

The... On Season?

I'm too poor to ski, so michelle suggested snowshoeing. And she was right! They make everything more fun. Eating muffins:
Flying kites:Flat-out running:All on the surface of a pair of frozen lakes.

The Off Season

I wanted to take michelle to see the Icefields, but I didn't think to check to see if they were closed. They were, probably because they looked like this:

And there was no wind for kite flying, and Lac Beauvert was actually Lac Beaublanc:

But the mountains were more beautiful than usual, glowing blue through the mist:

And the wildlife still came out to see us:

Imperfect Plans

We camped in Jasper overnight. It was -11C at the lowest. The tent had frost on it in the morning. So did the sleeping bags. We had an outstanding time.

Westward Ho!

Vinai had a grand idea for a vacation: he takes a week and a half off of Doctoring, flies to Edmonton, and drives out to Vancouver with me to see Steve. Our first stop was Jasper, which he'd never seen before.The Jasper Park Lodge was under construction, but they had some pretty cool Canada Geese:

From there we headed down the Icefields Parkway towards our campsite in Banff. As we went, the mountains got snowier and colder looking:
So of course we decided to get out and walk on one:
We pulled off at the trail for the Athabasca Glacier. We naively believed the sign telling us it would take us 20 minutes to get to the glacier, despite the fact that the actual trail was completely hidden by snow, I was wearing my stupidest shoes, and the glacier and its canyon were producing enough wind to generate hundreds of kiloWatts of MADNESS:

Well, anyway, we made it to the glacier (the big white thing behind Vinai here:)... from which it was surprisingly difficult to get a cab.