Escape

June 23

WOO HOO They opened the road and we’ve escaped.  Made it to Jasper this afternoon.  We did see numerous areas of slides along the way.  I can see why it took a while to get them all cleared.  It must have been quite a mess.  Lots of mud and rock piled along the road.  We did run into sections of the drive where the road was in terrible shape.  Frost heaves, and deep expansion cracks made for a really rough ride.  The ranger here assured us that once we get past Jasper the road will improve. 

There were some beautiful vistas along the way.  Lots of glaciers and waterfalls coming off the shear cliffs.  We even had 3 bighorns chomping on the grass in a crack in the road.  Lucky for us they were in the other lane!  I still am in awe of the beauty of the Canadian Rockies.  The lakes and rivers that aren’t muddy are an unreal blue or turquoise. This is caused by the glacial silt in the water. The glacier grind up the rocks and mountain and it turns to “flour” and ends up in the water. Very pretty and unique color

The park here in Jasper is HUGE.  Over 750 spaces but we’re not sitting on top of one another.  Also when we checked in here the ranger gave us a free night because of having to cancel 2 nights because of the road condition.  What a  nice thing to do.  

Columbia glacier

As we remember it from 20+ years ago this is the place where we had so many elk in the campground.  There are warnings all around the park and the ranger said to make sure we had Mac on a leash as the elk aren’t fond of pets.  Hopefully they’ll settle in for the night in the lush grass around the trailer.