It's been a busy week!

Well, firstly apologies for not updating the blog over the past few days, unfortunately Banff and Jasper National Parks didn’t have a top priority to provide wireless internet access at their campsites! Unbelievably poor planning if you ask me ;-) So, this will be a long one:

Sunday: Off-roading with Calgary Land Rover
We woke bright and early after another night in the Travelodge (it was cheap) as we had strict instructions to be at the dealership by 7:45am, not good for Sundays! Never the less, a free breakfast lured us both out of the very comfy and warm bed. The day was planned by Rich Ellis, who was originally from York and wanted to take the customers out for a bit of off-roading to show what the vehicles can do. An easy greenlane day was the description which suited us with the loaded Camel and still another 15,000 miles to go on the trip.

Everyone at Calgary Land Rover was very friendly and welcomed us with open arms despite the fact we hadn’t purchased a vehicle, should you every need Land Rover parts in the Calgary area I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. As predicted, our comrades on this trip out and about were mostly LR2’s (Freebies) and LR3’s (Disco’s) with a Rangie (brand new, 3 weeks old IIRC) thrown in for good measure. Griff and Lisa had a Disco 2, it turns out Griff was originally from Poole and used to work at Land Rover Experience! Small world, he tore himself away though to live in Banff, it’s a hard life :-)



We started with a quick run down to McLean Creek, you’ll love this: An ‘Off Highway Vehicle Forest Land Use Zone’ … i.e. a massive free playsite! I think you should all write to your MP’s at home and suggest we have some areas like this. Rich had been up a few day’s earlier and ensured the tracks were clear with his chainsaw. The tracks were mostly a combination of mud and solid bedrock through the trees which was perfect for the shiney’s … only it had been raining and was still raining when we got there. The easy greenlanes quickly turned into areas with not a lot of grip! 15 minutes in and we were assisting a LR2 up some rock steps before helping change the first of quite a few blown tyres. Luckily everyone had spares. I have to say though, it was a superb trip, although we had to stop quite a bit to ensure the vehicles and drivers were ok on the zero grip everyone had huge smiles on their faces and were laughing their way around. Credit should definately go to Rich who, in his own words: ‘won’t have to go to the gym this week’ lol!




Charlie Camel kept the old Landy side up well, even weighing about 3 tons with both mountain bikes on the back! The engine breaking on the TDi with a bit of assistance on the brake pedal kept him safe through most parts and a bit of courage to chuck him over one big ledge with no grip on the other side got us through (my patented method of keeping both feet on the floor of the footwell and screaming was just what was needed!). Joking aside, when you see a LR3 struggle and require some spade work to prevent it going over the edge of the cliff and knowing your next is just what I love about off-roading :-) I think the weight being low down in Charlie and the MT’s helped a bit. Still, the spade work made a good channel for the others who all managed to follow safely, again, all with HUGE grins. Sorry, no pics of the scary bits, we both tried our hardest not to get involved, but by the end of the day we were spotting people down the last few rock steps.


Many thanks must go to all at Calgary Land Rover for their hospitality and company, we really enjoyed the day.

We ended the day with two invitations to dinner and/or a bed for the night, so thanks to Rich and family and Griff and Lisa, but as we’d hung around another day to go off-roading and were still failing dismally to catch up the week we lost at the beginning we thought we’d better head off and try to get some miles under our belt. We made it north of Banff… and then decided that was a rubbish idea and no matter how late we were running we couldn’t miss Banff, so on Monday… we headed back.

Monday: Banff
Figuring Griff and Lisa were probably at work it being a Monday morning, we decided to strike out on our own and see what we could discover about Banff. Wow. What a beautiful place. As we’d driven in to the national park yesterday it was raining and grey and the clouds had obscured the mountains from view, but as Monday progressed we were treated to more and more.


Our first stop was a bike stop in town to see if they could change Dan’s brakes around to prevent him flying over the handlebars quite so much (boo!) …but as he has fancy brakes they didn’t have the bits and couldn’t do it (yay!), more entertainment for me! ;-) They were very nice people though. We decided to have a look around the town and had lunch in a lovely little café/restaurant called Coyotes, I’d highly recommend it if you get a chance to go there, very good food and normal portions – Wahoo! We spent a good few hours afterwards wandering around town, they’re digging up the high street but it didn’t spoil the atmosphere and the number of outdoor clothing shops kept me entertained for hours, especially as I got a $250 fleece for $75, no more feeling cold  The town is surrounded by some fantastic mountains and glacial turqiouse lakes and when I say turquoise I mean turquoise. The only colour the glacial sediment doesn’t absorb is turquoise which means it’s reflected back with stunning results.

We found a nearby campsite for the night and as we had both been cold for a good few days now we spent the night up at the Banff hot springs watching the sun go down behind the mountains and the moon come up. We headed back to the campsite feeling all warm inside and smelling slightly of sulphur… :- )


Oh, and took a few pics on the way home, this is the moon:


And the plough:


Tuesday: Lake Louise
Having had this poster on my wall since well before I went to university, to say I was looking forward to seeing Lake Louise myself was a bit of an understatement. Sadly, we awoke to another cloudy day, albeit a little bit warmer than it had been (i.e. I could feel my fingers). Still, being English and used to such weather we didn’t let it deter us. We arrived at Lake Louise and yes, it was stunning. As predicted, it was also thronged with lots of people so we took the advice of all the guidebooks and went for a walk. Yes, I know, but there was no off-road routes and no cycling, Dan refused to give me a piggy-back so I was left with little option! ;-)

The route we chose was upto Mirror Lake and an old tea house, originally built for the posh first tourists in 18something. 2.5miles there and 3miles back didn’t sound too bad, but it was 2.5miles all uphill! Hehe. Still, good for the bum. And again, some fantastic views.



At the top we discovered the old tea house which had turned into ‘home’ for a tribe of ground squirrels, we were good tourists and didn’t feed them but that didn’t stop them trying! The supplies for the tea house are flown in or ridden in by packhorse and the guy and his girlfriend that run it live up there during the year. That’s dedication. Needless to say the walk back down was a bit easier than the one up there, but defiantly worth it for the views. We would have liked to do more trails, but a visit to the information centre informed us the minimum number for a huge number of the trails at the moment is 4… because of the bears. We won’t be messing with that then.



We found our next campsite for the night at Lake Louise, we were planning on heading to Mosquito Creek as recommended by Griff, but by the time we realised what the time was it was 7pm! Time just flys by here. I wish we had pushed on though, Lake Louise was certainly an experience! The whole site is surrounded by 7,000volts of electric fencing and ‘texas gate’ (cattle grid) which is also electrified because of the number of bears that were cutting through the site! If you were camping outside this fence (RV’s only) you were advised not to walk around after dark on your own and if you have to walk in groups of at least 4 and make a lot of noise/carry bear spray! Lol! This all sounded very comforting until we got handed the leaflet about what to do if we found a bear inside the fencing… I didn’t get up for a wee that night.

Wednesday: Columbia Icefield and the Athabasca Glacier

Today we decided that as we’d spent 3 days in the southern section of the national park we really should start to head north towards Jasper continuing up the Icefields Parkway as sadly, AGAIN, there were no off-road trails. It just so happened on the way was the Columbia Icefield and the Athabasca Glacier.

Double WOW! I really want one of these Snocoach… 66” tyres running at 15psi… 6 wheel drive, 250bhp 4cylinder diseasel engine (sure it could be changed for a V8) apparently causing less of an impact than a stiletto heal. Imagine one of them turning up at a play-day! LOL!


Anyway, back to the touristy stuff. When you get off the bus you are only allowed to walk a few meters from the “bus-park” as there are huge crevasses in the ice, covered with a couple of inches of snow. Some of these holes go down 1000ft. Yes, there is the right number of zero’s there. The Glacier is deeper than the Empire State building is tall (excluding ariel)! By ‘eck was it cold! The wind coming down the valley was something else, the Katabatic wind is so cold there it freezes the sap in the trees further down the valley meaning they only grow on one side. But it was an amazing experience. Some parts of the ice look so clear, you can imagine seeing the bottom.


We then visited Athabasca falls.

We stopped for the night just outside Jasper in one of my favourite sites so far, whilst we were making dinner we were treated to a small herd of Elk wandering by, closely followed by a rutting stag (avoid, big antlers!) – absolutely stunning. Luckily they didn’t fancy the look of the Camel. We also met up with Jon, a BMW motorcyclist who is travelling from New York to Alaska, he’s doing some similar roads to us so maybe we’ll catch him along the way, he was a very nice chap who owns a Disco as well.


Thursday: Jasper Tramway

We got up bright and early to our first sunny day in the Canadian Rockies (it had to happen sooner or later!) so we decided to make the most of it by visiting the Jasper Tramway. The tramway takes you up Whistlers mountain from 4279ft to 7472ft, that’s my idea of hiking! At the top the ‘upper station’ is surrounded by people, seriously, when we got there there was another 250 apparently at the top.. needless to say, most being American tourists we only had to walk a couple of miles to be rid of them all ;-) Sadly, it was a couple of miles up to the summit so REALLY hard work, especially at altitudes of 7500ft +, but the view made it more than worth it:




I am missing my gym membership less than I thought.. ;-)

We spent the rest of the day carrying on up the Icefields Parkway and visited Maligne Lake, close to Jasper, the largest lake in the Canadian Rockies. Again, another beautiful view, you can’t look anywhere around here without being amazed. We pulled in at our final National Park campsite in this area, it made you feel all welcome by having a bear trap by the front entrance!
Friday: ‘Wasting’ a day for a KOA!

Well, our park passes had finally run out so we had to make our way out the national parks. Sadly, the dirty washing had also pilled up and we’d noticed a significant shortage of laudrettes in Canada. Not to worry, there’s a KOA Kampsite (I HATE THAT USE OF THE LETTER K – ARGH! …anyway…) about 15 minutes outside Jasper National Park (Hinton). We decided to therefore use today to finally get on the bikes, we’d been getting frustrated that the trail closures (due to bears) and weather had prevented any cycling so far so we were determined to get some miles in no matter what.

We drove past the KOA on the way to the track we were aiming for in Brule, just outside Jasper N Park.. only to see a ‘park full’ sign… eh?! KOA’s are never full. That was when it dawned on us, it was Friday… and Labour Day weekend, the last ‘proper’ weekend in the camping season. We quickly (as fast as a Defender allows) turned around and headed back with an idea to beg for a space for the night, but no need as they only meant full for RV’s. We booked in and headed for the trail head, which was pretty easy to find as Brule only has one road! What awaited us was a fun ride to Ogre Canyon along some seriously rutted dirt roads and sadly, some roads that had recently been ‘repaired’ with stone, lots of stone. I kinda wish I’d gone for a full suspension bike now! Lol! We followed the single track that lead to the Canyon for a while but as the trail started to disappear we started to doubt we were heading along the right path. As we’d headed through lots of berry patches and lots of warnings in the guide book about bears we didn’t want to go too far off the trail no matter how much noise we were making, sprays we were carrying and did you know? Stumpy my Stumpjumper even has his own bear bell now, they had one in red that matched perfectly! Sad eh? So regrettably we turned back around.

Dan had been getting in a mood all along the trail as due to the rain it had involved some serious puddles, now I love puddles, but was wearing Dan’s new North Face soft shell jacket as my waterproof coat is about 4 sizes to big for me now and therefore not really perfect for bike riding. Dan’s brand new jacket is now a bit muddy. Hehe. Still, I made up for it as I tried to circumnavigate one of the deeper trenches up the sideslope of the bank and my mud filled tyres slipped sideways. This gave Dan ample opportunity for laughing at me as I sat in the puddle! I was good though, and didn’t get up until he’d had time to take a photo:

I wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was still about 7.5km back to Charlie…

So, we got back, had a warm shower (the first in ages!) and treated ourselves to a Pizza from Boston Pizza in Hinton. I’m currently sitting in the laundry room having washed all our muddy gear trying to escape yet more rain.


We’ve planned the route to Alaska, starting off on the Highway 40 up to Grand Prairie then the 43 to Dawson Creek, here we start mile 1 of the Alcan Highway and head towards Watson Lake (home of the signpost forest) then pick up route 4 gravel track to Carmacks and north on route 2 towards the Dempster Highway. Here we’re going to reassess how we’re getting on and either head north on the Dempster to try to get to the Artic Circle or head into Fairbanks and head north from there to the Artic Circle before then heading south to Dinarli (sp?) and some more gravel track. For those who are interested in an update on Charlie’s progress, he’s doing well! He, like all TDi Landies has an aversion to high altitude cold starts, so looking good for Alaska then! Lol! But getting 3rd is a lot more successful than it has been, now it’s only taking a couple of minutes every morning before he’s working as he should.


Ok, so we might be signing off for a while again, but will try to update everyday if we can. I’m hoping we’ll find some motels with free wifi and a car park! Lol! Missing you all, so much so, I felt at home when I saw this in the laundrette!

Love to Jo and the kids.