It was another early(ish) start as we were picked up outside the Whistler's Inn hotel at around 08:30am and there were a few more stops at various other hotels to pick up more passengers before we were properly on our way. Unlike other tours we'd been on, there were only limited stops along the way and the weather wasn't as good as on previous days, so we made the best of it we could, peering through the windows of the coach in between stops.
The first stop was Athabasca Falls - another very photogenic location and the camera and GoPro were busy again.
We gained altitude as the coach climbed towards the Icefield Discovery Centre at the top of Wilcox Pass and as we got closer, the weather began deteriorating. We were at the Discovery Centre because we were scheduled to go on an Ice Explorer ride on the Athabasca Glacier. By the time we had transferred to the Ice Explorer vehicle it was snowing lightly and there was a cold wind.
To get onto the glacier itself the vehicle has to negotiate a 1-in-4 hill and goes through a 'tyre wash' - a water-filled pit that cleans the tyres so that no stones or dirt get onto the glacier (which would increase the melting of the ice) - and we then slowly made our way out onto the glacier. We decided not to get out of the vehicle and amused ourselves by watching the others slipping and sliding around on the ice.
Afterwards we made our way back towards Jasper to visit the Glacier Skywalk which gives you the opportunity to stand hundreds of feet above the Sunwapta Valley with just glass between you and the rocks below. My photos don't do it justice so I've used a 'stock' photo to give you an idea what it looks like ..
A 'grab-all-you-can-eat' buffet lunch at the Discovery Centre and then we were on our way again with no change in the weather. Our next stop was Lake Louise and although the mountain tops were lost in clouds and mist I took what photographs I could (I didn't know at the time but we would be visiting Lake Louise the following day with much improved weather! - I'll post those photos instead in my next blog).
It was still overcast and windy when we reached Banff at the end of the tour and checked in to our next hotel, the Elk & Avenue (so named because it is on the corner of Elk Avenue and Banff Avenue). We decided to eat at the in-house restaurant "Ricky's All-Day Grill" and our waitress introduced herself and explained it was only her second day so to bear with her if she was a bit unsure about anything. We asked what the soup of the day was and she said she thought it was (her pronunciation) Mine-Strownn .. which we worked out was Minestrone and which we ordered. Aside from the fact she was very slow to get our meal (she arrived with our soups at the same time as our main courses so we had to send them back for 5 minutes or so) the food was fine.
We headed back to our room and looked forward to the following day which promised a tour of mountains (what? - more of them I hear you ask), lakes (yep, more of them too) and waterfalls (there are lots of waterfalls!).
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