Banff Day 4

sunday, may 18

it's a looooong day today, but it was fun!
woke up early again to heat up some leftover chicken congee for breakfast for everyone, and get the quick lunch ready to go.
then we're off to Jasper Bus Depot for the rafting tour pick up.
another detour today was going to a surprise stopover at a sight location.
it turned out to be an outlook of the North Saskatchewan River.
very nice site indeed.

once we got into town, with some minor obstacles that need not mentioning, we got to the rafting site at the Athabasca River.
this is such a clean glacier river!
the water level is rather shallow at this time of the year, but we can clearly see the rocks at these shallow parts, which is most of our floating tour.
needless to say, because of the water level, there isn't a lot of splashing around.
but we did manage to get stuck about twice.
with the first stuck point being really shallow and rocky, we had to jump on the boat rather vigorously before we could go off again.
our guide, Kyle, who looks like a shorter Canadian version of Owen Wilson is a very skilled rower. he's also a born and raised Jasper local who knows his area.
i couldn't believe how great the weather worked out for us. the wind was strong, but it's warm enough when we're on water.
and it almost wanted to rain but didn't at the end of the tour.

by the way, the boat behind us had a small accident with one of the passenger.
they bumped onto a big rock, the one which every boat would eventually bump into.
but an elderly lady didn't grab onto her rope well enough and lost balance. i believe she hit her neck onto the rock before someone held her back and pulled her up.
we were quite concerned about that.
that rather spoiled our trip.

after the tour, we stuck around town and did some shopping.
i finally bought my "Canadian Fast Food" t-shirt.
we ate at a family restaurant called L & W for dinner, at 5pm.
hey, the food and price is not bad. but portion is really a 1 person size.

on our way back to Banff, we stopped at a few sight points.
i think we first stopped at the North Saskatchewan River Crossing point, on the bridge.
there were 3 deers on the open when i spotted them and told Amy... then she yelled in high pitch, "ELK!" and scared them off... grrrrr...
realizing it's dangerous to take pictures off the highway, so we pulled to a side trail to get to the bottom of the bridge, which leads to a trail to the actual river.
it was a nice, short walk.

forgot to mention, before i took over the driving part, Amy was driving the car till about Tangle Creek, i think.
well, it was until she made 2 very dangerous unprotected high level ramp in high speed...
we all stayed very much awake after that!

anyway, it was getting darker and darker, but we still made about 2 stops to take some last minute photos at the Bow Lake and Bow Glacier.
too bad it was too dark and too cold. we couldn't get a good shot at the glaciers and the fall. there's also a trail that leads to higher grounds closer to the glacier but it's closed because there's still a huge amount of accumulated snow.

can't see all of Jasper and Banff in a week.
there's just way too many good trails and sights!!
and i'd love to see the sun rise and sun set on higher elevation too.
did i mention that the sun rises at around 5am and sets at around 9pm??