After we left Valemount, we crossed the border from British Columbia to Alberta, and also officially entered the Rocky Mountains.

From here, just when we thought it was impossible, the scenery dial was given another tweak.

Our first stop of the morning (after coffee of course) was to view Mt Robson, the tallest mountain in the Rockies, weighing in at a smidge under 4000m. Unfortunately when we got there, it was clouded in, so it didn't look that speccy.

Never mind though, we went for a nice long hike for a few hours in the National Park, and by the time we got back the clouds had cleared and we had and almost uninterrupted view of the Majestic peak. There is a photo up on the photo page if you care for a look.

From here we went for a look at Maligne canyon, which was a nice walk along, well you guessed it, a canyon. It's not quite the grand canyon, but it is still pretty amazing to see what running water can do to rock given enough time. It is worth noting that by this time, most of us on the tour were starting to get a bit ancey to see a moose. Ironically, while he didn't actually see a Moose, our bus driver saw a sizable buck elk in the car park while he was waiting for us to come back from our walk, in the bush where you think elk would hang out. Never mind.

That night we stayed in a hostel at Athabasca falls, which was pretty unique. At $13 each, it was the cheapest place we stayed, but this wasn't why it was notable. It was notable because it was 3 log cabins, right in the middle of no where. It was basically a group of log cabin in the forest with no running water. Some people found the absolute pitch darkness and deadly silence disturbing, but I enjoyed not only because I got a great nights sleep, but because for the first time on our whole holiday I had a good clear view of the northern hemisphere stars.

Refreshed from the good sleep in the wilderness, we then embarked on what was definitely one of the highlight days of the whole trip. The scenery dial was wound up to 11, and we saw places that are about as pretty as its possible to get.

We started the day with a squizz at Athabasca falls, which was of course another waterfall. Even though by this stage waterfalls were starting to be less interesting for us since we had seen so many, this one was really good! Not only was there a whole shit load of water coming down a 12 odd meter rockface, but the surrounding scenery really made the scene.

From here, we headed into a really cool place, if you will pardon the pun, the Columbia Icefield.
What made this so special, aside of course from the massive snow capped mountains, was the fact we walked on a glacier and got snowed on!

Yes, soft white flakes of snow were falling on us as we struggled up the glacier and proceeded to have a snowball fight. Karen started it of course, but ended up coping a snowball in the back of the head which stayed perched there until we got back on the bus. Most people couldn't understand why it was exciting to have snow falling on us, but I guess we don't understand people's fascination with kangaroos.

I was a little disappointed though, because since I was standing at the top of a big snowy slope, I decided to conduct a little experiment. At the top I made a snowball, and rolled it down the hill to see what would happen. I was hoping the snowball would 'snowball' and be absolutely massive by the time it got to the bottom of the hill. Not the case - it just got a little bit bigger and then bogged down in the snow under its own weight. Perhaps I didn't roll it hard enough or something.

After stopping off at a few more points to look at the scenery and getting snowed on some more, we left the Columbia icefield, which incidently is the largest ice cap outside of the artic circle and went for a look at some glacial lakes.

The first was the very famous Lake Louise, which apparently is the most photographed lake in the world. It's easy to see why, it is a magnificent cobalt blue lake, surrounded with trees and snow capped mountains. There is also a hideously large hotel right next to it, and the best view of the lake is of course from the top floor of the hotel which commands up to $2000 a night for a room in peak season.

There was a bit of a bus challenge to see who could get to the top floor without being noticed to take a photo of the view without being rejected by the staff. Having spent many days of my life in fancy hotels, it was all a bit easy for me, I just found some lary american tourists (who just got out of, and I kid you not, stretch pickup trucks) and followed them into the elevator.

After Lake Louise, we went to Peyto Lake. Bing! We have a winner! Best scenery of all time. Just amazing. I will post one of my own pictures here later, but in the meantime click here for a squizz.

Wow!