[You may view a map of Jasper National Park in PDF format and a map of Banff National Park in PDF format.]

Had my normal breakfast, and I really enjoyed having my LavAzza coffee in my Bodum Bistro Double-Wall Mug instead of the nasty Folgers instant coffee in a to-go mug. Does anyone know of a good tasting instant coffee (I know that's probably an oxymoron) that will suffice when "real" coffee isn't an option? I worked up a blog entry. Prepped the RV to move. When I started to put on my boots, I discovered that one of the quick-lace holders on my left boot was broken. :( We left at 10:03 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

We went to the Icefields Center at 10:09 to drop off the RV, then we departed in the Jeep.

We went to Tangle Falls at 10:17. The sky was rather bright, but the solid overcast was OK for photography. It was really nice to be able to photograph without being rushed like we were last night. The image to the left is very close to the composition I found last night as it was getting dark, and it was nice to do over again with some light. We left at 11:52 and went ...

To the parking area near the base of Athabasca Glacier. J remembered that she was wearing her gum boots and not her hiking boots, so we went ...

To the RV around 12:10 so J could change into her regular hiking boots. We left and went back ...

To the parking area near the base of Athabasca Glacier. We hiked up the terminal moraine and then down to the face of the glacier. There were some fantastic cracks there with lots of subjects to photograph. My favorite image is of the ice face itself (far left), but fallen chunks of ice that were snow-covered were also interesting. We left the glacier face and hiked over towards the lateral moraine that also had some exposed ice. On the way, we stopped to photograph a small stream that was lined with ice (near left). Some thicker clouds had moved in while we were photographing, and it started to snow, so we decided to leave instead of continuing on to the lateral moraine.
We returned to the RV around 2:30. I hooked up the Jeep to tow, then we left at 3:03 and started heading south along the Icefields Parkway.

We entered Banff National Park at 3:09. After we descended from the high elevations around the Columbia Icefield area, we started to see fall color on the mountainsides. It started snowing heavily around 3:54 south of Saskatchewan Crossing. We decided not to stay at Mosquito Creek Campground because the weather forecast was for snow again tomorrow, so photographing Peyto Lake wouldn't be good in the morning. Instead, we decided to go to Tunnel Mountain Village Campground near Banff townsite. After driving for a while, we decided to keep on going to Calgary and not even stop in Banff because the weather wasn't going to clear for about three days. There wasn't much sense paying big bucks to camp in the national park if we weren't going to be photographing anything, and we don't have a lot of time to wait out the weather because we have commitments in Colorado in about a week and a half. We exited Banff National Park at 5:51.

I dropped J off at The Grizzly Paw brewpub in Canmore at 5:59. Canmore's a neat little ski town just ouside of Banff, and The Grizzly Paw brewpub is one of my favorite places to eat. I had dropped off J so she could get a table in case it was busy while I looked for parking. There was some construction in the downtown area, so it took longer than it should have for me to get parked. I finally got parked at 6:10, then walked over to The Grizzly Paw. I got a pint of Mooseknuckle Coffee Stout to go with a Canadian Classic Bison Burger (Canadian back bacon and cheddar cheese), and J got their bottomless handcrafted Root Beer to go with a Spinach Salad. The food was as tasty as ever, and it was great to relax after the long drive through nasty weather! We left around 7:15.

We walked the block and a half to the RV, then turned on the propane hot water heater. I downloaded images from today and did a quick edit. I showered, then J showered. We departed at 8:45.

We reached a WalMart in southwestern Calgary at 10:06, just in time for bed.