A new skill...

This young lady has been asking for her training wheels off...After seeing her on her running bike cruising on the driveway while balancing for long distances, they came off pretty quickly!  And off she went...Daddy was only behind her for 2 driveway cycles before she had it down...
Now the sun isn't up yet and she wants to head back out there :)  Nevermind that it's January...there's biking to be done! 
Way to go, Brynlie!

Radium Hot Springs

We crossed the continental divide (fun being split in half) on our trip.  

After Lake Louise, we came to Radium Hot Springs, ready to enjoy some relaxing in the hot springs pools :).  We hiked around the campground after dinner, tried out this cabin's adirondeck chair, and enjoyed a few minutes at a playground.

The following morning, we spent a couple of hours enjoying the pool.  This was the road to the pool - pretty neat!  The hot pool was a great temperature, and there was also a cooler pool for swimming in and cooling off. 

Big horn sheep were on the mountain beside the pool - what beautiful creatures!

Our plans had been to continue towards home from here, but we instead turned around, hoping the truck would be fixed, and headed back past the icefields to Jasper.  As we left Radium, we saw these three enjoying a morning snack from the trees.

Lake Louise

We enjoyed the beauty of the glacial lakes as we left the Icefields.

 We continued on to Lake Louise where we went for another long walk, and enjoyed the beauty of the glacial lake.  Chelsie had fun taking some pictures on my camera :).  We camped there one night before continuing on.

 

The Columbia Icefields

At the Icefield, we took one of the ice tours, taking the chance to get on a glacier as it slowly melts away.  There were markers showing where the glacier had been over the last 100 years - it has melted a LOT!  It is still amazingly huge though - a VAST amount of ice that was fascinating to this geography major.  {See the last picture of the last post for a more distant photograph}

 A snowball fight was definitely in order, as well as getting some melted glacial water to drink - it was cold but delicious!

 Our vehicle for the trip onto the glacier - check out these tires!

One of the previous modes of transportation onto the icefield :D

Road trip part 3

 Welcome back :)  I know, this post is long overdue, but I've been trying for a week now to get the photos to load, and today, finally, things are coming together :S.  So here are some more pictures of our summer road trip.

I left off that we'd made it to Jasper in a rented truck, pulling our camper.  We spent a lot of time in Jasper outdoors - there were lots of amazing hikes, stunning waterfall, and wildlife to find.

We met Parka the national park bear

We took a lot of pictures

We hiked a lot

I played with camera settings to figure THIS out:

After returning from one afternoon of hiking, we were ready to make supper when our neighbour pointed out a nearby visitor.  This huge grand daddy elk had decided to take a rest only a few meters from our campsite - AWESOME!  All plans for making supper were postponed while we enjoyed this huge creature's proximity!  After a bit he lumbered to his feet and meandered off through the trees onto the open field, posing for a few great pictures before continuing on his evening stroll.

We also took the tram up the mountain in Jasper one evening, taking in the range after range of mountains we could see from the height - a hiker's dream - it could never be finished in one lifetime!

After leaving Jasper, we decided to continue south as we had planned, knowing we might have to return to get the truck back.  We drove to the Columbia Icefield, enjoying the stunning scenery on the way.  We even spotted some mountain goats, some of the hardest wildlife to spot!