Pit Stop: Lake Louise

For long and complicated reasons mainly involving noisy trains that take 45 minutes to pass (C timed one) and do not allow hearing people in tents to sleep, tonight we are in an overpriced hotel in Lake Louise, with wifi THAT YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR – daylight robbery – and a huge dead deer’s head over the lobby door. Don’t ask. All is well, however. And here is a list of stuff that’s been done since the Kamloops Motel Adventure(!):

• Camped at Illecillewaet, very beautiful and peaceful. Discovered that our tent hire people had given us THREE pump up beds; only one of which we needed; and only one of which had a plug. Hm!
• Visited Field; rather odd – an empty village full of interesting looking houses; all of which appeared to be guest houses; and all of which had “No Vacancies” signs up.  It’s surrounded by mountains on one side and a railway on the other, so if you want to leave and one of those 45-minute long trains is going past, well, you’re going to have to wait 45 minutes.
• Camped at Kicking Horse Campsite – absolutely lovely except for too much train. End of.
• Visited Lake Louise – again, absolutely lovely except for the billions of tourists (including us, whoops).
• Reunited with a fellow terp who we met in Vancouver and exchanged Rockies stories.
• Drove along the totally mindblowing Icefields Parkway as far as the Columbia Icefields and back. It was so beautiful in places that I cried. Seriously, I did. It was there that we saw:
  Lots and lots of amazing mountains and glaciers;
  Three mountain goat-type animals;
  Two deer, one of which narrowly missed our Jeep:
  And A BEAR!
• Yep, a real black bear at the side of the road, doing nothing much but shake berries from a tree and eat them nonchalantly, as if all of the gawping drivers who’d stopped to watch did not exist at all. Video evidence to follow as soon as I get my act together and sort through the camera. It was thrilling.

And again, to bed.

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