The Rockies

After the arrival in Jasper was a bit bumpy and I couldn't enter my room anymore, I spent the night on a wooden bench in the common area of the hostel... I could hardly believe my luck when I discovered a small bakery right next to the hostel in the morning 😃. And a chocolate croissant can make up for a lot 🥐😉.

I used the first day to plan the upcoming days and book the corresponding tours. In the evening, we went for a short hike around Jasper, unfortunately, it was very smoky due to the fires further south, so the visibility was very limited.

In the hostel, I met two German girls and joined them for hikes in the next few days. First, we completed an 18 km hike at Mt. Robson (the highest peak in the Canadian Rocky Mountains at 3,954 m and located entirely in British Columbia) and the next day, we hiked the Sulphur Skyline Trail followed by a visit to the Hot Springs (water temperature 40 degrees). Both hikes were really beautiful 😍 even though it was still smoky...

Skytram Jasper is then on the program, I initially had a good morning, rain and storm only come around half past one 🙈 However, despite a visit to the indoor pool afterwards, I caught a cold and struggled with a minor flu in the following days.

Insights from the drive along the Icefield Parkway with breathtaking photo stops 😍

On my last day in Banff, before heading back to Jasper, I went for a short walk to Bow River Falls.

Jasper / Prince George train ride

Unfortunately, the weather was not nice at all, so there was no view of the Rocky Mountains, this time it's not the smoke but the rain's fault. And then it happened, the actual highlight of the day: After 38 days, the second night in a small motel, meaning own bathroom and no bunk bed 👍

Prince George / Prince Rupert train ride

The most beautiful part of the train ride 😃and after a total of almost 100 hours on the train, I can certainly give some information 😅

To live up to the motto here, I spontaneously decided to join a French woman and a Czech man 😉 so we rented a car and set off towards Alaska in pouring rain, after a picturesque drive, we were also rewarded with a glimpse of a grizzly bear. In the end, we didn't sleep in the car but met a friendly Canadian in the local pub 😎. The rain stopped and we set off very early to see more grizzly bears and explore the Salmon Icefield, the fifth largest in Canada. Unfortunately, it was very foggy so we were denied a view of the entire glacier, but we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse from time to time and saw more bears. After a 1,000 km drive, we returned to the hostel at nine in the evening, just enough time to give my clothes a wash again so that I could start my journey to Vancouver Island by ferry the next morning.