Best laid plans and all that, in the ‘plan’ for the holiday, we should have set off on this bit of the trip the day before really, but as is the way when trying to fit so many things in we hadn’t. But to give us a shot at the day we planned an early start. And we pretty much mananged it. The time stamps on the first photos of the day are about 08.15.
And yes it was overcast and raining still as we drove off to the Athabasca Falls. This was not a promising start, as this is said to be the most beautiful drive in the Rockies. The guides books and websites are full of majestic mountains, towering over the rivers and the road and instead the cloud line was pretty low 
. Actually was disappointing (and I’m still disappointed – Chris) as we had been looking forward to a beautiful drive, and instead it was raining, we were a day late setting off etc etc! however, when you are in the mountains, and it is going to be the only tim that you are there, you just have to make the most of each day, regardless of weather 
So teh pattern of the day was to cruise South, with a few places to stop and explore properly, interspersed with short stops to lok and take photos etc.. first stop was a pull-in where there was a commerative plaque about David Thompson, and a Geocache. David Thompson was an fur trader/explorer/surveryor who mapped large areas of Canada in the late 18th/early 19th Century. We had watched one of the excellent Ray Mears Northern Wilderness programs about him, and felt we ought to stop here. Thsi in particular commemorates his crossing of the Rockies here at the Athabasca Pass, to open a trade route.
There aren’t a lot of Geocaches around the Natioanl Park really, you need to ahve permision, and they mustn’t contain any tradables, or anything that might attract bears etc. So need to get them whilst you can
Carying on a bit further, we pulled into the Athabasca Falls pull in and had breakfast there, and then dressed and went to look at the falls. BB was perfect height to find the geocache. HH and BB wandered whilst awaiting Chris and SB, and then viewed the falls. There was a parks canada guide there with lots of different horns, so i could identify that i had seen mule deer whilst driving back from jasper the prev night. The horns told the story as I had been uncertain whether that or white tailed deer.
Whilst we were looking at the falls, a local told us how much the river had been swollen by the very rainy june, and that usually far lower. we wandered to all the various bits, and enjoyed reading the info boards. Down by the athabasca river there was a small shingle beach, and we ran around on that, and I played with the panorama function on the camera we saw some people l start a gentle white water experience, and the girls were quite jealous.
We moved back to the motorhome and started on our route, pulling in at quite a few stops, both to see what there was of view in the low cloud, but also for some goecaches, as we got higher the drizzling rain turned to sleet and it was considerably nippy
For some it was already feeling like a long day
At Tangle Falls, I got out for a quick scramble. Everyone else stayed in the motorhome, though SB complained afterwards that she wished she’d come when she realised where I had been.
We got to the Columbia Icefield Centre , DH went to buy the tickets and I put the soup on for lunch. However, when he returned, it was clear we needed to get going quickly, so we piled multiple sweaters/fleeces on and bundled the waterproofs, gloves, hats etc in a bag and all wore walking boots. we were prepared for the glacier . Yuo get on a normal coach which takes you part of the way, and then you swap to a special Snocoach for the drive up onto the glacier. We travelled up with very informative drivers, swapped to the snowbus and were onto the glacier. Wehad nearly 30 mins walking on the glacier, throwing snowballs and enjoying it. As is normal on the glacier, it is was windy and it was snowing reasonably heavily. I was very surprised that some people seemed not to have thought at all about what to wear and so after poking nose out of bus had to stay in. Particularly sorry for the 2 little boys who were wearing shorts and one light fleece. even sorrier for them when we had to wait outside between buses for 10 mins. we were toasty warm tho!
I’m (Daddybean) slighty ambivalent about the whole buses upto the glacier thing, with the track up the mountain and big buses tooing and froing it all seems a bit intrusive. But the Athabasca glacier is only one small part of the Columbia Icefield. If the weather had been better and we had more time I would have liked to ahve tried one of the walking tours that go up onto the glacier.
Anyway, we got back to the centre and went into the shop, where BB bought a raven statue, and both girls ended up with postcards to stick in their journals – tho both girls v far behind in this!! had their pics taken with huge cuddly toy bears and then we looked round the little museum area before returning to motorhome for lunch – at nearly tea time!.
DH and I had a chat, It was 5 pm and we still ahd 130K to drive to Lake Louise (we so far done about 100K) One option was to camp there, the other to press on to Lake Louise. it was snowing/cold, so we pressed on and missed walking to the toe of the glacier. You can’t do everything. Time, the weather, and the desire for the driver to be getting on meant we didn’t stop so much on the next bit, and passed on by some places that we would otherwise have stopped at. The Weeping Wall and Bow lake were the main, but brief stops.
And finally got to lake louise about 7pm. There was a minor worry about whether the campsite was full (it’s a very popular spot, it was the weekend and Lake Louise is easily accessible from Banff, and even Calgary), but I had seen there was an overflow, so was surprisingly the optimist of the pair and since we were happy to accept anything and had s amll enough motorhome, we actually got onto the tent site there, so spent a nice night in a parks campsite.We had Pizza for tea, it was something i could make quickly as DH was v tired from all that driving. And the girls finished the day with a jigsaw. It had been a frustrating day in many ways becuase of the weather, but also memorable as well becuase of that same weather
it was smooth, felt safe and the most fabulous of views. there is a conductor in every cabin, and they talk about what you can see where. certainly some of the lakes we didn’t get to around jasper looked beautiful too. lovely shades of green, and we could clearly see pyramid and patricia lakes. there was also a really reall long train making its way to BC. it takes 7 mins to get to the top, and it is a fair bit colder there! we had a look at the info boards around the walkway [and realised we were at a dead end, so naughtilly went through a no entry. we then set off up the very steep trail to the summit.
[SB says the tide was against us!]