Day 13 – 6/30/09 (Part 4) --- 121 miles 121 miles (Banff, Alberta to the Columbia Icefield Center via the Icefields Parkway)
50 at 7 AM --- 60 in the evening
We rode further north and passed many mountains and glaciers. At The Big Bend, we started climbing again. Entering the steep parking lot for Bridal Veil Falls, I made a slow, left U-turn to park in a space and dropped the Valk downhill to the left. Navigator’s left leg was pinned by the back of my seat while her feet were still on the pegs. She ended up with a bad bruise. There was only one family there, and the father came over and helped me pick up the Valk. He waited to assure that it started up before he left, because he knew there was no cell phone service. When it fired up on the first attempt, he said, “That’s a Honda for you.” I got wise and parked the Valk aiming uphill. We got our picture of Bridal Vale Falls and headed out again. We had to go through another snow shower that just started to stick on the road when we got out of it. We arrived at Icefield Center.
Here is a link to a map of the Icefields Parkway. This part of the trip goes from kilometer marker 77 to the kilometer marker 127.
http://www.pc.gc.ca/~/media/pn-np/ab/jasper/pdfs/visit/PkwyEn.ashx
Mount Coleman – 10,262 Feet
Saskatchewan River and Mount Amry – 10,921 feet
Snow Shower
Getting Wet
Entering The Big Bend
Exiting The Big Bend (You can see where we entered the bend on the right.)
Climbing
Mount Cirrus (Left) – 10,728 Feet
Bridal Veil Falls
Sunwapta Pass and Another Snow Shower
First View of the Athabasca Glacier
