Burning rubber in Canada - Part 5, The Banff National Park

Hi There

     Before we went to the next  national park Jasper, Deepak had other plans. He just  wont let us drive on the magnificent Canadian highways. His plan was to take us on another roller coaster ride of natural beauty by hiking  the Stanley Glacier trail , for which we took a detour .

    The Stanley Glacier hike in beautiful Kootenay National Park is a true delight of natural beauty. The trail goes from burnt forest with mesmerizing wildflowers , to alpine meadow, to the amazing Stanley Glacier. It is a almost 11 km moderate hike as  it passes through burnt portions of forest which have reinvigorated .

    The start of trail has this huge information board , along with a huge parking and washrooms . We had reached the place pretty late in the afternoon but since we were getting near to northern lights it was still bright ,  however there were less number of hikers .

    The hike initially is very simple and takes one, on almost flat ground after a gradual climb. Once we reached the small patch of forest cover, we  hit into swarms of mosquito's. Shaunak can do anything but one thing he is crazy about is mosquito's he freaks out , but luckily his mom Netrali had catered for it and in an instant came the mosquito spray, there after again he was in the lead .

    After crossing a small creek we started the gradual climb to the spot were the trail ends. It was no simple climb, full of rocks , one had to carefully walk, however what kept us going was the changing landscape and breathtaking view of mountains .
 

Way to Stanely glacier

      As we were climbing again we met the same family , whom we had met when we did the Sundance canyon hiking trail the previous day . All of us  were very excited, they invited us to their home in Canmore and  we invited them to join us till Jasper . It was time to say good bye and reach the trail end . We reached the end of trail sign . It is a simple sign put on open patch of rocks , however it gave a stunning view of the area around .

     After spending some time at the sign , we headed back as we had to go to Jasper . 

End of trail sign

Stunning view of Area around  Stanley glacier

      One thing I want to mention about Canadians is that, through out the climb we did not see any rubbish or plastic bottle thrown any were , speaks volumes about the people .

      It was back to trans Canadian highway , in fact the highway is so  beautiful even if you simply  drive on it and don't visit any tourist attractions/national park you will still be treated to  mesmerizing beauty of Canada.

Random click on trans Canadian highway

We came across this RV park named after Mosquito!!!!!

       While driving on the highway suddenly we saw snow covered mountains and a magnificent blue water lake ,we halted at the view point for a break , it was very beautiful , if its heaven its here. I could not believe it is real  , everything was so picture perfect . After bathing in the beauty of nature it was time to move to Jasper, as also now it was getting late.

Beautiful Lake

Blue water of the lake 

         Short of Jasper we saw a baby elk on the side of the road and few meters ahead we saw a  midsize bear on the sides of road chomping on the grass ,we were very near to him but he was busy in his chomping .

Baby elk

Mid size bear

        Finally we reached late in the evening to the Lobstick lodge located in the town of Jasper,the room which we booked was a kitchen suite,with complete fully functional kitchen , accept food which one has to cater for. Netrali had already done all the preparations and we settle for a sumptuous dinner , it was time to call it a day and off we went to sleep , since there was no hurry to wake up early as we had decided to rest for two days in Jasper.

The Lobstick lodge

Ride Safe Firm Saddle