An unexciting trip from Valemount by and large, to Jasper. It rained most of the way, but stopped briefly for me to be able to jump out and snap this meandering river….and this ‘stand off’ between deer and driver…….

At the BC/Alberta border, the sun came out suddenly with a very pleasing rainbow (I was sitting for 20 mins waiting for the road works official to wave me on)…not a very good image of it, but you can see a bit. 

I was surprised that the ranger at the border, welcomed me in French (bienvenue) and then English, before collecting National Park fees…now that I’ve googled, discovered Alberta has had a French-speaking population since the 1700’s, since the settlement of fur traders.

The weather just continued to get worse, so decided to rest up in Jasper and make an early start. Pyramid Lake and Patricia Lake had muted, but nice sunrises.

A 5-hour road  journey to Banff was rather scary in parts, where it got close to a total whiteout and a bit of black ice on the road. But I drove slowly, so the usual 3 and a half hrs turned into 5. That was quite exhausting!

The sun came out for a bit at Vermillion Lakes, close to Banff.

After a bit of a rest, ventured out tonight to the viewpoint on Mt Norquay and took an okay pic of the town in the valley. I managed to get the silhouette of mountains in the distance including Mt Rundle, I think.