We left our hotel, the Plaza Heritage at about 10am for the 290 mile drive to Jasper. Kenny & DeeAnne had decided to leave an hour earlier and we agreed to meet them at our hotel in Jasper this afternoon.
The Plaza Hotel, Kamloops
As we drove out of Kamloops we went past the railway yards where this enormous snowplough was parked in a siding. It had to be 15ft tall!!
Bob & Thelma left with us driving north on Highway 5. The road ran alongside the Thompson River up a broad fertile valley. All the farms we drove past had enormous sprinkler systems watering vast acres of land.
The road wound its way up the valley for nearly 150 miles. The river changed from a wide meandering body of water to a fast flowing torrent through the narrowing valley.
I had been leading Bob & Thelma for quite some time when I noticed that they were no longer behind us. We carried on for a few miles until we found a lay-by where we waited for them. About ten minutes later they turned up having re-fueled. Bob stopped by our car and showed us a photo he had just taken of a black bear that had been foraging by the side of the road. He turned round and led us back to the spot where the bear had been. When we got there, to our great excitement, it was still there and we pulled over to the side of the road and watched as it walked by us, no more than five yards away. What an incredible moment!
Shortly after, we drove past another black bear, this time a much smaller one than the first and quite clearly a young bear.
Bob took an amazing close-up of the first bear which I'll post to the site tomorrow.
The mountains on either side of the highway were covered with snow and as we reached the junction with Highway 16, the road to Jasper, we had our first impressive views of Mount Robson, the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies at nearly 4,000 metres.
The remainder of the journey to Jasper was through wonderful mountain scenery and made a fitting end to a great drive through the Canadian Rockies.
We reached Jasper at 3pm and had time to drive the short distance to the Jasper Tramway, a cable car to the top of Mount Whistler. The cable car reaches a height of 2,265 metres, a rise of over 1,000 metres. We had fantastic views of all the surrounding peaks and the town of Jasper far below us.
After we returned by cable car to the station at the bottom of the mountain I took this photo. The question is, which one is Bob??
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