In the morning, I felt better.  Not 100%, but definitely better - well enough to tackle another day of adventure.  And we had a long day ahead of us.

It was our last full day in Canada; in just a few short hours, we had to check out of the luxury of the Jasper Park Lodge and make the long drive to back to Canmore, where we would be spending our last night.  We had arranged it that way, so that we would be closer to Calgary; we couldn't imagine making that six-hour drive from Jasper to Calgary while trying to make our flight on time.

Before we could leave Jasper, though, we needed to get some family pictures of us with the lodge in the background.  We were able to impose on a kind stranger, who was sitting next to Beauvert Lake, reading a newspaper; he graciously set down his paper and helped us out; he was so generous that he took several different poses for us.

At 9:00 a.m., we checked out of the Jasper Park Lodge, and soon thereafter, we hit the road.  On our way of Jasper, we took Highway 93A, instead of the Icefields Parkway, because we knew that we had a better chance of seeing animals there - plus, there wouldn't be as many cars along that stretch of highway.  Though we didn't see any animals this time, it was nice to have that one last drive there.

Once back on the Icefields Parkway, we decided to stop at some of the spots that we had missed on the way to Jasper, one week earlier.  One of those places was Sunwapta Falls, which we had chosen to skip because it was just too busy; it wasn't this time, so we were able to stop and enjoy the falls.

We took the short walk, down the paved trail, to the falls, which gushed through a narrow gorge with a powerful force; but we only stayed long enough to take pictures.  There wasn't time for an extended visit or anything more than a short hike, because there was still so much to see and do that day.

During our journey down the Icefields Parkway, we stopped once again at Saskatchewan Crossing for lunch...only this time, we made sandwiches, instead of eating at the pub.  We needed to use up the rest of our supplies and had exactly enough lunch meat, cheese, and bread left for three sandwiches...though we did go into the gift shop to buy some chips to go with them.

We continued south along the Icefields Parkway until we reached the junction with the Trans-Canadian Highway.  Since the day was still young, we decided to keep going on Highway 93, to drive into Kootenay National Park, in British Columbia.  This was the only one of the four mountain parks that we had not visited yet, and there was no way that we could go home with unfinished business on the table!

As soon as we entered Kootenay National Park, the first thing we noticed was the widespread damage -  similar to the sort that we had seen in Yoho National Park, but on a much larger scale.  We thought at first that it was the work of the pine mountain beetle, but I soon realized that this damage was just too vast to have been caused by a beetle; this was the result of a wildfire.  As it turned out, I was right; in fact, the damage had been caused by several wildfires that had ravaged the area over the years.

Despite the fire damage, Kootenay Park had many wonders to behold; and we made it a point to stop at several points of interest along the way.  John, of course, had done his research and selected a couple of fun hikes for us to do, knowing that we would find lots of beauty and splendor along the way.

Our first stop was the Marble Canyon Trailhead, where we did a scenic, 1.6 mile hike roundtrip.  The hike took us along Tokumm Creek, which blasts through a narrow, limestone and dolomite gorge before joining the rushing waters of the Vermilion River.  The trail criss-crossed over bridges that overlooked the gorge in various places, allowing us to look directly down into it.  As I gazed downward, it was fun to imagine what it would be like to walk along the canyon floor (if it were dry).  I imagined that it would be like walking through Buckskin Gulch...

At the end of the trail, we came to the falls, where the powerful force of the water had carved an intricate network of arches and holes in the rocks.  There were several overlooks at the falls, including one that allowed daring visitors to walk right out to the edge of the falls.  John, being one of those daring visitors, did so and pretended to do a swan dive over the edge.

It took us about forty minutes to do the entire hike; once we were finished, we returned to the car and moved on to the next point of interest: Numa Falls.  "We have to stop here," I insisted to John as we approached the parking area.  The reason, I explained, was that I had been told, by my friend Deb (the person who had loaned us some of the guidebooks that we were using) that Numa Falls was one of the most beautiful set of falls. 

And indeed they were.  From the parking lot, we walked along a short, paved trail to a bridge that overlooked the falls.  It was also possible to climb out onto the rocks and view the falls from there; Mary and I did this, while John remained on the bridge to take pictures.  Being that close to the falls gave me the opportunity to see the patterns that the water had carved onto the rocks; these are patterns that you just can't see standing at an overlook.

After Numa Falls, we kept driving, until we arrived at the warden station at Kootenay Crossing.  There, we stopped to buy more souvenirs, as well as water and snacks.  Mary bought herself a souvenir inunshuk, to commemorate her epic trip to Canada; hopefully, she will be allowed to take this to Show-and-Tell someday at school, because it is such an interesting symbol.  I, on the other hand, bought a wooden journal with a carving of a black bear on the front; this journal would make the perfect scrapbook to archive the pictures of our trip!

As we left the warden station, we passed by a police officer, who was parked along the side of the highway; it was the first police officer we had seen in about two weeks.  Apparently, it was a holiday weekend in Canada, and the police were out to make sure that everyone was driving safely.  (We would see several more over the next twenty-four hours.)  In this case, the police officers were also out to look for a wolf that had been sighted in the area.  Minutes later, we passed by a large sign, warning drivers that a wolf had been seen along Highway 93; if we should see it, we should remain in our car and report the sighting to law enforcement or to the warden.  Naturally, we were curious and kept our eye out for this wolf; but we didn't see it. 

Instead, we saw deer - our first whitetail deer!  There were several of them, all along the highway, grazing in the grass.  Interestingly, these deer sightings didn't cause animal jams; had it been the wolf, though, I'm sure that everyone would have stopped and that people would have been getting out of their cars to take pictures!

By this time, we were more than halfway through Kootenay National Park and approaching Sinclair Pass, the highest point in the park.  At Sinclair Pass, we came to another point of interest: Olive Lake, a beautiful, green-tinged lake that is fed by a bubbling spring.  We saw that there was a short but lovely trail leading to the lake and decided to take it.  The trail was only a tenth of a mile long and ended at the spring.

From Olive Lake, the highway began to descend steeply from Sinclair Pass to Radium Hot Springs.  At the pass, we noticed that there were maps on either side, showing the various grades at which the road descends; the maps are intended to help truck drivers determine when to downshift as they make their way down the steep grades (some of which are as much as 10%).  There are also runaway truck ramps at several points along the highway, but these ramps are much different than the ones that we have seen in Arizona.  While the ones along I-17 are loaded with gravel intended to stop runaway trucks, these ramps go straight up a steep hill; I can imagine that these ramps are quite effective.

At the bottom of the hill are the Radium Hot Springs, one of many mineral hot springs to be found in the Canadian Rockies.  We did not stop at the hot springs, but we did stop in the town of Radium, just outside of the park boundaries.  There, we stopped at another warden station, just to pick up some more free information.  We had no intention of being stuck there for an hour...

While we were at the warden station, John noticed that they had computers for public use; they were free, but the park did indicate that we should make a two dollar donation to use them.  "You know," he said, "we could do our on-line check and print out our boarding passes here.  That way, we don't have to find a place to do that in Canmore."

It sounded like a good idea at the time, but it quickly became more complicated than it needed to be.  First of all, the computers weren't hooked up to any of the printers at the warden station, but the warden told us that we could e-mail him the .pdf file and he would gladly print it for us.  (We were assuming, at that point, that the boarding passes would print to a .pdf file.)  So, John sat down and began the check-in process, only to discover that our passports were in the car, which meant that I had to run out to get them.  After several minutes, we were completely checked in, and the screen containing our boarding passes popped up...in .html format! 

"Well, that's easy enough," I said.  "Just print them to a .pdf."

Easier said than done; the computer didn't contain Adobe Acrobat - not even PDF Creator!  We tried converting the image to a .jpg and a .doc, but to no avail.  John eventually copied and pasted the entire thing in an e-mail and sent it to the warden, but it printed on thirteen pages and didn't even resemble a boarding pass!

Finally, one of the other wardens on duty suggested that we use her terminal to pull up US Airways website to print duplicate boarding passes from there.  It worked, and just a few minutes later, we had them!  We paid them for the paper that we wasted and thanked them for their incredible generosity.  Once again, we had been wowed by the friendliness, efficiency, and hospitality of the Canadians.  What a wonderful place Canada had turned out to be!

Once our boarding passes were safely tucked away in my laptop case, John and Mary and I started our drive back through Kootenay National Park, towards Banff.  Along the way, we found a dirt road - Settler's Road, which is an old road used by loggers.  Having spent the entire two weeks on pavement, we decided that we needed to take a drive on that dirt road, because it just wouldn't be a Verley adventure without one!  We only went in about two miles, though; as it turned out, the road was pretty boring.  It was well-graded - or, as we call it, "super-slab" - and we could have probably done sixty miles an hour on it.  Not quite the road that adventures are made of!

Soon, we reached the Kootenay-Banff park boundary, where we discovered that there was a Continental Divide marker.  It was also the border dividing the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.  We were able to impose on a motorcyclist who was parked nearby to take a picture of us at the marker, with John standing in Banff, me in Kootenay, and Mary on the border!  We called it "Separate Vacations"!

As we entered Banff National Park again, we connected with the Trans-Canadian Highway once again.  At Lake Louise, though, John thought it would be much more fun to take Highway 1A, for old-time's sake.  Along the way, we passed by Johnston Canyon, where we had stayed at the beginning of our trip.  It seemed so long ago now...

It was getting late in the day, and we were getting hungry for dinner.  We thought about just eating in Canmore, after checking into our hotel; but, knowing that there were lots of great restaurants in Banff, we stopped there instead.  We ate at the Elk & Oarsmen, which was excellent.  I actually tried an elk-burger, which was delicious!

After driving all day, we left the boundary of the Canadian park system and arrived in the town of Canmore.  There, we checked into the Econolodge and settled in for the night.

It was hard to believe that our two weeks in Canada were nearly over.  We had done so much in such a short amount of time; and driving back through Jasper and Banff, we were able to put it all in perspective.  It had been our greatest vacation adventure yet; it was going to be difficult to go home after all of the fun that we had had there...

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