609. Rockies Roadtrip | Day 19 - Return to Vancouver

On the second last day of our Rockies Roadtrip, we drove all the way back from Jasper to Vancouver. After so many days on the road we became more experienced with long drives (well, my friends did as I didn't drive at all lol) so we made it back to Vancouver in a good amount of time and earlier than expected. As we were all leaving the following day, we stayed at the River Rock Casino Resort near the airport. I wanted to try the casino but unfortunately didn't have time. There wasn't anything too special about our stay there..just the highlight was an unpleasant experience with our housekeeper "B" hahha. I realized now I don't have any photos from the hotel..I could've sworn I took some so maybe I accidentally deleted them all. Hmm. Anyways, after arriving and checking in, we went to return our rental Jeep.

Afterwards we decided to go to our favourite Cactus Club at Coal Harbour for a final dinner. As always we had a really nice time. I really miss my friends now! After so many days together it was hard to say goodbye. I probably mentioned in the very beginning but I went on this trip with two of my friends from Luxembourg. It was our first time travelling together (my first trip ever with friends actually) and it was a LOT of fun. So many funny memories I will always remember. I will definitely have to visit them in Luxembourg next year.. :)

During the time we were there, it was when BC had a lot of forest wildfires. We were able to see some of them on our drives. The final day was the worst. The air got really smoggy and for some parts we couldn't see far out the window. In this photo below I think it was a factory fire though which literally just started moments before we passed by (as we were able to see the actual flames)


& in this photo above, you can see the smokey air. We could actually smell it too. It was lucky that it only happened on our final day though as otherwise we would've missed a lot of the beautiful scenery. We had the best weather and clear skies on all the previous days though.









This will be my final Rockies Roadtrip post. I know it has stretched on long enough hahaha (since I came back to Toronto in August!) The final day/my flight back to Toronto is kind of a blur to me. I just remember having a nice long breakfast with my friends at the hotel then we all went to the airport and parted ways. This was an amazing trip though and I'm glad I got to explore (again) some more parts of my own country and Anouk and Dan were the best to travel with!

Next I still have to finish some of my Asia posts from last year. It feels like I didn't really do a lot of travelling this year. Well this was my only major trip this year but in the beginning of the year I was pretty busy with renovations. In the past a good or "bad" year (to be honest I never had any that was fully bad) was mostly based on how many trips I went on and how they were. This year was probably the best I've ever had in my life so far, based on a few other non-travel related events.

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607. Rockies Roadtrip | Day 18 - Maligne Lake and Canyon

On our final day in Jasper, we visited Maligne Lake and Maligne Canyon. This was a pretty relaxing and slow-paced day..with our trip already coming to a close. We were the unluckiest with seeing wildlife on this trip, but we did see a black bear for (literally) a split second on the way to the lake. We started off our day with breakfast, at the same spot we went to every morning in Jasper:

I love these small town breakfast spots. Lots of interesting locals there lol. Most of who I found to be quite strange..though we also spotted a "diamond in the rough" ;)

In a previous post I mentioned we were staying in McBride which was a two hour drive each way into Jasper. We did some stops along the way which made the drive slightly less tedious. That morning we stopped at Rearguard Falls.


Chinook salmon are my favourite/the tastiest!

The current was so powerful. We were able to get quite close to the falls as you can see...it made me a bit nervous as the waves were incredibly strong, crashing against the rocks, but it was also an exhilarating feeling to stand there watching. I wasn't able to spot any salmon though.




This lake was a really unique shade of blue. I wasn't quite able to capture it on camera..


Then we arrived at Maligne Canyon!




At Maligne Lake. It was kind of a disappointment for me as unfortunately we weren't able to go to Spirit Island..which is the usual postcard image of the lake. We just walked around here a bit and went for ice cream lol.

I just realized I forgot to include our lunch and dinner from the Columbia Icefield day. So this was my lunch..& for dinner we went to a nice restaurant called Syrahs of Jasper.


This innocent little intermezzo quickly became the (hilarious) topic of the rest of our evening...and then the rest of the trip hahaha. It will have to remain as an inside joke so I won't reveal it here. ;)


This was the main which was a vegan "shepherds pie" which I didn't really like.



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605. Rockies Roadtrip | Day 17 - Columbia Icefield & Glacier Skywalk

I am very slowly (but surely) reaching the end of my Rockies Roadtrip posts! Lol. Just a few more days left. It has been so long now I don't really remember all the details that clearly from the final days. On our second day in Jasper (or I should say, McBride) we visited the Columbia Icefield and Glacier Skywalk. It was quite an adventure.

In the morning we started making the ~5hr drive to the Icefield, with a stop in Jasper. Along the way we started to run out of gas. We began making plans to hitchhike to the nearest gas station and back if our car stopped. Worst part was that on the entire stretch of the highway, there was no cell phone reception so we couldn't call for help if we wanted to. That was one of the most nerve-wracking moments of the trip. The gas light kept flashing and we were at the final moments when we were able to pull into the Icefield parking lot. We went in to the centre to ask the information desk for help on what to do. At that moment was the luckiest moment of our trip. Connected to the centre is a hotel, and the guy calmly told us to go there as they sold gas. We were instantly relieved and went to purchase some for maybe double the price that it would have been at a gas station. I think we bought half a tank? But then the guy who filled it up for us did it all the way so we got lucky again hahah.

After that we were off to the Icefield. We went on these huge buses that brought us on a ~15min drive onto the glacier. At the glacier we had maybe 20 minutes to walk around and collect some glacier water.








I think our guide told us he knew someone who went hiking up there and came across a cougar's den which I actually thought was pretty cool..though dangerous for him lol.


Up ahead you can see a very steep incline (a lot steeper than it looks in pictures)


After the Icefield, we headed to the skywalk. I was pretty excited for this as I've never been on a skywalk before and this was something new for me (as it wasn't built the last time I visited here). The views were amazing. My friend and I each took a rock from here as a souvenir hahah.








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601. Rockies Roadtrip | Day 16 - Arriving in Jasper

After Calgary, our next destination was Jasper. I think out of the entire trip, Jasper was the most scenic. The mountains and lakes were just incredible. We were lucky to get perfect weather every day so with the clear blue skies and beautiful blue lakes..every view was picture perfect. I didn't really edit the colouring on these photos (only adjusted the contrast a bit)..they really did look like this in real life!
The last time I came to the Rockies prior to this trip was when I was 8 years old. I don't remember much from that trip..but I always remembered Peyto Lake. It is my favourite lake of the Rockies:








During the time we were there (and I assume it still is)..Jasper was such a popular destination. We started booking our hotels and planning the trip I think 3 or 4 weeks before we arrived. For all our other cities we had booked our hotels to be right in the city centres. However, literally all the hotels and motels inside Jasper National Park were fully booked up on our days by the time we were checking for them. That had never happened to me before on any of my travels lol. The best we got was this motel in a small town called McBride...a TWO HOUR drive outside Jasper. So yes, each of the three days we were there we drove back and forth for 4 hours a day getting to Jasper and back to McBride lol. On the day we went to the icefields it was an even longer and more stressful drive..but more on that in my next post.

The motel was pretty good actually. We each got separate rooms here and at first I was so nervous it'd be a creepy old place and that I would be scared to stay in the room alone. But it wasn't bad at all. It was clean, brightly lit and (most importantly) Internet was good. I have to say it was actually a nice experience staying in McBride..something different for a change.

After we checked in, we wanted to go for dinner and was recommended a restaurant closeby. Actually probably the only real restaurant in McBride so we didn't have much of a choice. We were told we could walk there and so we did....along the highway in the middle of nowhere lol. We must've looked like the strangest hitchhikers. When we spotted the restaurant, we noticed it was across the road. So we had to go up and down a ditch on each side (which were deeper than what it looks like in this photo) to get there.

After the dinner, we walked back to the motel (up and down the ditches again) and by that time it was already pitch black. I was terrified we'd run into a bear or something.




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