To Jasper

We leave White Swan Lake, heading north up towards the Continental Divide, with the majestic peaks of the Rockies all around us for miles, some towering to over 13,000 ft.

We stop at Athabasca Falls, which are amazing, but lots of people all taking in the sights, so we don't hang around. We take a small diversion off the beaten track to Jasper, not seeing another car for the whole way.

We stop a couple of times along the way, firstly for a huge goose nest, and while we're watching it, we hear a loud cawing from the cliffs behind us. After some minutes of searching with binoculars we spot a nest in the cliffs with the babies screeching for food. Before long a large raven arrives on the nest.

200 miles later, we arrive in delightful Jasper, made famous as a trading post in the late 1800s, named after a fur trapper called Jasper Hawe. We park and have a wander around town, opting for a curry in the local Indian restaurant.

Jasper is a major railroad junction for both freight and passenger trains, The main street adjoins the panolpy of trains, and the station house is a beautiful arts and crafts style building, restored recently to its former glory, complete with wonderful posters from the golden age of travel on the railways.

To our delight, a very long freight train trundles into view, hauling around 150 propage gas trucks, each with 75 tonnes of gas on board, closely parallel to this beautiful town. It pulls slowly out of the stations, and almost immediately another huge freight train with hundreds of container trucks pulls out in the other direction. And finally a passenger train with double decker carriages arrives, the Rocky Mountaineer, a tourist train doing dily trips from Vancouver to Jasper and back.

We have to tear ourselves away from all the incredible train activity as it's getting dark, and wend our way towards the Wapita campsite just outside town.