Well relaxed, we started again driving on Sunday, first through the prairie and afterwards back into the Canadian Rocky Mountains. We passed via Pincher Creek to Longview and through the Kananaskan Country. It was a nice drive through a variety of nature, crossing wildlife on the road (bighorn sheep) and the temperature dropped even in the mountains until 9°C. Unfortunately we did not succeed to take proper picture due to the surrounding haze ☹. On Monday we first took Hwy1 and did a sidedrive via the 3 sisters road (Canmore) to drive into Banff National Park. We had a short stop in Banff for a visit and continued via the Bow Valley Parkway and Vermillion Lakes to end up in the Yoho National Park. In this park we took the Yoho Pass, a fantastic ‘small’ curvy road until the Takakkaw Falls. Takakkaw means ‘magnificent’ (which it was!) and the waterfall is one of the highest in Canada. In the late afternoon, we camped at the Monarch campground into the park, with a beautiful view on the colored Rocky Mountains. On Tuesday, we started a relaxed morning with scrambled eggs and ham to be prepared to beat the boring Hwy1 through the rest of the National Park. Do not misunderstand the ‘boring’, but it’s difficult to comprehend that a highway cuts through this beautiful nature. On our way to Golden, we had some traffic announcements that 16km from Revelstoke, there were some active wildfires…. This was the direction we were heading to, so we are repeating ourselves, smoke smoke smoke… The sun can hardly shine through it. Weird experience! On our way to Revelstoke, we stopped a few times. Our first stop was at a wildlife refuge for wolves, which was worth the visit. They had a pack of 6 wolves of which 2 were socialized. We’ve learned a lot about the impact of wolves on wildlife and the ecosystem, especially in Banff National Park and Yellowstone. Our second stop was at the Hemlock Grove trail, where we had a closer view on the nature in the rainforest, however, nothing can beat our Washington rainforest experience (so far 😊). The third stop was in the next National Park, Mount Revelstoke National Park, where we did a short hike on the Skunk Cabbage trail. The skunk cabbage is a stinking flower that blooms during springtime, but the leaves of the flower continues growing during summer until more than 1m high. Finally we arrived in Revelstoke and stayed at the Revelstoke campground. On Wednesday we offered ourselves a pancake breakfast with blueberries and whipped cream 😊. We started with a nice drive; the ‘Meadows in the Sky Parkway’. It is a 26km long curvy mountain road, the only road in the Canadian Parks where you can drive until the top of a mountain. We hiked until the summit of the mountain where we didn’t had any view at all ☹. You can’t force mother nature, the wildfires are also necessary to maintain nature. When we’ve returned from the mountain, we headed direction Nakusp for the ‘beecee beemers’ meeting. Today we will register to participate at the BMW rally. It’s our first rally, so curious to know how it will go.
