Whistlers Mountain

Today the weather forecast seemed perfect for us to go up Whistlers Mountain, near Jasper - and as you can see from the photos, we weren't disappointed!

We took the Jasper Skytram gondola ride, which takes you up to about 7,500 feet above sea level. Some of us (the more crazy ones!) then decided to hike through the snow to the summit. It sounded easy - "just" a 1km trail. It was harder work than it sounded, however, as it also goes up 600 feet and the air is rather thin at that altitude (I probably sounded like Puffing Billy at one stage!). Also the path was quite slippery in places, but happily we all made it back in one piece. However the views were superb, and made all our efforts worthwhile.

The main blip shows one of the views from near the summit, with a beautiful cloud formation in the sky. The first extra is another view in a different direction. The second extra shows part of the trail we had to climb, with the top gondola station in the far distance. The third extra shows John, Debs and Mike on the way down.

After lunch by the beautiful Athabasca River we drove to our hotel for the night, in a beautiful location by  Pyramid Lake. A gorgeous location for the last "proper" night of our wonderful trip (tomorrow night we'll be back at the hotel at Calgary airport). What an amazing time we've had!