Friday October 1st (Climbing the Great Divide)

Jasper to Golden

200 miles

To day Chevy worked extremely hard, as we got to an elevation of 6800ft as we drove over the Canadian Rockies. Even thought we drove 200 miles today, they were hard miles, if you weren’t climbing up steep grades you were going down them. Our 1^st stop was at Athabasca Falls, it was about a 20 minutes walk, there were viewing platforms in several places so you could real get the feel and see the power of the river. There were massive amounts of water going through a narrow gap. Also the Athabasca River was running high as there as been a lot of rain recently. We also did a quick tour at Sunwapta falls, another impressive falls, a narrow gap and lots of water. We stopped at the Ice Field Center overlooking the Columbia Ice field, shortly after than we crossed the border from Alberta to British Columbia at the 6800 ft elevation. We saw an amazing amount of extremely high mountains today, some with snow and some with out. Waterfalls running from extremely high elevations, it was difficult to decide where to take photos as we were surrounded by so much of nature’s beauty all day. We arrived in Golden in the late afternoon, and set up in the Municipal Camp Ground beside the Kicking Horse River for the evening. Had dinner and then when for a bike ride around town, a lot of the trial is on the top of the river embankment. Golden where the Columbia and Kicking Horse rivers meet.