Dunfey Alaska Journey

Fred’s plan for the morning called for us to paddle Johnson Lake, drive to Two Jacks Lake and the paddle up to Lake Minnewanka and then hike a trail before going back to camp for lunch. We took a scenic drive up to planned paddling areas. We decided to take the “short” paddle from Two Jakes Lake to Minnewanka. The wind was blowing fiercely toward Minnewanka.  As Fred got upstream, he discovered a dam blocking our passage. Now he knows what is like to be a frustrated salmon.

We decided to return back via other side of Two Jacks Lake to keep out of wind. As we got down the lake, we decided to continue to the end of the lake. There we found a wide stream. We went down the stream.  This trip down the steam was fantastic.

We failed to load water or food for this short paddle which turned out to be over 2 and a half hours.

We decided to hike around Johnson Lake when we got back from paddle.

After our unexpected paddle in the morning, we had a snack for lunch at Johnson Lake rather that the feast we  had planned back at our camper. We hiked around Johnson Lake. It was an interesting habitat. We got some great pictures of a squirrel, a couple of trout in a stream and a deer.

We were pretty much exhausted. Fred took an hour nap when we got back to the camper about 3 pm.

After a wake up call, we went to the Upper Banff Hot Springs to relax. Then, we visited the Bow River Falls area – very nice when out of wind.

Banff is a great visit. The village is quaint and upscale much like Edgertown or Aspen. Looks like shoppers would love it. We came during a shoulder season between Skiers and Summer tourists. There were people around but it wasn’t crowded. Mostly for tents, the camping at Two Jacks Lake Campground looked wonderfull. We really liked the Tunnel Mountain campground for campering.

Milly has defined camping for tents, RVing for motor homes and trailers and campering for in between rigs like ours.

Tommorrow morning we will go to Lake Louise.

We were just notified by Alaskan Ferry officials that our departure from Prince Rupert has been delayed from June 2nd to June 4th. They also adjusted our inside passage itinerary to reduce our stays in Ketchikan and Wrangell by a day each. I changed our camping reservations accordingly.    They asked if change was ok with us?  We understand that these ferry schedules are subject to change and do change quite a bit.  Yet, we didn’t expect shifts of days like this. Fortunately, this does impact picking  up our daughter, Kim,  at Ketchikan airport on June 5th. She is joining us for 3 weeks.

We left Banff on morning of 5/28 to go to Lake Louise. On the way, we stopped at Johnston Canyon. Pictures cannot depict the sequence of falls that we observed. This is a must stop on any itenerary to Banff National Park.

Lake Louise was just beginning to thaw. We hiked around the length of it to the other end and back. Then, we drove to still frozen Lake Moraine where we found the level of the lake low and the periphery cluttered with logs and rocks left from last years high water period.

We were surprised by how small the village was compared to Banff.

The park ranger advised us to take a kayak paddle on Emerald Lake in Yoto National Park. He told us it was a typical mountain lake about 40 minute drive from Lake Louise.

Along this drive, we saw a train appear at 3 different levels in a Spiral Train Tunnel going up a mountain pass. The pictures didn’t turn out at all. We also visited a place called Natural Bridge where the Kicking Horse river had cut a path through the rocks but left such a small opening on top that it appeared to be a bridge over the river.

Emerald Lake was a treat to paddle.

We started morning intending to kayak at Pyramid Lake in the hills above Jasper Village. We stopped at Pyramid Island and found that the views there were the same as would be found paddling. It was also a bit windy so we chucked the paddle and added another hike.

We first hiked around Cottonwood Slough. We saw many ducks and geese in the mashes and small ponds there. From there we visited the Fairmont Jasper Lodge on Lake Beauvert – a great Golf Vacation destination. Then, we hiked up Maligne Canyon.

We had planned to go up the Tram to the mountain top for the view. We decided to call it a day. We got an ice cream in the village instead.

Jasper is an outstanding vacation location in summer or winter. The number of hiking trails available is incredible. The variety of these hikes was quite diverse. Taking the snow train from Edmonton to Jasper seems like a great Winter getway!

Our Verizon Broadband access finally stopped working when we got to Lake Louise. We don’t know why the 1st day it was okay in Lake Louise and then it started telling us that their modem had a problem.

My wireless connection was also not working. Somehow I turned off the wireless switch and I couldn’t get it turned back on. This happened when I allowed Verizon to manage both broadband and WIFI connections and I manually disabled WIFI radio. I couldn’t reverse this. Last night, I spent several hours trying to get the wireless switch turned back on. I couldn’t find any help on this that really helped. I finally used a Dell utility that somehow did the trick. I don’t understand how it did it. I now have wireless WIFI connections back when I am in are with free WIFI. I did delete my Verizon Broadband software and will re-install later tonight. Hopefully, there will be no issues.