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| Breathtaking Scenery |
| After a few days in rainy Vancouver, we hired
a car to travel the Rockies in mid winter. They failed to tell
us that we had no wiper fluid, no chains, the roads could be
closed or we had a 5% chance of not returning. However, you
could do loads of wheelspins and handbrake turns (to get round
the corner safely) in the snow and the scenery was great. |
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| 600 ft Ice Falls |
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| Jasper National Park |
| Jasper was as far east as we were going and worth the
treacerous drive. We set out on a walk after being warned
about dangerous animals such as Bears and Elks. We were
quite nervous as we skirted the lake to the Jasper Retreat
Hotel for a couple of swifties. Fortunately, for us, the
Bears were all hibernating apart from one - a cocktail
called a "Grizzly". Holly made sure she was
going to be warm enough for the trip home by knocking
a few of these back. |
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| Ice Waterfall |
Our Ice River Hike outside Banff bought us
close up to big spikey frozen falls. We had to wear ice cleats
to walk up the frozen river.
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| Mount Robson |
| In the Jasper National Park, this was the highest
mountain in the Rockies at 12,972 ft. Truely awesome. |
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Capalino Bridge,
Vancouver
After having done most of the tourist stuff in Vancouver,
we used our last day in the car to travel just outside to
see the bridge. On the way over, we spotted a bald eagle -
it was massive. I shot some video of it, but it was too far
away to get a good photo. |
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Black Tusk |
| Now, this was a ski resort. The
snow was completely different to anything that I had skiied
on in Europe. They had great sounding runs (or trails) like
Lower Whiskey Jack, Dave Murray Downhill & Sidewinder. |
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| Holly and Marty |
| I met Marty on our day's ski school with the
83 year old God of a skier. It makes such a difference when
there is more to "Benz ze neez" in their book. Went
for a couple of days skiing with the Seattle Man. Best day skiing
in my life EVER. |
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| Ingemar Stenmark |
My skiing had improved and the snow was magnificent.
Each night the temperature was below freezing, keeping the snow
ice free. Holly was progressing nicely to the blue (red in Europe)
runs. We were there just before the apres-Xmas rush which meant
the slopes were not too crowded and the lefts queue-free. We
alternated between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains but
didn't do even half the runs.
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| In the Clouds on Whistler Mountain |
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| The Engagement |
| I had been wondering since we had left home
where to get engaged and after seeing the view from the top
of the mountain, I had no doubt where I was to propose. |
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