Day 13, July 24...Canmore, AB to Hinton, AB

I left Canmore a little late this morning.  Temperature at 7:00 was 40 degrees and it never got above 50 until I got to Jasper around 3:30 today.  I rode up Hwy 1 (the Trans-Canada Highway) through Banff National Park to the city of Banff.  The scenery in Banff and Jasper National Parks is just stunning, rivaling the most beautiful places we've seen in the US.  

These two pics were taken a few miles north of Canmore:

Banff itself is a very pretty town that is a big ski resort in the winter and appears to be very busy in the summer as well.  I rode Tunnel Mountain Road, which circles around above the city and caught a few shots that I thought were nice:

The hotel is the Banff Springs Hotel, which was built in 1888.  I rode around the parking lot until they chased me off...man, is it something.

I left Banff and headed north on Hwy 1 to Lake Louise.  Again, beautiful scenery and I couldn't stop often enough to take enough pictures.  This picture was taken in the parking lot of a gas station:

There is actually a Lake in Lake Louise, so I rode up the mountain to take a look.  Here is Lake Louise:

I left Lake Louise and headed north on Hwy 93, the Icefields Parkway.  If you take a look at some of these pics you can see how the road got its name:

The final stop of the day was Athabasca Falls, about 20 miles south of Jasper:

Beautiful scenery!

Tomorrow I'm headed to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, the start of the Alaska Highway.  I plan to spend a day there before departing up the Alcan on Thursday.

Miles today: 266
Total:          3,641