Day 4: Prince George to Kalispell, MT

Mileage: 675
Total mileage: 2433

Animals: big horned sheep

Little Lasalle Lake

The night in the car wasn't too bad, especially the part where we didn't have to break down camp, though Debbie was extremely fast at it. I think spending so much time in tents while backpacking not having a car to through stuff in makes one appreciate being able to chuck things in the car, as well as the luxury of having a pillow and extra blankets. :-)

Jasper. Jasper is the one place I went to where I wanted to stay for a long, long time. I am not talking about Jasper National Park, though that in itself was incredible as well. But the yuppie mountain town of Jasper. I don’t know if it was the snow covered peaks surrounding the town and the really nice, small town structure, or the friendly people, but I fell in love with this town and really truly felt happy just churning around in circles around town. It reminded me of Asheville in some ways.

Jasper needs a meteorologist, right?

Debbie enjoying Athabasca Falls

Overall, day 4 was the most scenic day by far, and our longest driving day with a total time of 16 hours. I was disappointed in myself this day, because I realized once we got past Banff NP, that I must have abandoned my road trip planning in my state of multi-tasking pre-trip stuff, so there were places we drove through that I wasn't expecting, and would have liked to stop at.
The Icefields Parkway was hands down the prettiest part of this trip, lined with snow covered peaks, very ski-able snow (of which I hope to someday do some skinning/skiing on), glaciers, waterfalls and the whole package. One could spend weeks here and never be bored.

Continental Divide in Alberta!

I had big visions of getting to Missoula this night, being so close to the first night with a bed and a friend I hadn't seen in 2.5 years. We ended up having to crash a couple hours north of Missoula. We went through Radium Hot Springs, Fairmont Hot Springs, and crossed back over into the US this day - with another border guard entertained by my story. We ended up camping two hours north of Missoula since there were deer everywhere and I didn't feel comfortable driving high speeds at midnight with deer all over the place.