The Rocky Mountaineer's of 1995 - Canada.
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The Rocky Mountaineers of 1995 at the Athabasca Glacier, Alberta.
Crossing the border to Canada.
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The next day we drove in to CANADA, and that my friends was indeed a "YES-MOMENT" for all of us. I had been to Canada once before but the rest of the group had not, including our Trek-leader Sheila. Of course we just had to take....... Oh Yes another group photo by the Canadian border signs. |  Group photo just after crossing the Canadian border. |
 The Prince of Wales hotel in Waterton. |
The next stop we did quite quickly was at the small town of Waterton where we had lunch at the "Prince of Wales hotel"
and to have a look around. The hotel was beautifully located with a lake near by and mountains around. |
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We were now in Alberta and we drove towards Banff where we were going to stay for 3 nights.
This is one of the most beautifully areas of Canada so we stopped many times along the road to Banff just to have a look around and to take photos. |  On the road to Banff. |
Banff, Lake Louise and Sulphur Mountain.
 View of Banff from above. |
As a town Banff is very pretty and it looks
just like a little village in Switzerland, with high mountains around the small town. Even our campground here is located on a mountain; the Tunnel Mountain. |
| Banff is also a kind of meeting place for different Trek-groups so when we arrived to our campground at Tunnel Mountain, there were already 4 other groups there. |  At Tunnel Mountain by the campfire |
 On the trail up to Plain of the Six Glaciers with a gorgeous view of Lake Louise. |
The next day we went to Lake Louise not so far away from Banff. Here we did a long hike, about 15 km, up the Plain of the Six Glaciers. |
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The trail up there was one of the best hikes I have ever done, the view from up here is definitely breathtaking.
When we finally came up to the Glacier there was a "Tea-house" where we took a few drinks. |  On the hike up to Plain of the Six Glaciers. |
 Groupphoto on the Plain of the Six Glaciers. |
The one thing I remember most of up here was actually not the Glacier itself. No, there was a girl sitting up there playing guitar and singing and it was so beautifully. The Glacier itself was kind of noisy. It constantly moves, which You of course can't see but You can hear the cracking in the ice. |
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On our way back down to Lake Louise we took a different trail the last part and could see a gorgeous view of Lake Louise
and the Chateou.
After the hike we went to Lake Moraine to have a look around but unfortunately it was so crowded with tourists so we went back to Banff. |  Lake Louise with the Chateou. |
 On the gondola ride up to the Sulphur Mountain. |
In Banff we took a gondola ride up to the Sulphur Mountain. Up there the view is excellent and You can see Banff down there as a tiny little village between the mountains. |
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We spent some time up here and of course we had to take a group photo again, even though not the whole group was found
at the moment.
Later in the evening we went out for dinner at a really good restaurant and pub; the Rose and Crown which usually have really good bands playing there (I've been here a few times since this first time). |
 Group photo up on the Sulphur Mountain with the gorgeous view of Banff valley in the back. |
 Andrew, me and Pam sitting up on our horses at Jonny's stable. | The next day we went for our horseback riding at Jonny's Stable in Canmore, an hours drive from Banff on the road to Calgary. |
| I got an excellent horse, her name was Steel and we all enjoyed our riding there very much in a beautifully environment. |
 On our very nice horse back ride. You'll se me on second place on my horse Steel. |
 The Beach people at the Sulphur Hot Springs. |
The horseback ride took about 2 hours and then we went back to Banff, to the Sulphur Hot Springs to have a swim.
The water felt so hot in the cool air since the pool is on the outside and we all could smell the sulphur from the water. It felt sooooo good. |
The Icefields Parkway and Jasper.
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The next morning we continued our journey north to Jasper.
We drove on the Icefields Parkway and this is a very beautifully road. |
 At a rest stop on Icefields Parkway. |
 Me at a photostop on the Icefields Parkway. |
We stopped several times to take photos. High mountains with a lot of snow on the top and colorful trees, since the fall is about to take over and it is so extraordinary, it really hurts the eyes. |
| When we arrived to Jasper we took a tour of the small town and we got quite happy when we met a couple of genuine Canadian Mounties on their horses in the park. |
 Canadian Mounties. |
 Elks during matingseason. |
After the visit to the town we drove to our campground, The Whistler campground a few miles
from town.
This is a very interesting place since it has many Elks on it's premises and at this time of year (September) it is mating season so we experienced a lot of screaming bulls around our camp. |
| We even had one chasing a female right in to our camp so we had to take cover behind our tents because these guys You don't want to go near when this happens. |
 The female Elk took shelter with us (it's one of our tents to the left). |
The Athabasca Glacier.
 The Athabasca Glacier. |
The next morning we headed back on the Icefields Parkway to do a 6 hour hike at the Athabasca
Glacier.
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That hike was really something and we had a very good guide with us whom could tell us a lot about the
glacier. Walking on that thick old ice with all its crevasses was very interesting. We were told by our guide Peter that the ice was about 150 years old and about 60-100 meter thick....Amazing is the word. |
 Peter is telling us the history of the glacier in front of one very deep crevasses. |
 Me getting closer to one of the many deep crevasses at the Athabasca Glacier, holding tight to Peter. |
At one point Peter let us look down into a very deep crevasses and that was indeed a bit scary even though Peter held on tight to us.
When we came as far as we were aloud to go we took that photo that is located on the top of this page. |
The Athabasca Falls.
 The Athabasca Falls seen from the woods. |
 Me sitting by the The Athabasca River, dreaming. |
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We just stayed here for a short while but it was worth it. The falls itself were not that big but the views around it was just breath taking. |
 Me standing just beside (or it might look as if I were standing in the middle of it) the The Athabasca Falls. |
Mount Edith Clavell.
 The gang is freezing like crazy and everyone had, at some point, problems with their cameras. |
The following day we drove towards British Columbia and Spencers Bridge where we were going
to do our River Rafting next day. On the road we stopped at Mount Edith Clavell just to have a look around. There was no time for any hiking. It was very early in the morning and really, really cold. |
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Everyone was really freezing, even me, who is quite used to this kind of conditions. If I am going to explain to you how cold it was.....Well, my camera stopped working as soon as I stepped out of the van..... |
 Me shivering in the cold (the white stuff on the bench is frost not snow). |
Spencers Bridge and the Riverrafting.
 River Rafting on Thomphsons River with our dear driver Herbie. |
The rafting was something I was really looking forward to since
it was my first rafting ever.
Let me assure You it was a great deal of fun but at the same time I was scared to death. We got dressed up in yellow raincoats and lifejackets and were on the river for about 2,5 hours and the first bit of the journey the river was not that rapid. That made us ask our selves; is this going to be it, this is nothing? Oh boy did we get surprised when we suddenly were in a huge amount of big, fast rapids. I believe I was screaming the whole time. But it was fun!! |
Vancouver.
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After the rafting we took off for Vancouver and our finally days together before we headed
back to Seattle.
Vancouver is in my opinion a very nice city with very friendly people, and You can walk around through the city which is quite rare these days. |  View of Vancouver seen from Stanley Park. |
 Me, trying to look alike the Totempoole. | In Vancouver we did the ususally tourist things; we went to Stanley Park to have a look at the magnificent Totempooles and of course we visit Gastown, and also did our finally shopping there. |
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After we came back to our campground from the city we all dressed up to go out on a sunset cruise
in the bay of Vancouver. We had a very nice dinner at the boat and had brought with us some champagne to celebrate our last evening together. |
 Sven, me, Julia and Dennis at The sunset cruise in the Vancouver Bay. |
 Me trying to explain to Pam how to get those brown legs..... | It got quite crazy acutally......but we all had a lot of fun together with the crew of the sunset cruse boat. |
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It was actually like this; the crew on the sunset cruise boat liked us so much that they invited us for a after party at
the skippers boat. Of course we couldn't say no....we didn't want this to end at all...!!! The next day we had to do our cleaning of all the stuff we had used during this trip so we had to get up pretty early in the morning to do this before we drove back to the states and Seattle....Oh dear. |
 The four blondes having a really good time; Pam, Thor (from the cruise), me and Sheila. |
 Cleaningtime........Julia and myself struggling. |
We got up alright despite the fact that we came home at around 4 a.m and got to work starting with stripping the van inside
to clean it up. We did have some fun though doing this since we videotape the whole thing. |
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So we brought out all the chairs and put them together like it was inside the van and all of us sat down in the
chairs pretending we were on the road again singing; We all live in a white Dodge Van - with a blue top (song: Yellow Submarine). Very childish, I know, but when You are on these kinds of trips everyone sort of drop the seriousness for a while and becomes a child again. That is a good thing I think since the world today is not so kind to people, where ever they might live. |  We all live in a White Dodge Van - With a Blue Top. |
Conclusion.
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We said our good-byes later in the evening back at our hotel in Seattle,
and we were all pretty sad about this.
We had become such good friends and we didn't want it to end, but it was inevitable.
A few months later we got together again in Belgium for our first reunion which has followed by many more. We have become friends, possible for life, and when for instance a wedding of someone in the group take place, we all meet up again. Also girlfriends, boyfriends, wifes, husbands and children og anyone in the group has now joined us as well. I believe this proves how close we got to one another. So going on a trek can really make a different for someone's life. The trek itself, The Rocky Mountaineer's was in my opinion one of the best treks that TrekAmerica offered and me; who just loves the Rocky Mountains, I actually went back to do this trek one more time, in 1997, just because I liked it so much. I am sorry that this Trek no longer is available, but there will always be a similar one.  The Rocky Mountaineer group Sept. 1-21, 1995. |
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Last Updated December 14, 2010 - 09:30 CET.