day 4: friday 31st march 2006

today is the day we check out from banff and head out to jasper up north, 288 km away.

once again, today is *also* a day tt contributes to this adventure surpassing all the others combined.

it starts off relatively normally enough - with a yummy breakfast @ phil's diner (which we found after a couple of illegal u-turns. not too bad).

me at the diner. love the scenery behind me. :)



and ben. trying to look like he has already woken up. kekeke.



and then after a hearty breakfast, thus begins the drive through the icefields parkway towards jasper.



to jasper!



ben driving. with the gorgeous scenery behind him.

and the rest of it in front of us.



ooh. and speaking of interesting road signs...



avanlanche country?

oh yeah. tt means...



we also make a couple of stops along the way to admire the scenery.

like here...



me. and yes, it is fucking cold.



ben. whenever he puts his hands behind his back, he is hiding his cigarette.

and this pretty pretty bird.



okay... and thus the big adventure begins.

we get *snowed in*.

see car.



basically we accidentally reverse into this large area of very soft snow. and subsequently get stuck.

for almost 2 hours. in uluville.

fortunately we got help from an american in a chevrolet who helped us phone the park warden. who then proceeded to do everything from help us shovel out the snow to try to rock the car out of our quagmire for the next hour or so.

nothing worked... until he tied a rope to the underside of our car, attached it to a chain to his bumper, and dragged the damn car out of the snow.

he was in all senses of the word, a god send.

ben and i spent the rest of the journey to jasper in this strange state of adrenalin-induced euphoria from all the relief.

we also decided not to turn into small dubious-looking snow-covered roads.

but of course, the road scenery itself was still every bit worth savouring.



we also passed the famous columbia ice-fields.



and we stopped over at this cool-looking valley right by the side of the road.



where ben decided in his normal fashion, to take a smoke (surreptiiously caught on camera!).



i requested for a photo while he was still smoking. this is the result.



and a non-smoking photo of ben. heh. see the contrast?



taken by yours truly. tt's why the background is so nice. buahaha.

and after tt ben let me drive.



all of over 40 km from the icefields towards jasper.

the roads were smooth and almost empty, so i could travel at a constant speed of around 140km/h (except at turns, until ben encouraged me to keep my foot on the accelerator while turning), and hit up to 170km/h on straight roads.

oh, and coz there was this chevy who was driving *fucking slow* on the parkway, ben made me practice overtaking two times, then let me cut in front of tt guy.

we spent the rest of the journey laughing over what an idiot tt guy was - he got overtaken by someone with no liscence. hell, someone who hasn't taken her basic theory even! bwahaha.

anyway we made a final stop at this waterfall place...

and boy was it worth the stop.



and my face with the damn waterfall. frozen in winter/spring.



from there it was straight onward to jasper, where after a couple more roundabouts and illegal u-turns, we got a more expensive and smaller room at mount robson inn. accomodation at jasper is fucking expensive.

but at least the room still looked pretty.



after tt it was onward to this grill where we shared a chicken and ribs set, walked around downtown for a bit as the sky darkened, and ultimately spent the evening back in the room also watching cable again.

except till ben got hungry, then we went out for a burger and a dozen buffalo wings.