This morning we headed out from our Shabbos dispersed camping location.  It’s called Crown Land here in Canada, and it doesn’t seem to have the same 14 day limits that BLM land has in the US.  Some folks live here while working in the nearby oil and gas fields, and some live in town and leave their RVs here and come down for the weekends.  We spent some time Saturday night chatting with our neighbors John and Carla around their impressive campfire.

Here’s a view of our corner of the camping area as we left:

We drove South to Grande Cache and stopped at the visitor center.  Canadians do love their stick-your-heads-though-the-wall things, we see them all the time up here:

Here is a “Grande Cache”, a large elevated building for keeping a trapper’s furs, food, and equipment high and dry for the winter:

We continued Southwest into Jasper National Park, where we passed some sheep grazing curbside:

There were plenty of great views to be had as we drove on through the park:

Eventually we reached the Columbia Icefield, which is like a giant bowl, spilling ice over its edge to form glaciers as they move downhill into low valleys:

Here the ice pushed out breaks off and falls to the valley floor below.  This rim of ice must be at least 100 feet thick:

We are overnighting at the Columbia Icefield parking lot, across from the Athabasca Glacier.  It’s $15.70 to park here for the night, but at least we get some great views:

The Athabasca Glacier in the distance:

See the trip map for driving details.