July 17, 2006

Rocky Mountains

The July 1 weekend was the long Canada Day weekend. Together with Zhihao and Yi I went on a trip to the Rockies. With 2400 km of driving within 4 days we didn't have a lot of time to spend, but we've seen a lot of beautiful places. We entered the national parks in Jasper and drove down towards Banff. It was hot and sunny thw whole time so that we had great views of the mountains. Although I took a lot of photos I think I did not manage to capture the dimension of those very different mountains. The valleys are so wide and the slopes of the mountains are very gentle with the vertical rock faces towering on the top. The Icefield Parkway gently goes up and down over passes as high as 2000 meters. Many of the mountains have a thick glacier on the top and there are shining green glacier lakes in the valleys.

Mt. Robson

Athabasca Falls

Zhihao and Yi - we had a lot of fun and they did a great job in keeping me awake while driving!

Honemoon Lake in the evening....

... and in the morning.

Valley, river, mountains...

Glacier lake and mountain, one of the many ones...

Moraine Lake

Takakkaw Falls, more than 300 m high
one of the highest ones in the Rockies.

Whistler

Last weekend I went to the Bike Park in Whistler with Bryan. It is so good to be out with somebody who's really good, there are so many things to learn and it's easier when somebody else is encouraging you instead of doing it by yourself... We were riding from 10 to 7 in the evening and had a lot of fun! Maybe I would even learn how to ride a bike in a decent way if I'd have a season pass there...