Venture West: Day 15 Fernie, BC

5,328 km travelled:
The last 2 days have been great. We have gone from majestic mountains to rolling foothills to ranch country back to mountains.

Yesterday, we spent time walking the beautiful grounds of the Chateau Lake Louise, walking along the edge of Moraine Lake ( a UNESCO heritage site and on the back of the old $20 dollar bill), hiking into Johnson Canyon (a painting of which can be found in the Bank of Nova Scotia at King and Bay) and driving the Kananskis Trail ( where we saw three grizzlies of which 2 were very busy eating berries and some free range cattle). The road rose to over 7000 feet which is the highest paved road in Canada.

At Lake Louise

--- beautiful Lake Louise

Another picnic lunch - at Moraine Lake

--- company for lunch

Part of the trail at Johnson Canyon

The "Hoodoo's" at Banff

The elevation of the highest paved road in Canada

Two of the grizlies along the road - eating berries

--- no fences, cattle at large

Last evening, we drove down several km of gravel road (treacherous for a motorcycle) to spend the night with Tonya, Mike, Owen, Ashlee and their friends, Mike, Carolyn, Christianne, Nathan, Linda and Peter at Etherington Campground. Yes...we spent another night in our tent. This time, we used our rain gear as pillows and slept with our heads in our sleeping bags as the temperatures dropped again.

Owen and Ashlee (our grandkids) are front centre-left

Another night in our tent

When we started our travels today, we were planning on heading back to Banff and then west after a ride through ranch country. One hour later, after meeting another Venture rider at a gas station near the famous Bar U ranch, we changed plans and headed the other direction and crossed into BC through the Crow's Nest Pass so we are now in Fernie BC.