July 30 was a shower day. We try to space them out so as not to waste our protective layer of dirt. Post-shower we drove south from Whistlers Campground in Jasper. Our goal was the Athabaska Glacier, but we made multiple stops along the way to feed Alison’s photo-taking monkey.

One neat stop was just on the side of the highway. The Athabaska River must normally run higher because there was only a narrow channel of water left there, in a shallow bed of stones that was a couple of hundred metres across. Craggy mountains rose on every side of the broad flat valley. We looked for geodes, but didn’t find any, a consequence equally blamed on the geology of the area and our complete ignorance of what a geode actually looks like.

We also pulled up at the Tangle Creek waterfall, where tourists like us were clustered like water fleas. At least Those Johnston Kids, Alison, and I climbed up to the highest fall for our photo ops. We’re not lazy.

We finally reach the Athabaska Glacier around 3 PM. There’s a guided bus tour there that drives out onto the ice and drops you off for 15 minutes on a groomed patch to take pictures. We didn’t want to pay $55 each for the tour, half-price for kids, so we hiked down. When I was here some 20 years ago, tourists could hike out onto the toe of the glacier, following a marked safe path. I figured we could just do that.

The hike down was great fun, especially for Short Pants who eschewed the trail to go ‘cross-country’. The air was so wonderfully clear that distances were deceiving. The hike was a lot longer than it had looked initially and we got to ford a couple of meltwater streams. When we finally got to the bottom, we were fisappointed to find that we couldn’t actually walk on the glacier on our own. The only way to get on the ice was to take the pricey bus, or hire a guide. I don’t even know where we would have found a guide. We took some pics and just headed back to the car.

Short Pants and I went ‘cross-country’again, taking the most direct route across the moraine. We alternately pretended that we were crossing a trackless desert, or Mars.

Hiking can take a lot out of you, especially when you’re small, so we stopped at The Crossing for ice cream and drinks. The Crossing is a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, halfway between where you’ve come from and where you’re going. I think the only reason it’s there is to act as a life support system for the gas pump. It probably grew up out of the people that ran out of gas right about there.

Still further south, we started looking for someplace to stay for the night. We asked at Nun Ti Jah Lodge only to be turned away; they were fully booked. That would have been an interesting stay because Mama often talks about the time she worked there. She’s never said exactly what she did there. I just assumed it was some sort of high-end cat house.

Neither was there any space at the campgrounds in Lake Louise. I didn’t get that, because there really isn’t much there besides the lake itself. We did stay to have dinner in the old railway station. The meal was more expensive than the food was worth, but the environment was interesting.

We continued south all the way to Banff on search of a campsite. For a hugely popular national park area, the Banff-Lake Louise area has a pitiful number of campgrounds. We checked out the Castle Mountain campground, but it was full too, so on we went. We finally found room at the Tunnel Mountain Village II campground in Banff. Campground is a misnomer. Village II is the RV life unadulterated. It’s just a grid of paved roads with picnic tables and electrical sockets alongside the parallel parking spots they call campsites.

While i prepared dinner, Those Johnston Kids play in the dark, on the strip of grass between ‘streets’ in the Village. It was some kind of ninja game that required dark clothing. I could hear them rustling around like night beasts, unafraid and free, my own little porcupines.