Jasper - a village 1'061 meters above sea level

Although the bad weather we had, as we started our journey from Clearwater, we could see once again some beautiful landscapes while moving forward to Jasper.

In Jasper we checked-in at Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, which was located a few kilometers outside of "downtown" but with great views to the Canadian Rockies as well as on Lake Beauvert.

The main entrance of this luxurious hotel

Beautiful view on Lake Beauvert

Another lovely view on Lake Beauvert and in the background the Canadian Rockies

A very popoular golf course was also located in the area of the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, where we spent some hours practising on our golf-skills. ;-)

I never saw a driving range with such a lot of flowers.

Our "hotel room" for one night ;-)

Towards the evening we were ready to discover downtown ;-) of Jasper. Unless this gorgeous view (see picture below), this village has not much to offer. The main street is packed of souvenirs shops and a lot of restaurants. 

We decided to eat at Earl's Restaurant (see in the background ;-))

We had a chilling dinner on the restaurants balcony which provided us with these views over the village as well as the Canadian Rockies. It can't get any better....

The next day we headed towards Banff on the very famous Icefiled Parkway. Some pictures will follow soon.

Power blackout while moving up north.... :-(

From beautiful Whistler we drove to Gold Bridge to check-in at Tyax Wilderness Lodge (www.tyax.com). This is a lovely place in the untouched nature of British Columbia. 

As we drove through the area, we saw a lot of amazing landscapes.

We felt like driving on a Paris-Dakar-Rallye on this bumpy road (70 km) towards the Tyax Lodge ;-)

Tyax Wilderness Resort & Spa

Tyax-Air, the own airline of the Lodge offers flights to different spots. There are several possibilities to get back to Tyax Lodge. Neither you go by bike, hike back or you ski back (for sure only in winter;-).

The view from our room to the Tyaughton Lake.

On the next day after our arrival, we did a real mountain-biking-tour. Once we've climbed about an hour, we reached this amazing place in the Chilcotin Mountains. Our guide Tyrone brought us (although some evidences of bears) safetly through the forest with its very narrow paths with lot of stones and roots.

Tyrone (our guide) was surprised how well we did on the bike. He mentioned that former guests would have died on this particular trip we made. ;-)))

With the pedalo on the Tyaughton Lake.

After we took a day off and chilled at the frontbeach of the Lodge, we headed forward to Clearwater and were surprised, how extensive this village is. It took us about 37 km from Downtown Clearwater to reach our "container", called Helmcken Falls Lodge. We didn't expect much, but this was quite a place. Not to mention that during the night a huge power blackout let the whole area (approx. 150'000 people) down. No power means no water in B.C. ...

The main building of the Helmcken Falls Lodge

 

We stayed in the front row of these buildings. Can you imagine to be at night in such a room without any light and water? (there were also no streetlights available). We were happy as soon as the sun came up in the morning that we could leave, even without any shower taken. Thankfully we filled up enough gas because all the gas-stations in the near area were also affected by the power blackout.

Even tough this special situation, we still could find some gorgeous places in the National Park called Wells Gray:  

 

Eat a bite (a delicately blueberry mufin) in front of the Helmcken Falls.

 

Also impressive are the Dawson Falls.

On the way to Whistler

Before we took off and boarded the ferry back to the mainland, we shortly visited the rainforest trail in Tofino. An untouched natural reservoir who describes to visitors how this biosphere can survive on its own system:

First picture taken with the self-timer ;-)

Falling trees have crossed our trail. Watch your head!! According to the information-plates such falling trees are very important to keep the system of a rainforest in balance.

These trees are often about 800 years and so huge!

After approx. five hours of driving (ferry-time excluded) we arrived at Nita Lake Lodge in Whistler. Our hotel for the next four nights:

The first glimpse at this beautiful lodge

The view from our room 308 to the Nita Lake

The Nita Lake Lodge from the opposite site of the lake. (this picture was taken on a kayaking-tour)

Some impressions of the hotel room:  

On this occasion we would like to thank Mr. Schweizer from Travelhouse for the recommendation of the hotels. Also the accomodations in Vancouver (The Loden Hotel) as well as the ones in Victoria and Tofino were excellent and all with very good services. 

Besides playing golf, we took several times the bikes from the hotel to get around the Whistler area. We were really surprised how many people are riding bikes and how popular mountain biking is (nothing to compare to Switzerland).

 

As soon as we got an overview of this sporty village, we went uphill with our rental bikes to explore the downhill slopes of whistler mountain with our personal guide "Lukas". We were introduced in the basics of downhill racing. 

Ready to rock the hill!!

As we got around, we were impressed of the very nice and huge canadian houses. This region is definitely a place for wealthy people. ;-) 

The view of the Whistler Golf Club (hole 10 ;-)

The beautiful Alta Lake. Yesterday with 31 degrees we had a chilling afternoon at the beach.

 

Tofino

After 5 hours of driving from crazy bear mountain, we checked in at the long beach lodge (http://www.longbeachlodgeresort.com/) in Tofino.

The long beach lodge can be seen in the background ;-)

The beachfront room offered us an incredible view to the Cox Bay. 

 On Saturday we went on a whale-watching tour with the favourite provider Jamie (http://jamies.com/). Unfortunately we didn't see any whales but some sea lions: 

Although the bad weather and my disappointment to not have seen any whales, we enjoyed the beautiful nature from Canada on our way back to Tofino haven: 

Captain Mueller... ;-) 

 After the tour, we went back to our hotel room and were surprised as we saw this:

hoooow romantic (see background and I choosed the one with the least of people)  

After a short walk at the Cox Bay.....

 

We enjoyed the evening on the balcony of our room and had once again an incredible view of the beach and the sunset...  

Apéro time... ;-)