Hi everyone!
Wow, what a breathtaking weekend! Such a beautiful trip together with Moose Travel organized by INTERNeX; a road trip filled with so many sights and loads of activities along the way.
I am happy that I got the chance to experience this with you guys and I hope there will be many more, the Rockies is a blast and you can’t miss it!!
Day 1
We left Vancouver behind for a whole weekend on a road trip and our first overnight stop; Jasper, Alberta.
On the way we make our first stop in beautiful Bridal Veil Falls Provincial Park, which is not that far from Vancouver. A magical forest that gave us a beautiful start to our journey, with huge trees and a waterfall that reminded us how beautiful Mother Earth is.
Our bus ride continiues with great Indie music as the weather gets warmer, we stop at Clearwater for lunch and a fantastic swim in the lake. A lake located among forests and mountains, wow, definitely worth a swim! I regret that I didn’t bring my swimsuit with me from Sweden. I didn’t expect this summer heat at all here in Beautiful British Columbia, because in north Sweden we already have Fall, haha! 😉
As the tour continues we are getting closer the Rockies and Mount Robson Provincial Park, which was one of the first mountains we saw on closer sights. Mount Robson is about 3954m high and we were thinking; “hey, why not take a group picture?”. So up on the bus we go! A fun little experience with the participants and our guide in front of the mountain, and the result you can see here:
As our first day comes to an end we finally arrived in Jasper, Alberta. A little surprise was waiting for us 10 minutes from HI Jasper where we were going to spend our first night; a star gazing event – a planetarium. The event reminded me so much from back home in the arctic in Scandinavia. It was such a beautiful event with storytelling about history from our ancestors, northern lights, stars and the universe and a lot more, thank you!
I can add that I learned to listen to nature as a youth, and being in nature is still one of my favourite places to find strength and peace so I had a little tears of joy moment during this event, it was so beautiful 😉 A perfect end of day 1, I must say!
Day 2
08.00 am; an early morning we had some time to do grocery shopping in Jasper before we continued our tour toward Banff, Alberta. This morning was a bit colder than the day before which was super nice, especially for us sitting in a bus for quite a bit of the day, haha! But nah, we were enjoying our short stops along the way which included a lot of hikes, swim spots and more.
The first stop on our second day we reached a beautiful Canyon were we took a group photo. Unfortunalty we didn’t gather the whole group but still it was an amazing view early in the morning with morning fog all over the river and mountains, such a breathtaking moment!
After a short bus ride it was time for a brake along Sunwapta River with a view of a glacier in the background, wow!
Another spot that also was a perfect start of the day; Tangle creek. A beautiful waterfall with a little bit of rock climbing which was great experience that brought new energy.
As we were getting closer to our destination we stop at Highway 93 for a glacier experience. It was a bit of a “wake up call” to see how much the global warming affects our home. As I can tell; it is not much left of the glacier!!!
Then it was time for our lunch stop not too far away. Our lunch spot hits us with a combo of a picnic style as the sun gets warmer, with a stunning sight with a view and I can tell that I am really happy to be a part of the INTERNeX team; It gives me a great opportunity to be with our participants which brings a great chance to know all of you better. I also get loads of time to capture beautiful content alongside our journey that we can go back to remember by viewing photographs and videos from our trip.
As our bus tour continues, we reached another beautiful canyon along the way – along Mistaya river, also called a meditation spot I would say.
One of the last but not least; Peyto Lake, also a breathtaking moment. Some of you might recognize this lake from pictures or you might already have been here before but this lake is decently a big recommendation to visit!! Thank you for taking us here! We even saw a chipmunk running around the rocks, haha!
Before reaching Banff we definitely had to make another stop; this time at Bow Lake – a great swim spot in a glacial lake. Have you ever tried ice swimming before? This was such a refreshing moment and it was definitely worth it after a long bus ride.
At last, we reached our final destination were we stayed for two nights; Banff!!! Wow, totally something different from what we’ve seen before on our journey. In Banff, the same evening, we had dinner all together before catching the night bus into town for a Pub Night! We had so much fun dancing together, definitely a great night out and a great end of the day!
(part 2 is coming up next!) // Ida
Merle, who is 18 and from the high North of Germany is also part of our Practicum program and just graduated from High School. It was important to her, just like all her friends, to travel abroad for some time, but especially doing this on her own. She is fascinated by Canada and its nature and therefore, no surprise that the Rocky Mountains are on top of her travel bucket list. But also Vancouver Island and the great combination of Vancouver’s beaches and mountains is something she would like to explore. Apart from that, Merle also wants to talk a lot of English to improve her skills.
INTERNeX Canada 