This has to be one of the best trips I have taken in Canada to date! The mountains around Vancouver are beautiful but the Canadian Rockies are a whole other level!! First stop on the trip was in Jasper, a lovely little village in a beautiful mountain setting.  Also Jasper Brewing is worth peeking into.

Then the next part of the trip was a 43km hike to Tonquin Valley. The hike was amazing with the second half involving mountains in every direction.  We even came uncomfortably close to a grizzly bear but thankfully it didn’t see us.  Our hike took us to the cabins we would be staying in by Amethyst Lakes http://www.tonquinvalley.com/index.html which were in an incredible setting at the base of the Ramparts! We spent a few days here just exploring and taking boats and canoes on the lake.

 

After leaving Tonquin we drove south on Highway 93 through the Rockies towards Lake Louise and Field where we would stay for a few nights.  This was the most beautiful drive I had been on with huge mountains around every corner for hours.  We also went on the Columbia Icefield Glacier tour which was pretty fricking awesome.

From Field we went on a few hikes around Lake Louise to Moraine Lake, the Plain of 6 Glaciers and Lake o’Hara.  All of which were stunning and remain to be some of the best hikes I have ever done!

We also paid a visit to Banff and Canmore.  Banff is a pretty tourist town in a picturesque setting but was Very touristy.  Canmore is also worth visiting as it is just outside the national park so a lot less touristy but still a scenic area.  On the way back to Vancouver we stopped into Kelowna in the Okanagan for a couple of days.  There was a heat wave at this time and it got to 40 degrees Celsius, I honestly felt like I was walking around an oven.  We spent our time wandering around breweries and distilleries (mostly for air con! :P) and hanging out by the lake.  Some wineries were also visited (had to be done its wine country!) but had to limit the intake as driving was involved.