Day 14 - Again Jasper

Two jobs to sort out first thing today. One, pick up the new hire car, two, exchange some travellers cheques because the cash is running low.

We walked down to Jasper town centre and found the Avis Car Rental booth on Connaught Drive. Everything in order, the girl serving us (who looked about 15, and probably weighed less than the ring she was wearing through the side of her nose) told us our car was the red one across the road. She pointed out of the window to a horror of dents and scratched paintwork.

"That?"
"No, the one behind it."

The clouds parted, angels sang, and there he was, His Majesty. My throat dried instantly; from here, it looked like a Bentley.

When booking a vehicle for this sort of journey, I have two things in mind; space and comfort. We need space for the luggage, we need comfort because we're travelling hundreds of miles. I don't want some little short-wheelbase boneshaker that you put on rather than get in. By the same token, luxury isn't one of my criteria when it comes to booking a car for this sort of holiday. However the problem, when booking on a North American website, is that it says things like, "Example of this range : Chevrolet Impala". I have no idea how big a Chevrolet Impala is. So I try to book on a combination of price, estimated size, and how many suitcase icons they have by the side of the picture of the car.

His Majesty is a Chrysler 300. He has wood trim on the inside. He has an options menu I can use to switch on and off various features, like the "beep horn on door lock" option (effectively, I can turn off his keypad bleep). He has an LCD screen on the dashboard on which I can display my photos. Display my photos? Yes, because he has an in-built 28GB hard drive that I can upload things onto. I'm driving a car that has a hard drive. I'M DRIVING A CAR THAT HAS A HARD DRIVE.

It's insane.

Too scared to drive him initially, we went to the bank and exchanged some of my two year old travellers cheques for cash, then came back.

And now we came to a moment, the harsh reality of a promise casually made two years ago. At that time - almost to the day - in this very town, we were faced with a choice; we had half a day left, did we go on the very-high-vertigo-inducing Jasper Tramway, or did we go to Maligne Lake?

"We'll go to Maligne Lake," I'd said, my fear of heights making the decision for me. "I promise we'll do the Tramway next time we're here."

Today was next time.

So we set off along Connaught Drive, Sandra barking directions at me until I told her to shut up. Didn't she realise I was using 95% of my brain to drive this car? (Breathe in, breathe out... contract myocardia... ooh she's pretty.)

The Tramway is only about 5 miles from Jasper town centre. It was completed in 1964, and provides a means of getting from the ground to almost the very top of Whistlers Mountain, taking you 3000 feet up in 7.5 white-knuckled minutes (I should point out that this mountain is completely different to the Whistler Mountain in British Columbia; this one gets its name from the whistling sound made by the hoary marmot that lives on and around the peak). If you want to get to the very top, you have to walk the rest of the way, and at your own peril.

I was expecting there to be a long wait for a free gondola to take us to the top, but no, like the Icefield Parkway in 2008 we only had to wait about half an hour (and like the Icefield Parkway, they call each trip a flight - which, I suppose, it almost is). They called our flight, Flight 25, at 12:36, and we boarded our gondola along with about twenty other people. I wasn't enjoying myself, and grabbed hold of a rail quickly.

The flight took off and before I knew it we were over the carpark with a sickening drop below us. But to be honest, that was the worst part of the journey. After that you're over the side of the mountain, and even though a "gravitational disaster" at that point will still kill you, it doesn't look that much of a drop.

Of course, once at the top and on solid ground, the whole thing was worth it, especially with the sort of good weather we were having. From the Upper Station, almost 7500 feet above sea level, Whistlers Mountain rose up behind us. It appears devoid of wildlife (it was certainly devoid of those damnable pine-trees), but information boards told of the Alpine creatures that eke out an existence, even up here; the aforementioned hoary marmot, the white-tailed Ptarmigan, the ground squirrel, all form part of a micro-ecosystem at the top of the mountain.

To the northeast we could see the town of Jasper, J-shaped and nestled into the valley alongside the Athabasca river. To the northwest, over 50 miles away, almost imagined rather than seen, Mount Robson rose up out of the Rockies. To the southeast, that same mountain range marched off into the seemingly impossible distance. This time I really could see for a hundred miles.

We had a coffee and biscuits in the Treeline Restaurant, Sandra beaming fit to split, me enjoying myself but still remembering we had to get back down. If you're a hiker, you can head on up to the top of the mountain (at your own risk, as the guides are keen to point out). If you're a sightseer, you catch the next convenient "flight" back down - they go every 7 or 8 minutes, and we were back on proper ground by about 2pm.

We then drove out to Medicine Lake, ostensibly so that I could get a little more used to driving His Majesty, but also because it was a nice day and Medicine Lake is a beautiful lake. After a while there we drove back to the hotel, parked up, and walked into Jasper for some souvenir shopping and a well-deserved Kokanee Gold beer.

The day was rounded off with dinner at another sushi restaurant (more chopstick hilarity, but she's getting better), and now we're packed up and ready for the long haul back to Vancouver.

Lots of adventures still to have yet.