Grandpa's 60th : Day 3&4

The next morning we had the complete luxury of getting to go on a 2hr trail ride on horseback around Pyramid Lake and high up into the mountains.  The views were absolutely unreal.  The colors were breath taking!  A huge thanks to my Mom for watching the kids so T and I could both go.  I wish we had better pics but holding onto a camera while on a moving horse proved to be tricky ;)

 T's horse proved to be a bit of a wild card and bit my brother's horse and later kicked it sending my bro off on a spooked horse ride.  Good thing he swears he is a cowboy and could handle it!

 We went up some crazy high and steep cliffs and everyone of our horses insisted on walking right on the edge.

 Some of us hoped to see a bear and others were happy not to.  Our guide pointed out very fresh grizzly claw marks all over the trees.........yikes!

 My nephew was an amazing rider.  It was a long ride and he handled his horse so well.

It was seriously one of those once in a life time trips.  Loved every minute of it.

After some lunch we packed up the rest of our crew and headed up the long windy road to hike Mt.Edith Carvel to the glacier.  Baby boy fell asleep at the last minute so T offered to let him sleep in the van with him.
This was another pretty steep, long hike and Miss AL lucked out when her uncle carried her on his back.  The scenery was breathtaking.  When we got to the top lookout we scaled down the long rocky trail to the lake at the base of Angel Glacier (it looks like an angel with her wings spread out)

 

 

I loved all the wild flowers that grew in even the most toughest of environments

This is the closest we got to a group shot (missing my BIL, WR and T)

The kids couldn't resist sampling some glacier ice!

Loved this view as we hiked back.  That teal colored lake was stunning.

 

 

After the glacier we drove over the Athabasca falls.  There was no way you could capture the beauty, power  and noise of these falls with the camera.  Amazing!

 

 

 

Needless to say our kids were out in about 2 secs flat at bedtime!

 

 

The next day we took a little drive in the morning and came across Lake Annette.  We had viewed it from far away while horse riding and the color just sucked me in.  It was crystal clear and you could see every fish and rock in it.  We knew we for sure wanted to spend some more time here.

 

We spent the afternoon having the time of our lives on a river raft adventure.  I won't call it a white water rafting trip because it was very family friendly but it did have some great little rapids that made for tons of fun and left us drenched with the 4 C water (brrrrr).  Obviously I couldn't take a camera on this one.  T offered to stay behind with the baby since he has been on several white water rafting trips (thanks, hun!)

 

 Our guide was absolutely amazing.  He was born and raised in Jasper and talked the entire two hrs about the area with story after story.  It was truly an amazing experience!
We realized that our trip ended just down river from our cabins so T and WR were waiting on the shore to snap some pics of us.  We had just gone through the last of the rapids at that point and out guide let my nephews attempt paddling.  My Dad gave it a try just as we came across T.  He said he could barely move them!  The full body strength it took to paddle our raft was unreal.

 The birthday boy giving it his best shot!

 Amazing memories.

 

As we walked up the trail to the bus at the end of the trip there was an elk standing there to greet us!

 

Once we dried off we made the long drive up to Malign Lake in the tops of the mountain.  We were pretty excited to see several bears, deer and a huge caribou in our travels.  Between my sister and Dad we had 3 kyaks on the lake.  Not going to lie, this was one of my favorite all time moments.  The peace and tranquility of kyaking on the lake will be hard to beat.

 The kids loved it! 

 Positive my heart is smiling here.

We cooked dinner up there and had a little Happy Birthday cake for the birthday boy.  The headed back down the mountain and enjoyed the scenery on the way.

 We then got a pretty fun elk show when we got back.  WR and I were walking over the hot tub to meet up with the family when I turned around to see 4 elk a few feet behind us.  They stayed around the cabins and river for quite some time.  So fun to watch.  AL had to blow bubbles to them ;)

 If you look close you can see a few elk in the far right corner.

We topped the evening off by finally building a fire for the kids.  Heavenly.