A belated report from Banff

Harro everybody, we are currently sitting in an internet cafe in Vancouver with half the screen covered in Japanese- not sure how to change the settings! Anyway, since our last report we've actually done quite a lot. Our journey from Calgary took us to Banff, home of Canadian skiing and all things mountainous. After equipping ourselves with warm sleeping bags (Em's goes down to -12 degrees so she can never seriously complain about being cold again... ever) we made our way to, wait for it, a 'Youth Hostel'. For the unitiated, these places offer cheap accommodation in 'dormitories' where you get to share your hopes, fears and body odour with several Dutch, Scousers and the obligatory Japanese photographer. I love communal living- no really. Enough of the rant.
We've been incredibly fortunate with our timing- 20 degrees and bright sunshine coupled with autumnal colours has been quite spectacular. We managed to do some serious trekking miles in our new boots and get some incredible pictures. Obviously this is bear country, so every 2 minutes we've had to call out "Hey bear" (which gets a little tiring on a 6 hour hike!) And Gran, rest assured we have also equipped ourselves with 'bear spray'- an ingenious device for repelling even the grizzliest of bears (albeit at close range).
Having spent 3 nights sharing tales of "ooh I went to Thailand too" with several co-bunkees we set off in search of the 'Icefields Parkway' en route to Jasper. This is dubbed as being the "most spectacular journey in the world", and to be fair- it's not far off. From the comfort of your own 3.9 litre V6 Chevrolet Impala (or similar) you can witness countless glaciers, inspiring peaks and the deepest of canyons. Truly amazing stuff. One of the highlights was being able to drive up to the foot of one of the largest glaciers in Canada, the Athabasca Glacier, which is as deep as the Empire State Building is tall. So far, so good.