Today is my second day at the Canadian Rocky. Had a relatively good sleep last night. The solid wood bunk bed makes little noise when I turned from side to side.

It was sunny in the morning. Went to Parker Ridge with Jessica (Taiwan), Mike (Italy) and George (Austria). These guys were in Vancouver for a month-long English training. A 2.5-Kilometer hike brought us to the windy hilltop, where we admired the glacier, snowy peaks and circling eagle. After saying goodbye to my newly acquainted friends, I drove north along Icefield parkway to Jasper, then to medicine lake - a mysterious lake that drains in winter. The mystery was uncovered when it was found that water actually sank to an underground river system.

Later in the afternoon, I stopped at Columbia glacier and walked on it. From the crack in glacier, I could see 'blue ice'. I have been driving most of the day, took some nice pictures of glacier lakes, saw a double rainbow. But the biggest lesson of the day was through the hitchhikers I picked up.

I stopped near Jasper to pick up Eric, a refrigerator technician/musician from Montreal. His English is not as good as his French. He did not have gloves or raincoat. Neither did the two boys that I picked up late in the evening. They were hitchhiking to Vancouver. To get a ride, one has to stand there waving at passing cars and wait for one or two hours. Eric's trick was extending right arm for the car, left arm holding a book.

next day (9/7)