Weekend Getaway on the Icefields Parkway

We had an excellent weekend of motorbiking along the Icefields Parkway, it is a beautiful road with world class scenery on a regular day, but the fall colours really were impressive, not to mention the 25C temperatures, pretty rare for late Sept in Banff. It was actually -2 at night, but by the time we hit the road it was perfect for motorbiking.

We stayed at one of the rustic back country hostels along the way, very basic with no running water or electricity, but it did have a beautiful wood-fired sauna next to a mountain stream. Very, very nice. What made it really interesting is that when we arrived someone was calling to us from the front porch, it was an Austrian couple who we met on the street in Colombia last year during our 50,000km Canada - Argentina - Canada trip!!! We had not seen or talked to them since. They have been on the road for years, traveling on their bicycles, they carry their para gliders with them on their bicycles and have paraglided all over south america. Really cool people. In addition to us and the Austrians there were also a German couple - it's the second time we've been there and both times we were the only Canadians.

In addition to 600km on the bike, we also got in a stunning 12km hike, so all in all I got to do many the things I like best; ride a motorbike, spend time with friends, have a nice sauna (I used to live

in Finland... ), drink wine, stoke a fire, hike. All in all, a pretty good way to spend the weekend.