MONTANA CANADA TRIP - Day 13. Jasper National Park to Prince George, British Columbia

Ever heard of Prince George? I sure hadn’t until we planned this trip, and that's one of the reasons I wanted to check it out. Turns out it is a university city of approximately 70,000 in the geographic center of British Columbia. In fact, Google was in Prince George a few days before we were, with trucks and video cameras to capture street views for Google maps.

But I digress. Our projected drive for the day was 250 miles so we looked for advice about what to see and do along the way. Fortunately, I met Lorraine, the Jasper Lodge travel agent, who has a house in Prince George and makes the drive often. She gave us good advice and we turned a four hour drive into an eight hour touring excursion with no trouble at all.

The scenery northwest of Jasper was quite lovely, alternating mountain ranges and wide open meadow land. We reached the Continental Divide right at the Alberta/British Columbia border and at the edge of Mt. Robson Park. Here is Jonathan at the Divide:

Right here at the Continental Divide is Portal Lake, and small but charming lake that was exceedingly photogenic!

We stopped at Mount Robson Park Visitor Center, for a break, a chance savor the awesome view of the mountain and walk through the meadow.

Further on, we stopped at the Ancient Forest, a blip on the road which Lorraine told us not to miss. This are is an isolated rain forest ecosystem; surrounded by mountain, desert, and prairie; that is one of the amazing quirks of nature, the exception that proves the rule. The area is known for its "ancient" red cedar trees. We stopped for a walk. We did indeed get rained on, and though we enjoyed the cedar trees, they didn't have quite the impact on us, since as Californians we are so familiar with the sequoia sempervirens in our area.

We arrived in Prince George at the end of the day, tired and hungry, to a horrendous B&B situation, which I won't go into here. After some serious discussion over a mediocre meal and a stiff drink, we decided to pay the cancellation fee and remove ourselves from the B&B. An awkward moment, for sure, but we hightailed it over to the local Best Western, and I've never been so comfortable in a Best Western as we were those two days in Prince George.

More photos

Accommodations: Best Western Prince George ***