To coin an overused North American word, the Rockies have been awesome. We have spent two weeks in Banff and Jasper National Parks but the highlight was the week spent cycling along the Icefields Parkway - the 230km road between the towns of Lake Louise and Jasper which is just packed with mountain views.

We flew into Calgary from New York (having successfully argued with the United Airlines groundstaff that we should not be charged an additional $100 per bike). From there a 2 hour bus ride brought us to Banff and our first views of the Canadian Rockies. Here we reassembled our bikes on the forecourt of the hotel we'd treated ourselves to and stocked up with five days of dried food - yummy! - as the Parkway has no food shops.

We initially cycled to Lake Louise and stayed three days to hike some of the trails around its beautiful glacial lakes.

Thankfully the weather was pretty good to us. Although there was some rain and nighttime lows of 3 degrees we had great views most of the time. The near-freezing temperatures weren't too much of a problem as we stayed in wilderness hostels. These were great places to socialise and so it was that we came to know Alastair and Suzanne, a lovely couple from North Vancouver. We took a day off the bikes to go by car back to the Lake Louise area and do a hike to 2611m with them followed by a sauna and shower. The latter was a particular luxury as the wilderness hostels don't have showers. Most of them don't have electricity either.

The highlight of the Parkway was the Colombia Icefields and the Athabasca glacier. The visibility wasn't so good when we arrived- having puffed our way up to 2030m to get over the Sunwapta Pass - but suddenly the clouds parted, the sun appeared and we did a great hike up to get views of the glacier and surrounding snow-covered peaks.

Unfortunately we didn't see any bears or moose. But we did see a majestic bull elk sauntering through the campsite in Jasper while we were having breakfast. Getting back to camping in Jasper was a challenge as the nighttime temperatures remained around freezing and we woke to snow on our last morning. From here we will take a 20-hour train ride to Vancouver where we will stay with Alastair & Suzanne before exploring the Vancouver area including the Canadian and US Pacific islands.