Wednesday August 9 – Jasper

The day is sunny and cool to begin with, but then warmed up. Clear sky.

View of lake at Jasper Park Hotel

View of lake at Jasper Park Hotel

After breakfast we did our choice of activity: a hike along Maligne Canyon. This canyon is the result of snow melt water eroding the mostly-limestone rock. The Maligne River comes out of the Medicine Lake, but disappears through soaks in the ground into subterranean caverns and crevasses. Then the river reappears via these caverns and crevasses at the top of the canyon and rushes down the sometimes very narrow passage. It is up to 50m deep in places. At many places along the length of the canyon, about 3km, more water joins the river from crevasses. In the winter the river bed is largely dry. At a few points the water appears to be boiling – this occurs when water is being pushed upwards into the river from below ground, activated by the pressure from a full Medicine Lake further upstream.

Our shadows on canyon wall

There were three of us doing this hike along with our guide Alicia. She was very knowledgeable and showed us lots of things, including drawing our attention to woodpecker holes in trees, as woodpeckers go after wood beetles. Going early in the morning was good because there weren’t many people about, so we were able to take some great photos.

woodpecker has been at this tree

this  little chap ran across the road in front of us

After being dropped back in Jasper we got tickets to the Skytram, and went up the Whistlers Mountain. The view from up here was WOW! Mountain peaks all around, and the town of Jasper (shaped like a J, coincidentally) way below. We saw lots of lakes, some very bright blue as glacial silt sinks to the bottom and reflects the sky. There were rivers, one blue, one milky, both from glacial silt.

this beautiful dog walked up towards the summit with its owners

We, with two other couples from the group, walked towards the summit. You climb about 200m in elevation, along a 1.4km track in a bare dirt and rock alpine environment. Three of us made it – we both, and the wife of another couple, got about halfway before turning back. It was hard going and our fitness levels not quite up to it. We need to do something about this o our return home!

our hotel is next to this lake

We all came down again and went to a pub I Jasper for a drink and very late lunch. Then back to the hotel for a rest and very late light snack for dinner.