We woke up to grey skies this morning, which was a bit disappointing, but we had a hike around Maligne Canyon planned and as the view was all downwards into the canyon, blue skies didn’t really matter!
We had breakfast at Smitty’s again and recognised all the same staff from yesterday. I’m not sure if they recognised us.
After breakfast we got our stuff together, packed our matching waterproof coats and drove the 20 minutes to Maligne Canyon. We tried to get there as early as possible to avoid the thousands of tourists that would inevitably be there later in the day, all doing the same routine of “I take picture of you in front of thing, you take picture of me in front of thing!”
The first sight of the canyon took my breath away. I hadn't really expected it to be as deep (50m) or impressive (very) as it was (Laura: Natalie never trusts me, when will she learn my research skills are awesome). There are four bridges that cross the canyon, we were at bridge number two.
We walked up the trail to the first bridge and saw a thunderous waterfall that plunged into the bottom of the canyon. The sheer power of the water made me feel a bit uneasy. How safe was this bridge?!
We took some photos and than set off on the trail to hike down the canyon and loop back via a forest trail that ran along the slop parallel to the canyon.
Along the way there were many spectacular views of the canyon.
A lot of the water in the canyon comes from underground channels that are fed from the “leaky” Medicine Lake a few kilometres up from the canyon. The water works it way underground and then arrives at the canyon in caves and opening in the hillside. The water from these sources was an aqua blue colour. The main canyon water was definitely more muddy from the recent rain.
We hiked all the way down to the bottom of the canyon and to the Athabasca River. We then hiked back via the forest trail and worried we might not make it because the hillside was so steep!
We drove back to Jasper and on the way we noticed that some cars had pulled up on the shoulder of the road – a sure sign that there’s some wildlife around! When we stopped and looked in the grass to our right, we could see that a wolf was stalking something in the distance which was the size of a meerkat, but obviously not a meerkat. We sat for five minutes watching as it creeped forwards ever so slowly. In the end it gave up and walked off in the direction it had come. It was very exciting.
The weather had improved a bit by now so we wandered around Jasper and had an ice cream. We asked for one scoop each in the smallest cone as we didn’t want to spoil our appetites for dinner.
We made the most of the improved weather and went to Pyramid Lake to see Pyramid Island and get a nice view of Pyramid Mountain. I decided if the weather was nice the following morning I’d try and get here for sunrise to take advantage of the reflective lake and to get some nice photos.
Back at the Whistler’s Inn we had a soak in the hot tub and looked out upon the view. The weather in Jasper was lovely now, so rather than sit in a restaurant with no view, we decided to go back to Earl’s for dinner and sit on the upstairs patio.
We got a table on the patio and the view was awesome. Blue sky and mountains all around us. We ordered nachos to start and the waiter came over with a bowl and made the guacamole in front us. Laura found a new favourite cocktail and I tried a local beer. We ate our mains and admired the view. Finally, Jasper had rewarded us!
We went back to the room and packed and crossed our fingers that the weather for the drive down the Icefields Parkway would be good.
At 10pm we went to bed - even though it was still light outside!
No comments:
Post a Comment