Day 13 - Jasper, Sulphur Skyline Hike

Last night we checked the weather and as it said half decent in the morning, turning to more cloud and rain later on, Natalie convinced me that it was a good idea to get up at the crack of dawn to do our first proper hike of the holiday. This did not feel good when the alarm went off at 7am. It was blue sky when we opened the curtains and this gave me the motivation to be productive - with the proviso that I would have a nap when we finished. 

We went to Smitty’s for breakfast, a proper looking diner where we had proper diner food; french toast with bacon for me, an omelette dish for Nat. Smitty’s was just underneath our hotel and we decided that we’d just come here every day as it was quick, tasty and had friendly service. 

As soon as we finished, we got on the road to the Sulphur Skyline trail which was an hour’s drive away, desperately trying to get there before it clouded over like it had done every day. This was one of the hike’s I’d found and convinced Natalie to do as I’d seen on a few websites that it was a top Jasper hike, initially she wasn’t too bothered about it, but after researching it herself it was deemed appropriate. Other than reading a few reviews, I hadn’t really looked into the walk so I had no idea what it was going to be. 

The board informed us that it was a 700m elevation change over 4 kilometres, an 8k round trip and that we should allow between 4-6 hours to complete. We saw a few people in the car park but as far as we could tell, we were the first people on the trail (which was surely a first for Lazy Laura). At the beginning of the trail we were at 1400metres (which Natalie kept reminding me was as high as Ben Nevis), as soon as we started walking it we could feel the elevation kick in, it was so steep - much steeper than I had expected, even Nat was a little bit surprised. The walk up was dense woodland, which made it very difficult to keep an eye out for bears, who might’ve fancied a bit of English breakfast. Thankfully, we weren’t eaten, yay but we didn’t see any bears, boooo). Every now and then the trees cleared and we were treated to views of mountains and the valley. At one point another woman overtook us and sped off into the distance…and we thought we were doing well!

Fancy new walking gear

After an endless series of steep switchbacks, we finally came to an alpine meadow, which had some nice flowers and a couple of chipmunks running around. We were so happy the switchbacks seemed to be finished, then we realised that we were not going to go along a level trail that we could see in the distance, but we would be going up one last very very steep incline to the mountain’s summit. This part was so difficult, it felt like we were stopping every 30 seconds, reminding ourselves that we could do this, we’d done the Three Peaks Challenge damn it! 

Finally we made it to the top of the mountain, wooooo! We were the only people there (we wondered what had happened to Wonder Woman), the view was spectacular, 360 degrees of mountain views, beautiful. 

We walked around, enjoying the views, taking lots of photos, having the summit to ourselves even though it was pretty freezing up there; the wooly hats and layers of clothes had to go back on for a bit. Eventually, more people started to make it to the top. A nice couple asked us to take photos of them, they repayed the favour for us. 

As we couldn’t feel our fingers any more, we decided to head back down, we’d made good time on the way up so we wanted to see how quickly we could complete the trail. During our descent, we passed lots of people, we'd beaten the rush and were now the smug people coming down, saying things like “almost there” and “not much further” that we usually encounter on the way up.

I thought getting up the mountain was tough, getting down it was so much harder. The summit almost seemed like a sheer drop at this point, I was cursing myself for forgetting the walking poles that were in my suitcase (taking up allocated flight weight allowance). We made it down to the alpine meadow without having to slide down on our bums and saw Wonder Woman come from a side trail. We had a quick conversation about the other trail and how it lead nowhere (I was glad I didn’t let Natalie talk me into trying it out), then she ran off again, leaving us in her dust!

Coming down a mountain is pretty hard on your knees and toes - well, it is on mine anyway. I found it easier to jog down for a lot of the way. Finally we made it to the bottom of the trail, just as it started to rain, and in really good time - just 3 hours. We were wonder women too. I think I’m almost ready to apply for Ninja Warrior now. 

We considered going to the Miette Hot Springs after the hike as it’s at the trail head and is high on the list of ‘things to do in Jasper’, but when we got there it was in darkness with confused people standing around outside. There had been a power outage so it was closed, this helped make up our minds to just make do with the hot tub on our hotel roof so we went straight home. 

We got to the car, feeling pretty happy with ourselves, both of us thinking we didn’t even feel that tired. Within ten minutes we were both starting to feel drained and the hour drive back to the hotel seemed pretty long, even Natalie felt sleepy. We finally made it back and I got myself back into bed, as agreed! Just for a little nap…that turned into a two hour nap. A lovely, lovely, two hour nap. Natalie went for the hot tub, I just snuggled up in my duvet. 

When I finally woke up, we got ready and headed back out for some dinner. Tonight’s restaurant of choice was Evil Dave’s Grill. We saw this in a booklet about Jasper restaurants and I liked the ‘fun’ named dishes like Fiendish Falafel and Malevolent Meatloaf.

With a name like Evil Dave’s Grill and an evil themed menu, you would expect the place to be funky and probably fairly dark and ‘evil’ looking, but Evil Dave’s is just a normal restaurant with cream coloured walls and friendly wait staff. It did however, create very nice food. We shared a really nice calamari for starter, Nat went on to steak, I had a bison meatloaf which was really good. 

After dinner we went for a quick drink and a game of cards in the Whistle Stop Inn, which was the pub under/in our hotel. It looked like my luck had changed and that I might win a game of Scag, however I lost. Defeated once more, I finished my diet coke and we made our way back up to bed, planning on another early start in the morning to explore Maligne Canyon before the riff-raff got there!