Jasper

May 26   Banff to Jasper National Park   183 miles     6hrs

The view from my bedroom window

This morning we got up and it was clear skies! I couldn't believe it. After 4 gloomy days, we get sunshine on the morning we're leaving. We're driving on the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. The Icefields Parkway, also known as highway 93 north, is one of the most scenic drives .








We stopped at the Columbia Icefield Centre to take a lunch break and check out the Athabasca Glacier. I read about the tour to the glacier on the giant ice explorer. We decided not to do the tour, it cost $50 each person for 1 hour. We could see the glacier just fine from the Centre.

On the drive over, we didn't see any wildlife, which is unusual because everyone said there's a lot of wildlife on the road. When we got to our campground, Whistler's, we had to stop on the way to our campsite because a mama elk and her baby was crossing our path. Joe thinks the baby was just born because his legs were very wobbly and he fell down and had to rest before getting up again.

This is a bear trap kept on our campground, Whistler's. I guess we're not doing much hiking around this campground.

 The weather is better here. The high was 57.

In the afternoon, we took a drive to Patricia Lake and Pyramid Lake & Island.

Patricia Lake

Pyramid Lake

Walkway to Pyramid Island

May 27     We drove out to Maligne Canyon this morning.

We ended up doing a hike of over 2 miles and it took us about an hour. Maligne Canyon is a deep gorge with water flowing thru. This is one of the top attractions in Jasper and I can see why. It's simply amazing! The hike was pretty strenuous for us and we were breathing pretty hard and had to take lots of breaks. The scenery was absolutely worth it.

After the hike we drove about an hour to Miette Hot Springs. The water felt wonderful after our hike.

  There was a lot of wildlife on this road. These big horn sheep
don't care if cars are coming.

We thought this was a moose but now we think it's an elk. We don't even know what we're looking at. All I know is....it was huge!









 May 28     Today we took  a half hour drive to Athabasca Falls.

The falls were spectacular and it had a trail surrounding the area so we spent some time exploring the area. The temperature was very comfortable, mid 60's.

Our 3 days at Jasper was very enjoyable. The weather was perfect.