Rocky Mountain Retreat 2008
Banff National Park - Lake Louise
Aug 20 - Our first stop after leaving Yoho National Park is the amazing aqua-marine coloured Lake Louise in Banff National Park.
Hidden behind this blue-blue lake is the Chateau Lake Louise... ok it's not so hidden. As the rains picked up again, we went into the Chateau and connected to their WiFi to get an update on emails before venturing back into the drizzle. Such a contrast between the Chateau and the campsites we had been staying in, none of our campsites had a woman playing a harp.
After a brief visit with a very friendly chipmunk, we headed back down the mountain to find a non-resort site at the Lake Louise campground, a far cry from the resort up the hill.
There is a lineup as we pull up to the campsite, but there is lots of spaces available. It's out of the norm for us, but we decide to choose electrical hookup over forested privacy. The ranger says "Can't you go for one night without hookup?".. we've gone every night without hookup, I need to charge up my camera batteries. It's not the typical RV parking lot style, but it's only one night.
The campground in Lake Louise is broken up into 2 areas, on one side of the river is the RV campsite, suitable for hard sided campers, trailers and RVs. On the other side of the river is the tent and soft-sided campsite, this area is surrounded by an electric enclosure including electrified cattle guards. The fence was added after the campsite had to be closed in 2001 due to the number of bears that travel through the valley in that area. The bears avoid the fence and can travel safely through the valley, and tenters don't have to worry about waking up to teeth and claws.
After setting up the camper and plugging in my battery charger we decide to go for a walk along the river separating the 2 campsites. As we are walking down the trail we hear what sounds like an animal screaming and three loud shots. Horrified that a bear may have just been shot we slowly continue down the path. A ranger comes out and we ask what the ruckus was. "I had a bit of an argument with a Grizzly that wanted to cross the bridge I was on, so used a screamer and bear bombs to change his mind". Basically a lot of noise makers to convince the Grizzly to stay on the tenters side of the river. We decide not to cross the bridge and stuck to our side of the river.
After our walk we spent some time talking to our German RV neighbours that didn't have a corkscrew, and with no campfires allowed in the RV campground we made an early night of it.
Aug 21 - After a refreshing shower it was time to head North to Jasper along the Icefields Parkway. As we travel along through Banff National Park we stop at many of the scenic areas. The first of the stops can be seen from a distance, another gem of a lake nestled into the mountains.
As we arrive at Bow Lake we are amazed at the colour of the water, an amazing turquoise created from the silt of the eroding glaciers in this area. Sadly the skies are white and grey.
The entire stretch of the Icefield Parkway is awe inspiring with it's rugged mountains, snow, waterfalls, and jewel-like lakes. As we drive along this area, you truly understand why it is called the Rockies. Nestled in the rocky hillside is the Crowfoot Glacier, its impressive shape explains why it's named that, but global warming has seen one of the toes melt away from the glacier.
Bow summit is the highest road pass in the four rocky parks at 2,088 meters (6,849 ft) above sea level. From Bow summit you can see another turquoise jewel, Peyto Lake. At one end you can see where the glacier melt flows into the lake, at the other the blue nestles into a dark green forest.
As we continued towards Jasper National Park the weather took a turn for the worse, so aside from a couple roadside scenic stops we skipped Mistaya Lake and made a run for the border.
The last gas stop before heading into Jasper National Park is Saskatchewan Crossing. It's basically a "supply and demand" stop with the highest priced gas we would find on our trip. Our plan was to have lunch at the pub here, on the menu was a selection of grilled meals, the twist is that you cook and prepare it yourself on a large grill. $15-20 for a burger that I have to cook, made it easy to bail when the waitress ignored us for 10 minutes. Instead we ended up in a cafeteria.
Jasper National Park
With almost $170 worth of gas, our first stop in Jasper National Park is the Columbia Icefield. If only the weather was more cooperative we would stay. Instead it becomes a bathroom stop, a single photo, and we ran from the rain, planning to stop here on our way back to Banff.
The rain slowed down enough by the time we got to Athabasca Falls, that we took the short hike to the falls. We've been here before, but it is still impressive. Athabasca Falls is not very high by Canadian Rockies standards, but the size of the river makes it one of the most powerful falls to be found in the national parks.
The rock formations are equally impressive in this area, you just have to be sure to pay attention, as apparently it's easy to slip and fall into the roaring water of the falls.
The crows or ravens here in Jasper National Park are huge, they are the size of an Eagle. It is a little funny as we watch this crow walk across the parking lot to check out a little Chihuahua on a leash. The woman with the dog panics when he gets too close, and picks up the dog, probably a good thing as the raven towered over him, and the little dog probably looked a lot like a gopher. Norine flipped him a pretzel as a consolation prize, he rapidly swallowed it down, and walked around our truck where he regurgitated it back out, apparently like me, crows don't like pretzels.
Unlike the campground in Lake Louise, the Whistlers campsite in Jasper is much more treed and forest like. We set up our tarp so we can pull in and out, and the water drains off without pooling. Jasper has always been one of our favourite National Parks, we'll stay here for a few days.
It is our favourite park because we have always been lucky to see lots of animals, always. As we walk to the bathrooms we find ourselves right in the middle of an Elk family. Two large females, and a young calf. They basically ignore us as they chew on shrubs, berries and grass. One of them finds a nice dry spot under a tree, and settles in for a rest. We finally leave them to go to the bathroom, and they are wandering right behind our campsite when we come back... ahhh Jasper!
Norine leaves some little piles of Sunflower seeds around, and we end up befriending a local squirrel, he ferociously defends his hood from other squirrels, nobody else is getting near this jackpot! Since we paid our campfire fee, we made good use of the free wood, and enjoy a night under the tarp by the fire, we even roast up some good old Jiffy Pop popcorn.
Aug 22 - Strangely it's not raining when we wake up, and we pull out from under the tarp and head up Maligne Valley Road. It's a 70km trip past Maligne Canyon and Medicine Lake to Maligne Lake.
Maligne Canyon is an amazing example of limestone erosion, the Maligne river has carved a narrow canyon that goes as deep as 50 meters (165 ft) in some sections. Along the canyon is a nice hike that crosses 6 bridges, many people start at the first bridge, we smartly start at the third one.
I'll never understand why people would come to such a beautiful natural location, and then toss coins onto a cliff edge that can't be cleaned up, at least it's not cigarette butts I guess.
Further up the Maligne Valley road is Medicine Lake, a colourful little lake that drains into one of the largest underground river systems in North America, surfacing again in the area of Maligne Canyon 16 kilometers downstream. During the summer, glacier melt waters flood the lake, sometimes overflowing it. In fall and winter the lake disappears, becoming a mudflat with scattered pools of water connected by a stream. It's mixture of colours come from the fact that the draining action leaves the lake very shallow.
As we are heading back to the parking lot, I catch a slight movement in the trees. Just to the side of the trail a large deer is grazing in the trees, all the other tourists wander by without a glance.
Maligne Lake is the largest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies, 22 km long. Ringed by snow-and-ice-capped mountains, after a lunch overlooking the lake we would take a 90 minute boat tour to the scenic Spirit Island. The island is 14 kilometers up-lake and there is no road or trail access. Tour boats or private, non-motorized craft are the only means of reaching Spirit Island.
You may have seen Spirit Island before, it is one of the highest selling postcard images of the Canadian Rockies in the world. The islands name comes from a photographer. He entered a picture of the island in a photo contest, and when he won, they asked him for the name, he said "it's a photo that captured the Spirit of the Rockies". From that day on, it was known as Spirit Island.
After returning from our well worth it $70 boat tour, we wandered back up to the parking lot, only to discover another deer right on the path. She checked us out and kept on eating flowers.
After leaving Maligne lake and heading back towards Jasper, we come upon a few cars pulled to the side of the road, so we pull over to the edge, and cross the street to see a mother black bear and 2 cubs wandering along the shore on the other side of the Maligne river. One cub is black, one cub is brown, it is so great to see them in a safe encounter, where stupid people can't be stupid.
Oh yeah... stupid people, the few cars pulled to the side quickly become a major traffic jam. One girl stops her car in the middle of the road and leaves it running with the door wide open while she wanders the roadside to take a picture. Many more just stop in the roadway and take pictures out the window. Now I don't condone his action, but I can't blame him, but one impatient guy, obviously on a very time sensitive vacation starts honking his horn at the cars in his way.
Mama bear and the cubs didn't like that too much and head off into the forest.
After the bears left, all the stupid people got back in their cars and the traffic jam cleared. We continued back towards Jasper and the main highway, and then headed East towards Edmonton, turning off on Miette road towards the town of Miette, well, actually, towards Miette Hot Springs.
Have I mentioned how much luck we have in Jasper National Park? As we are driving along to Miette, a Huge Elk is on the side of the other side of the road, so we pull off the highway, and enjoy watching him from the safety of our truck. As we are sitting there he crosses the road right in front of us, and starts grazing right outside Norine's window. A few big rigs blast their horns as they go by to let him know to stay off the highway, but he ignores them, checks us out and goes back to grazing. After leaving him to graze we wind up the hills to Miette hot springs and pass a mama deer and 2 Bambi's, before I can even turn my camera on they are gone.
It's another 70km trip from Jasper to Miette Hot Springs, but boy was it worth it. We wound our way up the wild Fiddle Valley into the hills, and in the parking lot a deer is grazing.
Miette Hot Springs are the hottest mineral springs in the Rockies. Flowing from the mountain at 54°C (129° Fahrenheit), the water is cooled to a comfortable temperature of 40°C (104°) as it enters the pools. Apparently it's healthy for you, but the two smaller cold plunge pools are supposed to be good for your circulation, after sitting in the hot pool, and then going into the cold plunge pool, the only health image that went through my mind was 'heart attack'.
After a very relaxing evening enjoying the hot springs, and a nice dinner while sitting on a small restaurants patio nestled in the mountains, we headed back to Jasper. On the road home we passed a half dozen elk on the side of the road. It was too dark to take a picture, so we enjoyed the sights and headed back to visit with our squirrel and sit around the campfire.
Aug 23 - That morning we headed into Jaspers little town for gas and groceries. Jasper has grown around the edges with some cute resort style abodes, but has still retained it's small town feel.
After another expensive fill up, we headed up the Whistlers summit to ride the Jasper Gondola, but being Saturday morning there was huge lineups. Rather than waiting 1-2 hours we turned around and headed south on the Icefields Parkway towards Banff.
Finally we had some nice weather, so we stopped at some of the locations that we skipped on the way up to Jasper, the first was Sunwapta Falls. We turnoff onto the road up to the falls, and as we are driving along there is a huge dip in the road, erosion, frost-heave, I don't know, but our huge truck and camper looked like the Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee as it flew through the air.
The stunt driving was worth it, Chaba river uniquely winds and splits through a hanging valley, and comes together into a carved waterfall gorge. The hike through the forest up to Sunwapta falls and around the river provide very dramatic views. Panorama pictures don't do it justice.
Not every amazing waterfall requires a hike, or a battle with crowds in a parking lot. Sometimes you can just pull over to the side of the road and enjoy a beautiful cascading waterfall.
We stopped again at the Columbia Icefield, this time we could stay longer as it wasn't pouring rain, and you could actually see to the top of the glacier. But the wind was blasting and blistering cold, as we ate lunch in the camper it was being blown around. Having been here a number of times over the years, it is kind of sad to see how much the glacier has receded from the 90's.
The area around this end of Jasper National Park is awesome, with Craggy mountains, snow topped peaks, glaciers and turquoise lakes, sometimes you just have to pull over and smell the fresh air.
