The Canadian Rockies Road Trip - Second Stop: Jasper

 

Our journey to Jasper started first with a stop in Wells Grey Provincial park at the Spahats Creek Falls. These falls are an incredible sight as they rush through a gap in the canyon walls. Accessing the falls was quite easy, it's a short walk done a gravel path from the parking lot to the view points. There are two main view points, one that provides a spectacular view of the canyon while the second, just a little bit further provides a nice wooden decked platform facing the falls itself. This impressive natural waterfall plunges about 60 metres into the Clearwater River. The canyon walls are formed from deposits of volcanic rock and appear to have distinct layers of rock on top of rock. It's too bad we didn't have more time here as exploring other parts of this park would have been fun. Another road trip another time....

Our drive took us through many small towns I'd heard of but never really knew where they were. The scenery along the way was just incredible. Most often the road followed by a river or railway track and was lined with valleys and forests. We certainly live in a very naturally beautiful place.  We arrived in Jasper early evening and were booked to stay at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge; a bit of a splurge for this trip. The FJPL is actually very well located in Jasper National Park and made for a good base for us to explore the area over the next few days. As we approached the entrance of the property, the FJPL had a Covid checkpoint which was one of the many protocols in place. This did slow down access the first time as they were also checking guests in after temperature checks and related questions, but once we had our parking pass we easily by-passed any line ups on other days. The FJPL is situated on the breathtakingly scenic emerald green Lac Beauvert with views of the surrounding mountains all around. The property is huge with a main lodge with accommodations along with many log cabins spread throughout the property that could accommodate upwards of eight individual, very spacious rooms. Our first night was spent in one of the log cabins with a lake view because the room we actually had booked was occupied by another guest due to a maintenance issue that occurred prior to our arrival. We received a call on the morning of our arrival informing us of this first night change and despite having paid for the other room, the hotel was full and they had nothing else available for this other guest. We were disappointed to learn this, but the hotel was quite good about it and offered us complimentary breakfast for our entire stay which was awesome! And after we tried to get into the restaurant for breakfast the first day but were turned away because they were too busy, we also got the hotel to give us a discount on our rate for one night. For the age of the resort, the room itself was nice, but had very dated decor and furniture. The room itself was on the top floor of the cabin building and was very large with a separated sleeping area overlooking the very spacious living room. There was also a wood burning fireplace, which I guess is handy in the wintertime, but did nothing for us during the heat wave we experienced during this leg of the trip.  

While the resort accommodations are all fairly dated and showing their age (a renovation of the property is overdue), and lack air conditioning, the location on the lake just can't be beat. Our real room was ready for us on the second day and was located in the main lodge, top floor with a very large outdoor deck overlooking the lake. This room was a one bedroom and appeared to have been updated slightly, but still lacked air conditioning. When we got into this room, a nice birthday surprise awaited....chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of wine. One of man little surprises on this trip, planned or otherwise. The room appeared as though it was two hotel rooms combined as a one bedroom which meant we had plenty of space....a large bedroom with full bathroom, an enormous living room, and eating area, and another full bathroom. It was certainly a nice place to call "home" for a few days. While unpacking the car during our room switch is when our blueberry mishap occurred. We had been enjoying the blueberries as tasty, healthy snacks and were looking forward to eating them for the rest of the trip. I had booked a much needed massage for day two at the hotel and it happened to fall at the same time we could change rooms, so Z took it upon himself to take care of transferring our stuff from room to car and from car to new room. It was during one of these trips when someone thought he could carry a little more than really turned out possible and our still fairly full box of blueberries fell, spilling most on the ground. Devastated by this, Z tried to salvage as many blueberries as possible, but many ended up bird or possibly even bear food over the course of the day and night. C'est la vie. 

The hotel has plenty of outdoor activities...horseback riding, golf, canoeing, peddle boats, kayaking, or SUPing on the lake, and renting bikes. We tried a peddle boat and ended up peddling around most of the lake. It takes some pretty good leg power particularly if there is any headwind which happened to us when we were trying to return to shore from the other end of the lake. Z took a SUP out one morning while I was feeling really crummy; this is starting to become a regular thing on longer vacays where there's one day or partial day where I feel sick and just don't get out of bed....this one may have been the result of some wine and not enough water in the heat, but who's to say for sure. Z is quite the impressive SUP'er and towards the end of his allotted time I managed to drag myself out of bed and met him along the shore to snap a few pics. Crazy Z then decided he needed to cool off and decided to jump in the frigid lake too, but that didn't last too long....too cold! I didn't try SUP'ing because I was unable to paddle having developed tennis elbow during Covid and so the only water sport that made sense for me was the peddle boat.... all leg power no arms.

On our bike ride to a nearby lake called Lake Annette, we saw an elk grazing on the side of the road; it wasn't scared off by our presence which allowed us to get a good photo of it. We had planned to stop and wade into Lake Annette because it is supposed to be slightly warmer than Lac Beauvert and makes a good swimming lake. As we cycled down the road leading to the lake we saw a bunch of emergency vehicles stopped at the side of the road and in the parking lot. we knew right away something was not right; someone had drowned. It was sobering to learn this and really made me dwell on the thought that you can never underestimate the power of the water, let alone a glacier fed lake.

Besides a bunch of nasty mosquitoes and bugs, beautifully coloured blue and red birds, we didn't see any other wild life on the property. Even during our early morning run around the lake, on my birthday no less, we didn't encounter anything despite hearing that on the far end of the lake you could possibly encounter bears. I guess we were either loud enough or not early enough, thankfully. 

Z thinking a dip in Lac Beauvert was a good idea.

  

We had planned to embark on an epic hike of Mount Edith Cavell on the day where I wasn't feeling so great. This spoiled the plan of the epic hike, but by mid afternoon I was feeling better and we decided to head there anyway and doa shorter condensed hike instead. From FJPL you can see Mount Cavell in the distance. It's a magnificent and prominent mountain, capped with the Angel glacier (named after its shape which looks like an angel spreading its wings) that spills over a 300 metre cliff. The glacier is rapidly melting and has created a distinct waterfall feeding into the glacial lake. In fact while we were at on the Cavell Meadows trail staring at the glacier we witnessed a very small piece break off and fall like a snow shower to the glacier lake below. It was quite the distinct sound hearing this piece break off and I can only imagine what it sounds like when large pieces of glaciers break off. The Cavell Meadows trail is an easy hiking trail lined with beautiful, vibrant wild flowers. The gravel trail has a couple different offshoots that leads you either more direct up to the north face glacier or along a more windy path that crosses a stream that connects with the Athabasca River and brings you to the same view point area. Hiking down to the actual glacier lake is relatively easy along the loose rocks that fill this part of the valley. The lake was cold, yet refreshing on a hot day. Glacier ice chunks float within the lake. The hike to the glacier lake was about 4km from the parking lot and continues further past the lake up the mountain providing many fantastic viewpoints of the mountain, glacier and surrounding valley. One thing that I found quite impressive on any of our hikes was how well maintained all the trails are. Parks Alberta does a great job in this regard.

 

As we continued on our hike up the mountain, we found a great viewpoint on top of large rock boulders that were likely the result of a rock avalanche at some point. It took a little easy rock climbing, with fearless Z leading the way, to get atop this rock pile but it was well worth the effort. Had I not been sick we would have spent most of the day here exploring the various trails and viewpoints, but unfortunately this hike was cut shortly as night was falling upon us and we had dinner plans. 

Another day trip was to Maligne Lake with a scenic drive through Maligne Valley. We had booked a socially distanced boat tour on Maligne Lake but had some time beforehand to explore the valley a bit. We stopped in at Maligne Canyon Trail. The 3.4km loop trail over the First, Second, Third and Fourth bridge took us through the wonder of the canyon and provided magnificent view points. The waterfalls and rushing water was such a wonderful sound. The surrounding forest is lush with many different trees. At one point between two of the canyon walls, is a suspended rock that looks like a heart; it's quite the marvel. The rest of the drive to Maligne Lake was filled with scenic viewpoints of emerald coloured glacier lakes, the Maligne River, and Medicine Lake. In the interest of time, we could not stop at these point or check out any of the other many hiking trails along the way. 

Our tour of Maligne Lake was not only a lot of fun, but also quite informative. Our guides provided a lot of entertainment along the way as well as we made our way to Spirit Island which was the focal point of the  boat tour. Maligne Lake is the largest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies, surrounded by snow capped mountains including the Queen Elizabeth Ranges which we learned were were named such in honour of Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1953. Spirit Island, situated at the far end of Maligne Lake isn't actually an island year round. When the water levels are not at their peak which is during the spring melt it's actually connected to the shore. Spirit Island is said to be a spiritual place for the Stoney Nakoda First Nation who believe the mountains are physical representations of their ancestors. Visitors are not allowed to step foot on the island. Maligne Lake is a popular for canoeing, kayaking, and fishing and is a popular spot for tourist. We also learned that about 80% of the forest in the Jasper area is infected by the pine beetle and while many trees are still green, it is only a matter of time before they also turn brown. It's extremely devastating and particularly that nothing can be done about it with our guides saying the only way to kill the pine beetle is for a forest fire to burn the forest and allow it to rebirth itself afterwards. After our tour was done, we enjoyed a great meal on the outdoor deck at the View restaurant. Our table overlooked the lake and it was a great way to end our tour of Maligne Lake. 

This wouldn't be a post about Jasper if I didn't include a quick bit about Jasper town. The town is definitely a tourist town, lined with gift shops and restaurants. It's quite a quaint town but certainly devoted by the lack of tourist business this summer. We had a great dinner experience at a family run restaurant called Syrahs of Jasper. They did a great job of ensuring proper social distancing for their guests and the staff were all well trained. The are known for their Alberta bison and so we decided to try two different bison dishes. The smoked bison ragout was probably the better of the two, with the bison sirloin missing the mark a little bit. Their house salad was amazing though and came in quite a large portion. All in all though it was a good restaurant.