Day 8: Jasper National Park
September 16, 2012
Mount Robson
If I had to sum up the day today by a single word, it would probably be “lakes”. We started early at Valemount, after breakfast in our “own” kitchen. We quickly made it across the border from British Columbia into Alberta (and into another timezone). One of the many spectacular views along the route was Mount Robson, the second tallest mountain in BC. I was driving today, so Katrin experimented with taking shots with the X100 from the passenger seat.
Soon we entered Jasper National Park. The scenery got more beautiful with every passing kilometer, and it didn’t take long before we entered the pretty little town of Jasper. We only stopped for a short break before taking the road towards Maligne Lake. Now, what you have to imagine is a simple paved road, winding through sheer endless dense forests, with a new view behind every bend and elevation, and with every car going to the same destination as yourself (since the road is a dead end). This, combined with a 60km/h speedlimit and the very likely sighting of wildlife makes for some interesting driving ;)
Medicine Lake
Lake Maligne was as beautiful as you’d imagine it to be (the canyon with the same name wasn’t). We hiked the short 2.5km Moose Trail which runs alongs the Lake shore for the last few hundred meters. As usual, the weather was perfect, sunny but not to warm, blue skies all day long. After Maligne, we took the road back to Jasper and only stopped twice, once at Medicine Lake, where we had lunch and saw a moose cow swim across the lake. We had also seen some big-horn sheep earlier, but still no bears.
Lake Annette
Before we checked into our room for the night, we decided to spend some time at Lake Annette, a few kilometers from the town center. We found a quiet and warm spot on a wooden pier and just sat there for a while, feet in the water. Our room tonight is in a very lovely guest-house in one of Jaspers neighbourhood streets. Jasper itself is really cute: It’s small, it’s clean and it has lots of outdoor stores which are surprisingly well stocked, considering the remoteness of this place. We had pizza in town, and one of the local beers (with a glacier on the label). Tomorrow well head south, destination: Lake Louise.
Dinner ;)
Lots of photos today, enjoy! (And leave comments ;)
