Escape to Jasper

Delayed birthday present from my amazing boyfriend. Rather than a gift that I wouldn’t use or would use one he decided that I would prefer to have an experience. He knows me well.

The day we left Banff was horrid. Pouring rain, low lying clouds and of course we drove one of the most beautiful highways in the world, but could not see a thing. Either way it was nice as we drove a road we’d never seen and managed to see a few black bears. Some of which had people out of their cars taking photos of the bear within meters. This infuriates me. I can not begin to tell you how stupid this is.

Once in Jasper we set up camp (in the rain) and wandered down on the Athabasca River. It was nice to not rush and to take time.

First day we got up slowly made breakfast and coffee at camp and wandered into town. We just wandered shops and got coffee. Jasper is such a cute town. Many souvenirs stores of course as it is one of Albertas most visited spots. But the stores are all locally owned, only a couple of chain restaurants but all the buildings are all similar looking and the town information centre is located in a Central Park with lots of flowers. It is a very quaint and quiet town.

We decided to travel up to Maligne lake from there. Like every other visitor to Jasper. It is around an hours drive up Maligne Road. This is a gorgeous road with lots of lakes and stunning mountain views. I assumed once at the lake you would be able to see Spirit Island. You can’t. You need to take a boat 14 km down the lake to this point. Andrew and I thought maybe you can canoe -if you want to pay the extorted fee of $60 an hour for hire.

We went into Jasper brewing company for some lunch. We have a tradition of going to the locally brewery everywhere we visit. I had a Key Lime Cream Ale and Andrew the Bear Ale- which was like a blonde. DELICIOUS! and the food was good too!

After Lunch we wandered around town while trying to figure out what to do that afternoon. I thought lets go north up towards Sunwapta Falls. Turns out that its actually south and we drove close to 45 minutes East and only decided to turn around as we got bored and saw the Jasper House. (which I add is across the river from the viewing platform and is only a plain field). Turns out people had used the materials of the discontinued trading post for parts so there is no longer a “house”. We just wandered round the viewing platform and found some MASSIVE wolf footprints. Those who know me, know that wolves are my favourite animal and to see that a footprint was almost the size of mine blew my mind. I was not only excited but scared as they were relatively fresh.

That night Andrew and I decided to hang out and cook dinner and relax. Ofcourse we made s’mores except they were on a burner not a fire (due to a fire ban). So it was nice to relax and chill out with Andrew. Both os us were exhausted due to lack of sleep the previous night due to it being freezing and rainy and because a special someone had decided he wouldn’t need a sleeping bag and instead ended up stealing mine.

Final day we woke up late, as we slept in cos we were exhausted. Got up and had breakfast in coffee in town. Oh so good!! I am a super coffee addict so I was in dire need of one and the cafe WickedCup makes a delicious almond latte.

From Jasper we started driving back to Banff and made many stops on the way. Stop 1 was Athabasca falls. So crowded as I guess every man and his dog decided to do the same. Very cool though! The water has eroded the rock enough that it created a valley where the water gushed through. You could also walk through an old water way that became to hard for the water to erode.

From here we kept driving, seeing 2 black bears on the way, also surrounded by tourist! Stopped at Honeymoon lake which was a cute stop and a campground (which I really want to stop at again). Pictured below. After that it was Sunwapta falls which was a bigger version of the Athabasca falls and a much deeper canyon. We decided to stop just before the Columbian Icefields for lunch. We stopped in front of Mushroom peak on the side of the highway and bbq our lunch as well as have a coffee. This was a nice relaxing way to break up the long drive home bating in the hot sun.

One more stop after this was for me to go to the washroom (because of coffee overload) at the Athabasca Glacier. There were small signs on the side of the road which indicated where the glacier had been at a certain year. It was crazy to see how much it had regressed over 90 years! Almost 1km if not more. Seeing how many glaciers actually cling on to the mountain walls and deep into the valleys triggered my scientific mind (which has been dormant for a few months), so I went full nerd and explained to Andrew how the Valleys within the Rocky Mountains formed.

After the glacier it was a straight drive home. But it was nice to be able to see the sky scraping mountains that we had not seen on route to Jasper, appreciating my new found home.