Maligne Canyon

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It is mighty cold this morning. We packed the car with our stuff, and waited in the foyer to be picked up. It's been snowing and is pretty cloudy so I'm not sure if we'll drive to Banff this afternoon.
Trevor our guide picked us up for our Maligne Canyon Icewalk. There were seven other people in the group, a family of five from Northern Canada and a couple from Sydney. We had to call into the store to pick up winter boots and ice cleats, which was handy because the weather had turned really cold, although they didn't quite go with my nice new and pretty woolen gloves.
When we got out to the canyon Trevor said it was -15 degrees celsius. We were rugged up good and proper, and we were on the walk so we didn't feel the cold too badly. Even with the cleats on we still slipped on occasions, but luckily neither of us had a fall. Trevor didn't just walk us out and back, he also gave us a run down on the native flora and fauna, and how the river is formed. It's so cold that you would think that the river would freeze as well, but the water that runs through the river is about five degrees celsius and comes from glacier melt within the rocks.
The walk wasn't demanding, but you had to be careful where you walked. We got to a part where you could climb down into caves, but we didn't have the equipment so that was the end of that. The next part of the walk made up for it though with frozen waterfalls that you could walk behind. We took heaps of photos, which led to my hands being frozen.
On the way back Trevor showed us these berries that bears eat, they would have to eat an awful lot though as they were tiny. We didn't stop for anything on the way back which kept us warm. The couple from Sydney, Christian and Nicole, were heading to Banff as well so we offered to give them a lift. They couldn't get out of their accomodation, and they didn't mind going tomorrow. Beck was pretty keen to go today, and the guy in reception said today was the best option, but I wasn't so keen as it had been snowing all morning and the visibility wasn't great. We went to the tourist information place to check their advice. I was worried that they might close the road, or it would be too dangerous to drive tomorrow, but I knew the views would be awesome and the visibility heaps better. The ladies advice was that the driving would be no worse tomorrow, so I thought that would be the best option. In light of this we went back to The Athabasca and booked another night. The other bonus of spending another night in Jasper was that we could relax a little bit as we needed it. We rang lots of people back home, but I had forgooten that we were an extra hour ahead now, so a few people got wake up calls! It was good to hear the familiar voices back home, and then we retired to the bar for lunch and drinks. We spent the entire afternoon reading and writing, as well as drinking and lounging on the couch in the bar.
We forced ourselves out of the bar to go and find something for dinner. While we were looking we bumped into Christian and Nicole again, they must have thought we were following them, but it shows you how small a town Jasper is. They took up the offer of a lift to Banff in the morning.
All of the restaurants were a bit too expensive for our liking, so we settled on the pub across the road. Dinner wasn't that great, and was probably due to us choosing by price rather than what we actually wanted. I had started feeling pretty ordinary so I was looking forward to bed, but when I tried to get to sleep I couldn't, frustrating.

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Photos

View through canyon
This is normally metres under water.

Ice formations
The varying heights are due to the differing temperatures overnight.

Comments

[Nephew Benjamin]

Awesome Waterfalls
Hi Uncle Dan and Aunty Bec, the waterfalls were sensational. It looks very cold there, but i am sure you are having a lovely time. Mum and Dad almost shivered when they saw it was -15, but really enjoyed looking at the pictures of how the waterfalls looked from behind under the cliffs. Love you both!