Advertisement
So I have arrived in Jasper, a much smaller and less touristy town than Banff. Jasper township is the hub for the Jasper national park which seems a little out of the way for most tourists who come out to Banff from Calgary and disappear back out of the rockies. Jasper is only about 250km from Banff and it is a very rewarding drive up the Icefields Parkway. There are many spectacular scenic viewpoints and mini hikes along the way. I have to say that there are much more vantage points if you drove south from Jasper to Banff.
The majority of the lakes are still frozen and won't be melted for at least another 2 months. So if you like seeing water instead of ice, then July and August would be the time to visit the area but it is also much more crowded in the middle of the summer season. The Icefields Center is halfway up the parkway and is directly opposite the Athabasca glacier and Columbia Icefield. The Columbia icefield is massive and feeds 8 glaciers and its melt waters feed into 3 oceans. I opted against doing the glacier tour/walk as I had done the one
in New Zealand which actually looked nicer than this one.
After a few more stops to check out some amazing canyons and water falls, I made it to Jasper and decided to head straight to Maligne Lake which is about 50km from Jasper. First stop however was Maligne Canyon which shows how the Maligne river has eroded through rock over the years as it makes its way downstream. They have built 5 bridges across the canyon and it is decent exercise to walk down to the 5th and then back up again to the parking area.
Further up the road was Medicine Lake which looked like nothing more than a barren hole in the ground surrounded by mountains on one side and forest on the other. Apparently it is the overflow area for Maligne Lake when the ice water melts and rushes downstream. At the moment it is nothing to look at. As predicted by how empty Medicine Lake is, Maligne Lake was still frozen solid with only a little bit melted and trickling downstream. It does look very nice here and would be a sight to behold when its vast size has all melted.
Drove back
to Jasper town and checked into my hotel for the next 2 nights and again it is a comfortable room with a large king bed. Headed into Jasper town and did a walk around and besides gift shops and restaurants, there really isn't much else here. I bought some take-out KFC and took it back to my room to watch the NBA playoffs between Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. The Bulls ran away with the game on the back of some excellent defending and rebounding which nullified LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. Derrick Rose was the star but he had heaps of offensive help from the support players including numerous points off the bench.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.147s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0503s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb