Jasper - August 14th – 18th

We drove the Icefields Parkway twice: once on our way into Jasper and once on the return trip. The Icefields parkway is a famous scenic stretch of highway through Banff and Jasper National Parks. It is stunning with incredible views and massive, yet quickly retreating (sad face), glaciers along the way.  On the 14^th, we stopped to gaze at Peyto Lake, Crow Foot, Bow, and Athabasca glaciers, as well as completed a 3-mile hike along Parker Ridge to a viewpoint overlooking Saskatchewan glacier. Much to our dismay, we were not actually allowed to hike ON the glacier without paying an outrageous fee to take a glorified truck less than a quarter mile onto the ice. Oh well, the views were spectacular regardless, and we saw a black bear along the side of the road. We did, however, have to make 6 stops due to some spicy meat sticks that Andy had eaten the day before.

Peyto Lake

View of Saskatchewan Glacier from Parker Ridge.

On our way up to Miette Hot Springs the next day, we saw people wading into a gigantic lake. It looked like a bunch of Jesus’ out there (walking on water), but turns out that the entire glacier lake was just less than knee deep. We stopped and spent at least an hour walking through the water with Tucker. For those of you that do not know, Tucker HATES water, but he was a champ, followed us out there, played water fetch, and even got his belly wet… no small miracle (maybe Jesus was there!). After our adventures in Talbot Lake, we saw a momma bear and her cub along the road while we were driving up to Miette Hot Springs. The baby was adorable as it tried to play with the momma in the middle of the road! After recovering from a short bout of cuteness overload, we soaked for a few hours in the pools at the hot springs. Warmed, rested, and relaxed, we headed back into Jasper for some research and planning for the coming days.

Tucker pseudo swimming in Talbot Lake.  

Momma bear and her cub!

The following day, we ran some errands in town and saw Medicine and Maligne Lakes before starting our 3^rd backpacking trip to Jacque Lac (French for lake). It was pouring rain as we were starting the hike in leaving the trail a muddy disaster. The elevation gain over the 8 mile hike was negligible, but we were exhausted by the end of it, as our legs had still not recovered from all of the hiking over the past weeks. The Canadian National Park backcountry campground was… interesting. There was a common area with three picnic tables, fire pits, and bear poles and a separate area where the tent sites were crammed together like sardines. There were eight other backpackers at the lake, all of which were locals from the surrounding area. Unfortunately, I got pulled by Tuck into the mud along the trail around the campground and my new shoes were soaked. So being the genius that I am I took them off and cleaned them in the frigid river/lake, before realizing that now my shoes were wet and I did not have any others. So, no big deal, I’m a problem solver (and per my previous mention, a genius) I’ll just dry them by the fire…. WRONG, I’ll melt the plastic of the sole of the shoe by the fire. I was so disappointed!  

Backpacking to Jacque Lake.

On the 17^th, we hiked out from Jacque Lac and quickly went to try and snag a campsite near Jasper. It was already after 2pm and we had not reserved a campsite so we were worried we would be SOL. Luck was on our side, however, because we pulled up to the first campsite (which was reservation only) and asked if there was any chance something was available. She said no, they were full, but there may be one site available at Wapiti, only 5 minutes away. She called over there to confirm it was still available and then sold it to us right then and there. While she was on the phone another couple pulled up to the other side of the window. They were told that all campgrounds were full in Jasper and were directed 40 minutes away to an overflow camp lot for the same price as we were paying!

Basking in our glory, we went to our site and took showers. There was a humongous buck in the campground with more points on his antlers than either of us had either seen. After snapping some photos, we went to the Jasper rodeo where we lucked out again getting parking on site even though they said in town that none was available! Although the pro riders were much better than those at the rodeo in Jackson, the entertainment factor was disappointing. The speakers cut out and the clown was… inappropriate. Two examples: 1. He pointed out (with extreme enthusiasm) that a family in the audience was from the UK, but ASIAN! He made this point several times as if we should all be shocked, explaining that he was not sure if they were Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. but they were ASIAN! And from the UK! 2. He asked a man in the audience where he was from. The man responded that he was German. Then the clown (who had a mullet by the way) made hand gestures that could only be recognized as Nazi salute before partially correcting himself and altering the gesture into a touchdown celebration move. To make things even better, I got clocked in the jaw by the shoulder of a teenager trying to make his way out of the grand stands. You might be asking yourself, how did that happen?... well, I’m not exactly sure, but it hurt A LOT and that is the take away message.

Buck passing through our campground.

That night, we woke up at 2am to see the stars since it was the last night of a meteor shower. Unfortunately, the full moon was more like the sun that night and we couldn’t see anything. We got up in the morning and started our southern decent. We got a campsite at Wilcox Campground off of the Icefield’s parkway and left for a hike from our campsite up Wilcox pass. It was an incredible hike with amazing views of the glaciers. We voted it best hike of the entire trip, even though we were completely “hiked out” by this point. 

View of Athabasca and Dome Glaciers from the trail to Wilcox Pass.

View of Athabasca Glacier from Wilcox Pass.