Jasper National Park, AB (Part 1 of 2)
Of lakes, mountains, and glaciers
The drive from Banff to Jasper, on the Icefields Parkway, was justifiably ranked as one of the most beautiful in the area.
We had gotten a taste of the first few lakes and glaciers, near Lake Louise village, so we drove through the first 50 miles, and began to stop at viewpoints of lakes, mountains and glaciers — oh, my! — the rest of the way.
In rough order, headed north, our stops included views of:
The Saskatchewan River Crossing and the Howse Pass
The “Gushing Waterfall”: we stopped by what looked to be a lookout point because, TBH, there were many other cars and RV’s parked in the lot. From far away, we could see quite a few people following a well-trodden trail along a fast-moving creek. There were no signs posted to indicated what was in the vicinity — a waterfall? a mountain pass? a glacier? — so for all we knew, someone could have been trying to find a private hidden nook to do pee and had been mistaken for a guide to a good view. If nothing else, the color of the creek was gorgeous — an icy light blue. To make sure we were not hiking in vain, I inquired of a couple coming down a steep hill if the trip was worth it.
“Oh, there’s a beautiful waterfall at the top; water is just gushing through! I mean, it’s steep, but I made it, so you should be OK…” So we continued. It didn’t require a hike as much as a bunch of scrabbling up tree roots and rocks, with the path washed out and eroded in quite a few places. And yes, “gushing” was a good description for the water.
There were a Weeping Wall and another Bridal Veil Falls.
The Columbia Icefield, which according to the markers put down by Parks Canada, was getting shorter and shorter each season: markers with specific years gave visitors an idea of where the toe of the glacier was; we had to hike quite a distance compared to years past.
After this point — only about half-way to Jasper — we skipped all the lookout points because we had to make it to our campground before it got dark. We would try to make it to the other views another day.
Wapiti Campground could be kindly described as “rustic”: facilities were a bit outdated and the campground itself seemed barren with many tree trunks left as evidence of a previously shaded location. I later learned that many trees had been chopped because they had succumbed to the wax beetle disease, victims of the ravages of climate change.
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The day seemed to go a bit sideways.
First I had to set an alarm to synchronize it to a different time zone, according to the release dates for campground reservations at a national park. In order to prevent that unfortunate chance of clicking through bikes and chimneys to prove to the computer gods that I was not a robot, I even turned off my VPN. At the appointed time, I was ready, signed onto my account, and with my chosen campsite on my screen.
And it was already gone.
My immediate instinct was to choose the next site I saw — never mind which one exactly, how close to the bathroom, whether big enough for our van, for who can possibly have a camper smaller than ours? My order went through, and the day’s work was done. Back to sleep.
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I woke up again to a phone call from Grandma, complaining that her computer was not working. When I asked her to text me a photo of what was showing up on her screen, the best I could figure out was that Microsoft had automatically updated her laptop and now wanted her to “Verify Your Identity”. So I spent some time trying to get her to move the cursor to the right box, fill in the secret email, get an authentication code, etc. It just was not working, and in both our voices on the phone I could hear that panicky pitch of both desperation and irritation.
Until I saw, on one of the photos she texted me, that the “Verify Your Identity” box had a little “X” for closing that page. What the heck is the point of that kind of security theater when all one has to do is ignore it and sign in as usual? After having spent 57 minutes on the phone — and getting more than 15 texted photos from Grandma — I was upset that the solution was idiotically so simple.
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Something in us make us constitutionally unable to be unproductive, so in order to not “waste” the day, we drove to Jasper village to get groceries, stop by the visitor center (where the French-accented ranger tried to tell us that we could call out to marmots chanting, “Meow, meow…”; even he confessed it was a bad joke), and drive by Pyramid Lake and Island.
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We were on the hunt for another lake as beautiful as Moraine.
We began by hiking the Maligne Canyon — everybody it seemed was in Jasper to hike the Maligne Canyon — up to Sixth Bridge (out-and-back, 5.4 miles). By this point, it was nigh impossible to avoid comparisons: Maligne Canyon was a smaller version of the Johnston Canyon in Banff. (Although the former was pretty, we preferred the voluminous and bombastic latter.) And despite what the reviewers in the trail app said, the hike to Sixth Bridge was not worth the non-existent views. The only thing of note was a helicopter delivering what looked to be a massive boulder to the nearby parking lot. The hike back on Trail 7h made one wish for the ability to travel back in time, for it was a long, hot, uphill hike to… a parking lot.
From there, on to Medicine Lake, a light icy blue color, gorgeously large lake. The challenge was the dead trees — from the beetle or from wildfires or from both — encircling the whole valley around the lake. A sign by the lake got certain visitors excited by a nest of bald eagles in one of the tree tops. The nest itself seemed awfully exposed, but we didn’t see any eagles or eaglets around.
Maligne Lake was the main attraction in this area of Jasper NP. It was large but its color was difficult to identify from the lakeshore; we had learned in Banff that glacier lakes were best viewed from above, so we hoped to be rewarded after a hike to a high-up viewpoint… on another day.
Closer to our campground, we stopped by Annette Lake, which, because of their proximity to the village, seemed to be well-loved by tourists and locals alike: there were lots of families and friends having picnics, boating, and swimming. Lake colors were tantalizing but also not brilliant and deep like, well, that other lake.
Ditto for Edith Lake.
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