More Adventures in Jasper

Jasper is a great place to relax and enjoy nature. Unfortunately, a lot of other people feel the same way and the town as well as the trail are crowded. Our next hike was Valley of Five Lakes. The hike takes you on a trail around five turquoise blue lakes of varying sizes. The water was very still and the sky reflected beautifully in the first lake we passed.

 The second lake had more of the turquoise color and still a good reflection!

 The trail was considered moderate and except for the first section where you do a small amount of uphill hiking, the rest was relatively flat.

 When we arrived at the third lake,which was actually First Lake, we had a surprise! The national park put two red Adirondack chairs at five different locations in park that the workers thought had great views. Bob and I took advantage of the chairs....

 ...and enjoyed the view!

 First Lake was the largest and it took a while to hike around it. But, the views were grand. Now this trail is also a mountain bike trail and I have to say that was very challenging. In places the trail was very narrow and rocky with steep drop-offs. We saw several people riding and a few pushing their bikes along the trail.

 During the first part of our hike, we didn't see much wildlife. We would have missed this grouse except I saw it move slightly when I walked past. I used my hiking stick to point it out to Bob and the grouse only moved about a foot.

 Toward the end of the trail the surroundings reminded me of the trail we hiked earlier this trip in Arkansas. There were rock formations mixed in with pine trees and I would have had fun exploring them.

 But, it was time to finish our hike, the sky was starting to get drippy and we needed to get ready for our evening activity---a soak at Miette Hot Springs north of Jasper.

As we pulled into the parking lot we noticed a lot of long horned sheep wandering around the cars.

 Yes, that was rain on the windshield. The rain that started at the end of our hike continued into the evening.

 Unlike Liard Hot Springs in British Columbia and Chena Hot Springs in Alaska, this hot springs was diverted and filled four pools The pools varied in heat from cold to cool to hot to very hot! Bob and I chose the hot pool. We enjoyed our soak very much after two days of long hikes.

On our way back to our car we noticed that someone was having trouble with the sheep! And the baby was being kicked by the ewe because she didn't want to be bothered while she was snacking. There was a person in the passenger seat, but the driver couldn't get close to the car.

We made it home safely even though the elk were out and about. None of them were interested in getting on the road, they were feeding on the edges of the forest.

The next day dawned cloudy with a good chance of rain so we decided to drive to see the glacier at Mt. Edith Cavell. The road was steep and had hairpin turns as we climbed the mountain. At the end of the road there was a very short trail to the foot of the glaciers. I have to say after seeing so many other glaciers that these glaciers on Mt. Edith Cavell didn't impress Bob or me. This was the other day hike recommended at the visitor center.

  We didn't stay long as the place was packed with people. On our way down the mountain we decided to take a side trip to Athabasca Falls. It was pretty impressive in its size. It wasn't tall, but the length of the falls was impressive.

 The Athabasca River carved a smaller version of the slot canyon we saw at Maligne Canyon.

 We enjoyed watching the water and the squirrel that was throwing pine cones down on us to collect later for his winter stash.

 From Athabasca Falls we went to check out the tram. If the weather had been nicer and we might have been able to have good views, we may have ridden it, but as it was, the sky was too overcast for us to see anything....even from above.

 Finally, late in the afternoon the weather cleared enough for us to venture to the Fairmont Jasper Lodge. Bob found there were some geocaches around Beauvert Lake so we took advantage of the nice weather to take another hike. The trail crosses the golf course at the 14th green. The Canada geese were enjoying the fairway and the lake!

 We also saw a family in on of the canoes paddling around the lake.

Yes, we found the geocaches around the lake, adding to our numbers. The next day would be a travel day, but we weren't in hurry as we were only going to Icefield Centre about 60 miles south of Jasper.