Jasper to Calgary

July 24 – hot and sunny, ~6000km from home

After a so-so sleep we got up, took another shower and then repack the car, which has been getting increasingly disordered.

We didn’t have a chance to stop at the Columbia Icefields the previous night so we backtracked a little. Josie wanted to get a picture of us in front of the Athabasca Glacier because there is a picture of her grandparents in front of the glacier from a trip they took through the Rockies in the 70s (or around then). We couldn’t find the exact spot, probably because we were going from memory and they have built a new interpretive centre, not to mention the glacier has receded. But we got some good pictures.

We dodged traffic to get across the road and hike up to the glacier. Parks Canada seems to discourage foot traffic by making it as inconvenient as possible to walk from the interpretive center to the glacier...most of the 100s of tourists there just drove across the road and up to the glacier, less than 2km, grrrrr.

People looked like a trail of ants as they walked from their cars up to the foot of the glacier. We did our best ant impressions, a sure sign we have been on the road together for too long... I don’t think anybody even noticed. The foot of the glacier is roped off so people can’t actually get onto the glacier...we were sort of disappointed but it was probably for the best because we have seen people do some pretty stupid things lately...like how about stopping your car in the middle of the road so your children can get out of the car and have their picture taken with a black bear less than 3m away. Hmmm.

When we left the glacier we drove towards Lake Louise with a few scenic stops along the way. If we thought the Icefields were overrun with people, we had no idea of how bad it would be in Lake Louise. We were nearly sideswiped twice in town by people who didn’t know the rules of a 4-way stop, yikes.

We went up to the actual Lake Louise and had a good walk around the lake, where there were still lots of people but they were slightly more chill. The lake itself was quite lovely, a bit cloudier than the ones we’d seen elsewhere in the mountains but still emerald green. We took a nice stroll along the shore and admired the wildflowers and an itty-bitty “Least Chipmunk” – so cute! We ended up walking all the way to the other end of the lake before turning around. Also made use of the fancy bathrooms and headed back to town with the intention of picking up a few groceries.

The grocery store was hilarious and we ended up walking out without any food...we couldn’t bring ourselves to pay $8 for a jar of salsa and $7 for a can of refried beans. We decided to find a campsite and eat what we had left in the food box.

On the way out of Lake Louise we saw an ENORMOUS male elk, bigger than we could ever imagine. We ended up finding a relatively low-key campground called Castle-Mountain and settled in for some supper. We were happy to stop for the day in a nice campground in the woods. We had a nice surprise to... a German lady named Heike from the site across the road brought us some fresh, home-made sourdough bread. She said that she had made too much. It was delicious and really put us in a good mood, not to mention it helped increase the satisfaction of our canned soup supper.

Athabasca Glacier

Michelin tires on the glacier buggy!

Golden Mantled ground squirrel

Glacier close-up

Lake Louise

Least chipmunk - Mom, I want one!

July 25 – hot and sunny, ~6200km from home

When we hit the road in the morning we were on the way to Banff. Perhaps we were still rattled from our experience in Lake Louise, perhaps we’d just had enough tourist crap by that point, but we decided to give the town of Banff a miss. Though we did drive through on our way to the Hoodoo hiking trail because Josie wanted to see where Jessie D had lived for so long. The town seemed nice, clean and well kept, but as we drove through we saw a sign for a Louis-Vuitton store, confirming that we had made the right decision not to stop in Banff.

We did a very short hike outside of Banff town, the Hoodoos trail. The hoodoos turned out to be pretty lame but we did have a nice view of the Banff Springs Hotel, Sulphur Mountain and the Bow River. And we got to see a coyote on the trail so we were happy.

We left Banff and went to Canmore in hopes of finding a normal town atmosphere to eat lunch and run some errands. We went downtown and ate lunch at the Bear Paw Brew Pub – yummy and very filling. Their beers looked interesting but neither of us were in the mood so we tried some house made root beer. It was very good and gave us a sugar rush. We did our errands and made sure to make a few “I’m Mike from Canmore” references before we left!

After Canmore we headed straight to Calgary and found our campground very easily, just outside of Canada Olympic Park. We had intentions of checking out the downtown nightlife but, once we settled in at the campground, it never happened. We had an afternoon nap, caught up on some reading, took it easy and eventually found a grocery store... a scarily large Real Canadian Superstore in Calgary Suburb Hell. We were just happy to get our hands on some fresh food, including BC fruits and berries.

We were still full from lunch so only had a small snack for supper, fresh food! Had a shower and fell asleep quickly.

Lame Banff hoodoos and Bow River

Sulphur Mountain and the Banff Springs Hotel

Fryatt Valley - Jasper National Park

The next three days chronicle our 3-day backcountry hike into the Fryatt Valley in Jasper National Park

July 21 -

We finished packing our backpacks with gear and food for 3 days and then drove to the trailhead. We had a stop at Athabasca Falls because it is so popular and was less than a minute from the trailhead. Lots of water and lots of tourists.

Our first day we decided to be ambitious and hike 18km with a 550m elevation gain. We also mistook where the trail actually started and ended up hiking an extra 2km that we could have driven, oh well. With all our canoe camping this spring (where you don’t have to carry things on your back except for portages), our packs were a bit heavy for such a long backpacking trip. But the scenery was amazing!

The first 12km or so of the trail were very flat, as we traveled south in the Athabasca valley, on the opposite side of the valley as the Icefields Parkway. We crossed lots of fridged mountain streams but there were rustic bridges for the most part. Josie was super-paranoid about meeting a grizzly bear but we made lots of noise as we traveled and had our newly acquired bear spray just in case. We didn’t end up seeing a bear. We paced ourselves because we knew that the last 6-8km were a steep climb as we climbed up into the Fryatt Valley, another glacial valley that fed the main Athabasca Valley glacier. Lots of wolf scat on the trail and some scattered ungulate bones. We also saw a species of moss that only grows on carnivore poop (...thanks to Harold we know what it looks like!).

We were pleased that the hike had gorgeous views, as this is not a popular hike in the park compared to some other well-trodden trails. This also meant we didn’t meet an overwhelming number of people.

The last 6km were exhausting as we gained more and more elevation, but the views kept getting better. And we heard a rock slide in the distance and saw a small avalanche higher up, above tree line. By the time we dragged our sorry butts in to camp we only had energy to cook the easiest supper we had on hand. We shared our campground with a French couple doing the exactly same trip as us and a Dutch fellow who was traveling around the Rockies. We had a pretty quite night and went to bed early after hanging our bags on the specifically built bear poles and hiding our hiking boots from a giant porcupine who had a reputation for chewing boots.

We are camped here for two nights so that we can do a day hike tomorrow.

Athabasca Falls

How much further do we have to go?

Rustic bridge and icy cold stream!

Looking up the Fryatt Valley

July 22 -

The Fryatt Valley is a narrow valley between Mount Fryatt and Brussels Peak, which culminates in the “headwall,” a large vertical drop, over which flows a good-sized waterfall from the alpine meadow above. At the base of the headwall is medium sized glacial lake and at the top of the headwall is a cabin built and maintained by the Alpine Club of Canada (the materials for which must have been dropped in by a helicopter).

On our second day of hiking, we made 5-6km day hike, up the headwall and into the alpine meadow above for a bit of exploring, gaining about 250m elevation, reaching a maximum elevation of about 2000m. We explored the alpine meadow, which was full of amazing flowers and ground squirrels - the perfect place to meet a grizzly.

The peaks towards the terminus of the valley and above the headwall had permanent snow on them, but we stopped just short of reaching a snow patch above the tree line...Scott was bummed out because he wanted to roll in the snow. But, we could see rain moving into the lower valley and we wanted to get back to the headwall and start the steep hike down before the rocks go too slippery.

About 45minutes later we were at the base of the headwall (much faster than the climb up!) and it started to rain. Made it just in time. By the time we made the 30-45 minute hike back to camp the rain had stopped and it was time for supper. Tonight we made pizza from scratch in the outback oven (dehydrated scratch that is). We went to bed before it got dark because we needed a good nights sleep for tomorrows 20km hike out to the car.

Montane wildflower - Paintbrush

Alpine wildflower

Alpine wildflower

At least someone swims in the glacial lake below the headwall

The view while climbing the headwall

Alpine wildflower

Alpine wildflower - Moss Pink

The alpine meadow above the headwall

Columbia Ground Squirrel in alpine meadow

Nifty

Above the headwall

View from the top of the headwall

July 23 –

The weather changes fast in the mountains. By the time we got out of bed and started boiling water for breakfast, the weather had gone from clear and sunny, to foggy (couldn’t even tell you were in the mountains), back to sunny with a few cumulus clouds.

We packed our gear and got on the trail as soon as we could. Today we hiked back out the Fraytt Valley the way we came, just under 20km. Our packs were lighter and it was mostly downhill. We stopped for lunch at a really great viewpoint that looked south, up the Athabasca Valley. We left our packs at the actual trailhead and hiked the last 2km to the car, driving back up the road to pick up our packs (we came to really regret the mistake of adding 2km to an 18km hike). Josie likened walking without a pack to “walking on the moon”.

We got on the road towards Banff/ Lake Louise with finding a shower on our mind. We stopped at a hostel, thinking we were going to splurge but they didn’t have running water. Moved on to Saskatchewan Crossing, a touristy stop past the famous Athabasca Glacier, where we paid too much for a motel room with a shower...but it was a good shower. And we spread out all our wet gear to dry, dirtied all the towels and watched TV (a weird experience).

After eating a very late supper in a self-proclaimed pub, we tried to get to sleep but were restless being in a motel room and not sleeping on the ground enclosed by a tent...weird how you get used to something.

Looking south down the Athabasca Valley

The Fryatt Valley from the Icefields Parkway

Nojack, AB to Jasper, AB

July 19 – hot and sunny, ~5800km from home

Josie got her wish – we had leftover perogies for breakfast, making it three perogie meals in a row. We didn’t have far to travel to get to Jasper so we had a slow morning. We stopped to get supplies and do errands in Edson, then on to Jasper.

By the time we got to Jasper it was mid-afternoon on a Saturday in July and the lineups were huge. We stopped for a picnic lunch because we were starving, only to have a guy pull in and tell us not to leave food out because a grizzly had just crossed the road...after we packed up our food we saw our first and only grizzly bear, a small one near a pond about 75m away.

By the time we got to town there were tonnes of people and the 3 closest campgrounds were full, totaling more than 1250 sites...we hurried to the next campground and got a tent site before it also filled up. We ended up camping in the Wabasso campground (where there had been 5 black bears reported that day).

We went back to town in the evening to have a shower and do laundry. Luckily things had died down a bit and we ended up having a nice swim in the pool, a soak in the hot tub and a game of water-handball...all so that we could have a shower.

Our laundry finished at 10pm and we were feeling lively so we went to a local brewpub, the Jasper Brewing Company. We shared a sampler of their 6 in-house beers. They were excellent. Our favorites were one made with Okanogan honey and coriander, one made with wheat and hops that had a hint of banana and one called 6060, which was a porter with such a rich roasted flavor that it reminded us of chocolate and coffee – delicious. We went for a walk about town before going back the campground around 1230 or 1am.



July 20 – hot and sunny, ~5800km from home

We came into Jasper town early to get advice on backcountry routes and decided on a 3-day hike in the Fryatt Valley. We stopped by the gift shop to get topo maps and some field guides to western things (wildflowers and birds). Then we headed to a day hiking trail just outside of town, Old Fort Point, and went for an afternoon hike. The conditions on the trail were hot and dry, a very montane experience. It goes without saying that the views were spectacular, and the Athabasca River, where we ate lunch, was freezing...colder than the North Atlantic. Brrr.

We still had some errands to do before our 3-day trip into the backcountry so we spent the evening in town and ended up going on a small diversion before getting back to camp...we took a side trip to Mount Edith Cavell, the snow capped peak that is the star of the Jasper skyline. It was dusk so we didn’t go hiking but we checked out the alpine plants and snapped a few photos before heading back to camp and packing for our trip. We had a nicer sleep than our first night because the weekend rowdies had gone home and the campground was half empty.