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.