As I mentioned in my last post, the scenery between Banff and Jasper was unbelievable.
We wanted to stop so many times to look at the mountains, waterfalls, and lakes--even though the kids got tired of getting in and out of the car for pictures.
One of our stops was at the Athabasca Glacier, which Jason had visited as a child.
The trail up to the melting glacier had markers showing where its toe had been from year to year. In this picture Jason and the kids are standing where it had been in 1982--and the trail shows how much further up the mountain we had to walk to get to its current location.
In the past, people could walk on the glacier itself, but now that's restricted to those hiking with a guide--people have fallen into the crevices and died before they could be rescued.
At this point in our trip, Eric was getting a little tired of driving--and of being away from his toys. He started crying, saying that he wanted to go home.
But I thought of something that might help him get through: pizza. So, as soon as we got to Jasper, we stopped at a pizzeria, and all was once again well.
The kids loved the statue of Jasper the bear,
and the campsite here was very similar to the one in Banff. In both places, the evenings cooled off--and even got really cold--which was a nice break from the constant heat at home.
Our first morning in Jasper, though, we woke up to what sounded like someone throwing things at the side of our tent. It seemed like a mean prank as we kept getting pelted with hard objects. We heard our neighboring campers laughing and--pretty annoyed--wondered what was going on.
It turned out that a chipmunk was to blame. This little guy was running in the tops of the trees--and as he did, pine cones and large sections of dry tree branches were falling from that great height onto our tent.
I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself!
We called the chipmunk Squirrel Nutkin, since we'd been listening to Beatrix Potter audio books on our drive, and this chipmunk reminded us of that cheeky squirrel :)
This happened every morning at about the same time (7:30).
Our first day we started at Athabasca Falls--one of the most dramatic waterfalls in Jasper.
We learned about potholes caused by churning water,
and saw the incredible rock formations they caused over hundreds of years.
The kids had a great time climbing on the rocks (in places where it was allowed--this was another site with lots of warnings about deaths occurring when people had ventured out where it wasn't safe).
That afternoon we hiked the Valley of Five Lakes. This was meant to be a 1-2 hour hike, but it took us 5 hours to complete it because of a wrong turn.
The first part of the hike was really fun and so beautiful. Each of the five lakes is a different depth and--consequently--a different shade of blue.
Here we are at Fifth Lake,
Fourth Lake (ask Eric about "swimming in the nude"),
Third Lake (my favorite),
Second Lake,
and First Lake.
After the lakes, there was confusion about whether we were going the right way, exhaustion from carrying Eric, dehydration from running out of water, and endurance as we pressed forward, looking for a way out of this nightmare. We did eventually find the parking lot, but the long hike we'd planned for the next day was off the agenda.
So,the next day we decided to go to Maligne Canyon and do the easy and paved tour of five bridges. This was another picturesque place with waterfalls and rock formations.
In the afternoon we drove out to the Miette Hot Springs, at the far east side of the national park. On the way we stopped at Pocahontas trail, which led to an old mine.
The hot springs were perfect for us--with hot pools, cold pools, and beautiful mountains all around. Alaina hadn't brought her swimming suit on our trip, but the hot springs had some to rent. Alaina loved hers so much she wanted to buy it, but unfortunately they didn't have any for sale :)
Throughout the trip we'd seen so many signs about not approaching or feeding the wildlife at the national park--and, although I didn't want to see a bear when I was on a hiking trail, I was kind of disappointed not to have seen one from the car. We hadn't seen any wildlife at all--and I was really hoping some animals would come along.
I got my wish on the drive to and from the hot springs!
We saw lots of big horn mountain goats and elk
No bears, though.
Also on this drive, we saw an interesting place where people were stopping to swim. They seemed to be far out in the lake, but still only up to their knees in water. On the way back to our campsite we stopped, and Janae, Alaina and I walked out.
Janae walked far into the lake, but was still only up to her knees in water!
The next morning we headed home, taking a different route than we'd come. We stopped to see Mount Robson, which has the highest elevation of all the Rocky Mountains.
Pretty soon we were back to our green B.C. mountains, which actually seemed small after the Rockies.
We'd all really enjoyed our trip--even the camping--and would love to go back sometime and further explore Banff and Jasper.
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