Day trip to Jasper area, Alberta, Canada

27th June 2012 - Day trip to Jasper from Hinton

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Jasper is about an hours drive from Hinton. We left at around 10.30am  to rather grey skies and howling winds. It was 9deg C when we got up and 3deg C the morning before. There is National Parks checks before entering Jasper-you need a pass to enjoy any of the National Parks.

Entry to the town of Jasper. It is 13deg C but with the winds, it felt colder.

Downtown Jasper with the Whistlers Inn in the photo.

This 12metre totem pole is a replica of the original Raven Totem Pole carved by Simeon Sdiihldaa.

The original pole had deteriorated over the years and a new one was commissioned. It was completed in 2009 and was moved to the Jasper Railway Station and now carries the new name of 2 Brothers Pole.

A write up on the Totem Pole that stood in front of the railway station.

The original totem was carved in 1870 by Simeon Sdiihldaa, Chief of the Raven Clan.

Lunchtime and we are checking out the restaurants. We spotted Prime ribs being advertised at the Karouzos Steak House.  Oddly enough, it offers greek food. We had to come back as the prime rib wasn't quite ready. Not cheap but it is fine dining-I had a lovely Chilean Sav. Blanc with my rainbow trout and Tom had Chilean Merlot with his  "doorstop" size prime rib.

Another restaurant - one would have thought that being in the Rockies, Jasper's busiest time would be the ski season but apparently its July/August that's their peak season. We saw quite a few ads in restaurant windows for waiting staff.

This cafe has cleverly used Kale amongst other flowers.

Tom checking out the menu at this restaurant - we almost ate there!

Went in, sat down, looked at the menu and left without the waiter even knowing!

The restaurant we "almost ate at" had a beautiful display of flowers at the entrance.

These were roses (that really smelled) amongst some lilies.

We spotted some unusual mulch in use at the Jasper Visitors Information Centre - they are mini pine cones.

The waiter at the Karouzos Steak House was most helpful in pointing us to where we could see wildlife. This is the bridge that takes you into Maligne Lake (pronounced Merleen).

Within metres, we spotted some Mule deer grazing along the roadside.

White water rafting heaven....the Maligne River rushes headlong at tremendous speed.

The calm before the storm(so to speak)-but the river is still running very fast.

Beautiful Medicine Lake-the water is a lovely delicate lime green.

It is a 38km drive into this park area.

We passed some Mountain Sheep totally engrossed in eating-what we don't know.

It was obviously very tasty as they paid no attention at all to people stopping to look. 

Some of the kids were just interested in gamboling and playing while the adults had their feed.

Maligne Lake - elevation: 5568ft above sea level. Temperature: 9deg. Celsius.

Some sections of the road are quite winding, but road conditions were good.

Spotted this caribou amongst the trees just at the edge of the road. So far no bears but I think we were too early in the day for bear spotting. 

They were not likely to be standing at the roadside at 2pm waving at us as we drove past!

Some of the roads into the trails were closed due to flooding.

At some parts of the lake shore, the water was almost lapping at the road.

On the way back to Hinton, we saw this fine specimen of an Elk on the roadside. Check out its antlers! Tom noted that we had not seen any roadkills so far which tends to indicate that the wildlife population is dwindling??

These Mountain Sheep were also at this stretch of the road a couple of days ago-a much larger group than the one we saw on the 25th.  They appear to be moulting - making them look like they were wearing threadbare pieces of carpets!

Hinton Golf Club & Beaver dam

26th June 2012 - Hinton :Sunset-11pm

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We were quite surprised to see this large IGA supermarket in Hinton, its open 24hrs and offers free dry RV parking.

We had to make a trip to the local hardware store-part of Hwy 93 is quite bumpy as in like "bucking broncos" and we had to do some minor repairs to Al after we got to Hinton.

Hinton Golf Club-Tom thought this clock was a great idea-it reminds players if they are playing on time. Hinton has a population of 10,000 people and this is the only golf course here.

Robie will understand this one-its a bench sponsored by Tommy Boys' Sanitary Vac. Services.

Must be the female version of the "Honey Bucket"!!

This little lake at the golf course is an exquisite blue-the photo doesn't quite show how lovely it is.

It looks as if someone had dumped a whole lot of "blue loo" into it.

A few of the holes at this course were atrocious-it was like playing in a farmer's field with lots of furrows. This hole was quite challenging- the only flat bit of the fairway is a narrow strip in the middle, whilst both sides of the fairway are steep and form a V.

As you can see, this course has a lot of elevated holes. We felt it was overpriced for the condition of the course, but if you are the only course in town you kind of own it and can name the $$.

We took a drive at around 8pm to the Beaver Boardwalk in Hinton. This surprisingly tranquil piece of wetlands has 3km of boardwalk, all built by volunteers and sponsored by the local businesses.

This amazing beaver lodge was huge..you have to admire the dexterity of the Beaver.  All that fallen timber and mud walls was done by a Beaver - within minutes of us standing by the lake, we saw a beaver retrieving a piece of timber and placing it on that pile.

We saw this beaver at another lake adjacent to the first one. It was just munching away on something and was not fazed by us.

 There were quite a few people at the Boardwalk with their dogs but people appear to be quite mindful of the beavers and kept their dogs under control.

Just as we were about to leave, there was a bit of a commotion - apparently this Beaver was not happy with a dog that it felt had got too close on the boardwalk and it made a great slapping noise. It had in its mouth a piece of freshly broken off branch and it was off to add it to its already large home(the Beaver version of flowers for the little lady perhaps?)

There he goes......

Golden to Hinton, Alberta, Canada

25th June 2012- Golden to Hinton

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We had 3 days of lovely sunshine at Golden but unfortunately the weather turned foul and rained from then on.  Instead of staying on for the full 7 days, we decided to move on to the other side of the Rockies.

As we had a fairly long trip to Hinton, we left at 7.30am.

Low clouds covered the mountains.

It was pea soup weather at some sections of the highway to Hinton, Alberta.

We took it nice and steady as there was a lot of roadwork going on as well.

A fleeting glimpse of a fast flowing river - after the rains, we noticed that the rivers were a lot higher and faster flowing.

We are now well and truly on the Icefields Parkways, one of the most scenic drive in the world. The Icefields Parkways traverses the Canadian Rockies and straddles Banff and Jasper national parks. You need to buy a Park Pass to go through this area.

Just when I thought I had taken enough photos of snow capped mountains, there was always another even more spectacular visage around the corner!

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Visual overload!!

This is what you can expect on Hwy 93 North from Banff National Park all the way to Jasper National Park.  Lake Talbot is huge..is it one of 5 lakes in the valley.

We had noticed that there were a lot more Class C motorhomes in Canada rather than the lareger Class A. We were told that to drive a Class A you had to have a special licence.

Managed to snap these 7 waterfalls....pretty nifty when you've got the car window down and travelling at about 80/90kms/hr.

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Wished we knew the names of the mountains we passed...the rivers are fed by the glaciers and they all had a milky blue colour to them. Possibly due to the mineral sediment??

At last, a sign with a mountain's name - we stopped for lunch at this beautiful spot.

Getting lunch ready inside Al.

What a gorgeous day for dining al fresco!

As we neared Jasper, traffic slowed down to a standstill....there was an elk by the roadside.

Further along the road, another traffic jam...some mountain sheep had found some tasty morsels in the middle of the highway!

More mountains...we noticed that a lot of them have had slippages.

The temperature was around 13deg C. on that day but the wind chill factor was probably a lot less.

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A photo of us together!