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30-31 Jul

Peyto glacier and lake is a fantastic short walk with magnificent views off the Icefields parkway in the Rockies.

It’s sobering to see how rapidly many of these glaciers have retreated in recent times.

There were some gorgeous cheeky squirrels and Least chipmunks too. One squirrel ran in front of us and dig up a buried nut and ate it right there at our feet!

Hector lake was another impulsive stop on the Icefields parkway and we decided to go in for a couple kms hike and had a brief swim in the icy blue water which was magic.

Along the parkway we saw our first ‘Bearjam’. That is – hoards of crazy tourists holding up the traffic to see a black bear eating berries. Well if you can’t beat em…

Was fantastic to watch but I want my next bear to be with less people!

Howes pass was used by generations of First Nations as a route east from the Columbia River Valley through the rugged Columbian mountains and was a short-lived gateway for European traders to the interior of British Columbia from trading posts in the foothills of Alberta.

It is interesting to see how history here seems to differ from back home, initially at least, in how First Nations worked closely with and traded with fur traders with less of a power imbalance.

Further down the road we spotted mountain goats up the cliff scraping the earth for salt. We didn’t get a real good view but Ron spotted them with his binoculars and a guy in the rest area could see some too but he said was trained to spot them in his job as a guide for sheep hunters.

The Columbian ground squirrels were so cute munching away on the field flowers getting fat for winter hibernation.

The Columbian icefields are 325sq km of ice up to 365 m in depth and feeds eight glaciers.

The Icefields Discovery centre sounded good but was quite a disappointment. There wasn’t much discovery going on with the lower floor interpretive centre shut for renovations ( really? In the middle of the short peak tourist season?). The rest was just cafe and restaurant and ticket lines for the glacier skywalk and the snocoach which takes you out on to Athabasca glacier. That sounded good until I looked up and saw the glacier heaving with tourists and it doesn’t even take you out to the actual icefield. Great for making it accessible for people not capable of getting on a glacier any other way I guess but decided to skip it. And driving past the glacier skywalk it looked like it wasn’t near the best views of the glaciers anyway.

These water falls tumbling down impressive cliffs and canyons weren’t even marked and were just at a random pulloff on the Icefields Parkway.

Stopped in at other beautiful falls along the way. I think if you stopped at everything here you could take weeks to get down the Icefields Parkway but I have meetings to get to…

Pulled in for a break at a rest spot and decides to go for a little hike into Buck lake and Osprey lake. There were lots of berries there so we were a bit worried about encountering bears but we were armed with our bear spray. Felt like we’d gone into the wilderness being at a stop with no other tourists only to get to the end and look across Osprey lake and see holiday making tourists in their floaty boats! Doh!

To top it off our wilderness style named Osprey lake was in fact named Honeymoon lake further down the road where the tourists go in to swim. What a laugh!

Speaking of bear spray we were chatting about it’s use as we walked along and something came out about it being single use. Ron seemed surprised and said ‘ Oh glad you told me that. They should tell you how to use this stuff.’

Umm who is this mysterious ‘they’ ? I replied ‘THEY did – it’s called instructions….’

Our lunch picnic spot was just a random pullover but it still had some of the prettiest views.

Beautiful Rockies picnic spot

A couple of young guys were picnicking too and it turned out they were Aussies. We found this out when having a cold beer for lunch. We’d cooled a couple down in the river the night before. When cracked that can their heads snapped like you wouldn’t believe- I think that was the moment we guessed they were Aussies? We offered them our last one and you’d think we’d handed them a million dollars…

Athabasca falls was crawling with tourists but it’s worth a stop- pretty impressive beautiful falls. As always the crowds thin out the further down the track you go til at the end we were on our own.

We were still intently looking for wildlife but nothing. We were starting to wonder about this supposed wildlife that’s meant to be everywhere. We ran into two other people though who said they had been here ten and twelve years ago respectively and they had seen loads of wildlife even on the sides of the road but this year nothing. Hope that is not a sign of something…

Mind you, when you see this kind of thing in the cafe at the service station you start wondering if that’s where a lot of the wildlife goes!?

We finally saw some elk but ironically it was just on the outskirts of Jasper town and outside the national park and it was only the ladies so not the beautiful big antlers.

We decided to keep driving around the outskirts of Jasper at dusk and we saw several deer and a black bear feeding on berries which ended up crossing the road in front of us.

We drove to Medicine Lake and watched the sunset over the lake.

Medicine lake is a strange phenomenon with underground channels draining the lake so it only fills up in summer after snow melt and then drops by about half with no visible river flowing out. Theyve now found where the river then springs out of the rocks again downstream in the Maligne canyon and rejoins the Maligne river doubling it’s volume.

We camped for the night in an area devastated by a wildfire in 2015 and it was surprising to see how long it takes to regenerate. It was an area of forest known for its woodland caribou and there are thought to be only 150 left in there with numbers dropping. The fires may not have helped. But we also can’t help wonder why on the one hand they have all this endangered wildlife disappearing for unknown reasons and on the other hand they encourage people to bring their dogs into national parks and have hunting allowed of native animals right up to the boundaries. Would never happen in Australia… I won’t complain about their strict regulations again.

1 aug

Got an early start out to Maligne Lake to beat the crowds. Boat tours to spirit island start at 8.30 and hoardes line up for it. To be honest there are lakes everywhere as pretty as Maligne but as someone put it, it’s suffering from Instagram overexposure. We saw a mink cross the road on the way.

We walked the Moose lake loop and the Mary Schaeffer loop and despite being the only people on both did not see a moose or any other creature. We did see a bear paw print near the lake shore at moose lake though and evidence of a moose rubbing his antlers on the trees.

We had a coffee on the deck at the visitor centre on the way out – not so good and expensive. Might stick to my car coffee after all.

Our lunch picnic spot was another random find -it was a pretty forested spot right on another sparkling river. But most amazing of all were the fat hoary marmots just sitting there munching away. They look like a cross between a giant squirrel ( which turns out they are related to) and a beaver. In fact when Ron first saw them he exclaimed “beavers!!”.

They were amazing and so tame. There were also lots of very cheeky ground squirrels and Least Chipmunks.

In our usual style we headed down a hidden unmarked road looking for special spots. We found a really pretty spot with yet more crystal clear turquoise waters. There were two fly fishermen getting on to the river there and we watched them wade in and flick their fly around. Turns out it was first day of the season and they were in like Flynn as soon as the river opened to get the first trout.

As they moved up we had a swim in the ice cold water. The swim didn’t last long ( hypothermia isn’t fun) but it was SO refreshing.

Maligne canyon was another worthwhile stop. Again don’t just get out where all the crowds are but do the whole walk along the canyon down to fifth bridge. A fantastic hike and you get to see where the underground river from Medicine lake joins the Maligne river.

Grabbed some supplies from Jasper which was heaving with tourists in RV’s so didn’t linger long.

Robinson’s market is a great place for supplies. Jasper has a great little community vege garden which was great to see. ( big fan of community gardens)

Pulled in at Annette Lake near Jasper which was an amazing blue. We walked around but it looked like a storm was coming so we jumped back on the car. The wind was picking up as was the rain . On the way out I asked Ron to pull over so I could take a photo of that blue, blue lake before we left. As I jumped out I looked up at the swaying pines and said “Hmm maybe I shouldn’t go there in case a tree falls on me…. crash!!!!…. like that.” I said as a pine tree crashed across the road right where we would have been if I hadn’t pulled over. Needless to say I didn’t get the photo and we had to pull bits of tree off the road to get out.

Started heading out of town to our next destination looking for a dinner picnic spot on the way. The weather was pretty nasty so I suggested to Ron we sit it out somewhere. Ron spotted a small tour bus coming out of a side road so thought we’d check that out. Was a small private Field Airport but it had a super pretty picnic spot in a field near a river which looked perfect for dinner. As we ate our picnic some locals turned up with their dogs to play.

Just as we finished our dinner a tour bus turned up and one of the ladies said “Did you see the Grizzly bear and cubs?” . !!!! Umm no…

The driver told them a bear and cubs were sighted there. The driver strode across the field like a hero to inform the dog owners of the danger they were in. That resulted in a heated discussion with the locals who clearly thought the driver was being a bit of a tosser. In later discussion with them they said the tour buses sometimes just say that stuff to hype people up thinking they could see wildlife.

So we must have killed it for him when he rocked up with his tourists to spot grizzlies and here we are having dinner in the field and others are playing with their dogs! Having said that he did say they have lots of grizzly bears here and he’d just seen one yesterday.

They pointed out some nice tracks along the river including parts of the overlander track on the old fur trade route along the Athabasca River. It was so pretty and we still had light – but then there was the bears.. and a mother with cubs at that… Maybe…

We decided at least to walk through the open area and towards the forest and river. After all we did have bear spray and Ron was ready to use it!

And suddenly Ron – who was teasing me yesterday about being nervous of bears was looking a little nervous, walking as far tothe side of the track as possible and

replaying for me the plan for when a grizzly attacks talking through all the scenarios…

Ron scanned the area just ahead with his binoculars – he freezes- what does that look like there through the bushes? Is that a bear? he says as he hands me the binoculars. I look at something that looks brown and shaggy. But it is clearly stone dead and not moving. I want to reassure Ron so I blurt out that it’s a rock. ‘Give me that- you’re off grizzly patrol! ‘ Ron exclaims. Turns out it was a stringy bark covered log that did look like fur.

As we got closer to the forest – singing and making noise aswe went- we started debating what the risks Vs benefits were. Were we being silly and getting frightened for nothing,or were we taking stupid risks. What if the trail took us between the mum and her cubs? We go a little further forward to a bench put in by national parks. Ron points to a bear cub paw print on the bench! So there are cubs here…then I panic for a minute as I realise that it rained half an hour ago so these prints are very recent!! But Ron points out they are pretty baked on so may have withstood the rain. We decided to hang back. Then we spotted the group camping shelter and toilets. So Ron comes up with a plan that if we see bears we can retreat to that! Hmmm.

We hear a cracked branch in the forest..I freeze.”it’s a falling branch” Ron reassures

me. So we walk for a little more. Then we hear a strange noise. Ron panics and tells me in a voice I rarely hear to move it towards the shelter.

Through the window of the shelter he ‘sees’ two golden retrievers. He figures if people are here with dogs we are a bit safer. So feeling suddenly brave he goes a little further along until we both get the heebie jeebies and head out of there. Where are the dogs? We spot a couple of beautiful ‘golden’ white tailed deer. The dogs that made Ron feel brave could have been deer frightened by a bear!?

Ok so we were probably worrying too much and locals probably walk there alone all the time. Anyway we made it safely back to our car and will never know if there was a bear and cubs there. The most menacing wildlife we saw were the mozzies. But it was a super pretty walk and highly recommend it- just maybe not in cub season!

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