Corrie and Danny's Travels: Day 211

We started the day with a scenic drive to Jasper National Park. We almost turned around again after being told the price of staying in the park for 3 days! We’d barely being driving in the park for 10 minutes when we came across a lot of parked cars. Gathered by these cars were a lot of people all with their cameras out and so we pulled up to see what they were snapping. It was just moments before this that Corrie was going on about how much she wanted to see a moose and here by the side of the road were 3… elk.

Our first stop of the day was at Mailigne Canyon where we parked up, had some lunch, then slapped on the mosquito repellent before going for a nice little hike. We set about walking along the river all the way down toward the fifth of six bridges. Corrie was back in her element once again, happily clicking away with her cameras as we went further and further down the riverside. We eventually reached a blocked off part of the track stopping us from going to the fifth and sixth bridges along this route. Due to this minor set-back in our walk we decided to take an alternative route back to the car park and so headed off up a hill. This hill was a killer to hike up but we’d walked worse on our travels and were soon at the top catching our breath. Along this higher path we passed a few clearings in the trees where we were treated to some gorgeous vistas. This walk along the upper path through the woods was extremely quick and neither of us could believe how quickly we’d arrived back at the car park.

After getting back in the car our first stop was within a few minutes as we spotted a lookout point just a little bit up the road. We were a little gutted as this lookout point, just metres from the car park, offered much similar vistas to that of our 2 ½ hour walk though it didn’t actually show us the canyon itself!

Next on the list was a stop at Mount Edith Cavell and we were in a slight hurry to get this walk done as we could see a thunderstorm raging in the distance, getting ever closer to our destination. We parked up and, on feeling the first of the raindrops, donned our ponchos and began the 45 minute loop walk to the Cavell and Angel glaciers. The rainfall increased along the walk but we reached the lake at the foot of the glaciers in time to get some decent pictures before the real wetness was unleashed. The rain hammered down, unfortunately the ponchos weren’t long enough to cover all of our legs but the rest of us remained dry enough. This is more than could be said for others who’d ventured out here earlier than us and now had to endure the walk/ run back to the car park in vest tops, shorts, jumpers etc. The change in weather was quite incredible; going from very hot and sunny to extremely dark, overcast and icy cold. The rain was painfully chilly and we both soon had numb foreheads!

The air-con cooling was switched to heating as we made our way further along to the Athabasca Falls. The rain hadn’t reached here yet so we got out and, briskly, made our way to each of the lookout points. These falls were quite impressive and incredibly powerful though I think we’ll forever find ourselves comparing all waterfalls to those at Niagara Falls now. The rain caught up with us here and so we made a swift getaway.

We then had a very long drive down to our motel for the night. Along this route we did stop at a couple more lookout points and we also drove past a mule deer too. We couldn’t really see much at the lookout points due to the poor weather though the drive was still pretty scenic. Just as Danny was running out of improvised songs and tunes for Corrie we finally spotted the sign for fuel which had been an increasing concern for the last few kilometres. Next to this little fuel station was our accommodation which was a huge relief. We checked in and then managed to use the reception’s computer to book the following two nights’ accommodation. We then popped to the grocery store here to purchase some sandwich meat and rolls for our tea – the National Park prices are daylight robbery which is why, when we can, we’ve booked accommodation outside of the park (like Hinton before Jasper NP and like the next two nights which will be in Canmore outside Banff NP – tactics.)