Alberta CN 2

5/18 – 5/20/2016 – Jasper AB CN – Traveled from our campground in Canmore today to Hinton AB where we are staying at Jasper Gates Resort and RV, about 250 miles.  We traveled through the rest of the Icefields Parkway towards Jasper NP and saw waterfalls, amazing viewpoints, and glaciers highlighted by the Columbia Icefield which is one of the largest accumulations of ice south of the Arctic, some 83 sq miles and 1200 ft thick.  Six major glaciers flow from the Icefield which feed rivers that eventually flow into the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans which is known as a hydrological apex (no kidding look it up).  We settled into the campground for the night, caught up on wifi stuff in the really nice “Bear Den” game room, determined there were no TV channels available and played cards.  Chippy cleaned my clock at 500 rummy and strip poker, no further details available at this time. LOL

 

 

Rained pretty hard all night and into the morning, which is probably a blessing for the firefighters just to our north in their efforts with the devastating wildfires, so we decided to start the day with a visit to the hardware store and Wal-Mart for some supplies.  The rains slowed to a trickle and we decided to spend the rest of the day in Jasper’s Maligne Valley.  First we hiked the rim of Maligne Canyon and enjoyed stunning canyon views and a rushing river.  Next we were off to Medicine Lake which not so mysteriously vanishes in early October each year.  The waters depth can vary as much as 20 meters through the year.  The actual disappearance of the lake which Indians believed was by “Big Medicine” or magic slowly dissolves into a network of underground passages which exceeds the undergrounds system during the meltdown in spring and summer, and finally catches up in the fall.  The road ends at mountain-ringed Maligne Lake, the largest glacier-fed lake in the Canadian Rockies, which was discovered over 100 years ago by a Philadelphia artist by the name of Mary Schaffer.  While enjoying lunch at the Maligne Lake Lodge we were entertained by a pair of moose frolicking on the other side of the lake and finished with a leisurely stroll around the lake.  We got back to the campground and plugged into wifi to find we are expecting 1-3 inches of snow tonight…bbbrrrrrr..Tomorrow we are off to Prince George in British Columbia.

 

 

 

 

 

Moose

Elk