Our time at Banff had come to an end and we were making the trek to the Jasper area. It is not a short, trivial drive but we started relatively early and it was light until around 11:30 each evening so we could make it. We also had to stop to see the sights along the way.
The first sight was Peyto Lake. The color of these glacial lakes is amazing!
The next stop was lunch at the Columbia Icefield. That is a large glacier behind the trailer:
Then we saw Sunwapta and Athabasca Falls, respectively:
We continued on to Jasper, found a dump station and grocery store and went to the campground. Naturally there were mosquitos and a very steep spot for us:
Lots of space under the back but not much in the front! When I was lowering the front, something under the trailer stopped it from lowering any farther. Hmmm…
Remember I told you about darkness not coming until after 11:30. Here is an 11:30 shot of the sunset:
We toured around Jasper a bit. We headed toward Maligne Lake and passed Medicine Lake on the way. The first picture is a storm rolling in on Medicine Lake. The second is Roxie in front of Maligne Lake.
While at Maligne Lake we took the hardest hike to date! George really wanted to see a moose, or Man-Moose as he called it. There was a trail to Moose Lake where we had heard moose sometimes show up. This trail was horrendous because there were tree roots covering the entire trail from heavy usage. It rained on and off, it was uphill and long. We finally made it but, alas, no moose. We made it back during some heavy downpours and enjoyed sitting down on the ride back to Jasper for a nice evening meal.
We left Jasper, of sorts, and moved to a new campground. Bye Jasper:
When I hooked up to go to the next campground I found out what stopped the lowering of the trailer. It was the spare tire under the front of the trailer. I have never lowered the trailer that far to hit the spare but now I know that the characteristics of that happening.
The next campground was the last one we were going to share with the Chens. This was near Hinton AB. We walked an elevated path through a huge beaver pond and saw numerous animals including a beaver. We also took an interesting drive past a local mine and to a Canadian Continental Divide marker. It was a lot of gravel road but we saw even more beavers along the way. Here we are (it was COLD!):
The time with the Chen’s came to an end. They were heading west toward Vancouver BC and we were heading east to Edmonton. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but we will see them again!
Before and after:
