A day at the zoo

Day 19
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Sightseeing in Jasper National Park

This was a day at the zoo! We saw an incredible quantity of wildlife; best of all, we were in the cages with the animals!

After learning that Jasper, Canada’s fifth national park, was also its largest, with a total of 4,335 square miles, we realized there was no hope of seeing it all in two days—clearly we needed to prioritize.

We knew that we would be headed south down the Icefields Parkway tomorrow, so we decided to head north from Whistlers today. Another objective was to limit our driving given the 500-mile day we had yesterday.

We first drove north up Route 16 parallel to Talbot Lake through an incredible valley with spectacular stone peaks on both sides of the road. Our first encounter with wildlife came at Talbot Lake’s north end where we came across a herd of mountain goats. They looked a little mangy because they were shedding their winter coats. Several babies were among them—too cute!

We turned onto a 10-mile-long side road that lead to Miette Hot Springs. This road was amazing. We don’t think they did any grading at all when the built it; they just paved the land where it stood. It was the kind of road that would give an Appalachian coal truck driver motion sickness! There was not one straight segment. We thought they should hold a race on it and call it the rack and pinion challenge. The only thing more dramatic than the curves, dips and grades were the views. Because we were in such a tight, steep canyon, we had close-up views of immense, spectacular rock faces the likes of which we have only seen in Yosemite, California.

At the end of the road we arrived at a parking lot with at least 100 cars. It was surprising how many people preceded us there. Simply put, the end more than justified the effort to get there. We paid a small fee (especially by Canada standards) and entered what most resembled a public swim center. We showered before entering and then hurried through the 55 degree air to a series of pools filled with happy bathers ranging in age from 6 months to 80. The first pool was 39c. Beyond it, a second, slightly larger pool was about 42c. There were two other “cool pools” that were much cooler. The entire peripheries of the hot pools were ringed with people who appeared to be in a blissful state of serenity. We joined them and soon felt the way the other folks looked. An hour later we were a bit shriveled and as calm as Buddhists. It’s amazing what an hour in the hottest hot springs in Canada surrounded by stellar, stone mountains can do for the soul. Before we left the hot springs, we bought ice cream. Emily later said it was the best part of the day.

We backtracked down the curvy road and through the valley past Talbot Lake, stopping several times to take photos. Closer to the town of Jasper, we turned off and found a suitable picnic site on the shore of Lake Annette. This lake had to be at least 50 acres in size and was as beautiful as anything in Maryland. And the thing was, it wasn’t even on the map of the park that we were given when we entered Jasper yesterday! It wasn’t significant enough vis-à-vis the park’s other elements to warrant mention. Wow.

After lunch, as we were driving toward Jasper, a coyote ran across the road right behind us. Elliot and I thought it might be a wolf at first because it was larger than we expected a coyote to be, but its coloring (beige) and telltale bushy tale confirmed that it was a coyote. We stopped in Jasper to grocery shop and then walked along the main drag, checking out the numerous tourist shops there. As luck would have it, the Rocky Mountaineer sightseeing passenger train that offers trips from Montréal to Vancouver pulled into town. Railroad personnel literally rolled out red carpets and helped nicely dressed, rich people step out for a look around. Frank couldn’t help but contemplate how different our means of arriving at the same location were!

We returned to the campsite and Elliot and Frank decided to take a walk around the loop road that encircled our campground. They had no idea at the outset that the route was more than 4 miles long. This park is huge! It has 781 sites on 69 loops. The loops are numbered and the sites are lettered (opposite of the campground convention) because they have more than 26 loops! During their twilight walk, within the campground, they encountered a small herd of elk and another coyote (pictured; you may have to click on the photo to enlarge it). They also noticed that the periphery of the campground was occupied by only hard-sided RVs. Without saying anything to visitors, it became clear to them that the rangers put soft-sided vehicles and tents, like ours, in the center of the campground to give us more protection from bears. They are STILL circling wagons in the west!

After eating in our trailer, Sessy read two chapters of Sasquatch. It didn’t get completely dark until 11:55 PM. We are really in the North Country!