Day 22 - Lake Louise, AB to Wapiti Campground, Jasper National Park, AB

A Mostly Spectacular Drive

The thermometer read 32°F at sunrise this morning. We had quick showers and breakfast, then rolled out of the Lake Louise campground early.

During yesterday's rain, the weather radar showed that it was raining in the river valley where the campground sits, but on both sides it was snowing. This was pretty obvious as we drove towards the highway. The Lake Louise ski area is on the other side of the highway from the campgrounds and village. The runs were all green and grassy when we came back from our hike the other day, but were all covered in snow this morning. From a distance they looked skiable. All of the mountains we could see have obviously more snow on them than when we arrived.

We were heading north to Jasper National Park. Shortly after leaving Lake Louise the highway, AB 93, becomes the Icefields Parkway. While it was still mostly cloudy the sun was shining from the east onto the western mountains, the spine of the Canadian Rockies, which had dazzlingly white peaks from the new snow with blue sky behind.

The first half of our drive was pretty spectacular. The mountains seem to be an unbroken chain of sharp, rocky peaks. The treeline is quite a bit lower than the tops, so much of the mountains are just exposed rock. The clouds drifted in and out among the peaks, sometimes obscuring them and sometimes exposing the peak but not the flanks.

There were a few glaciers that we could see as we drove along, but the largest group was at the Columbia Icefields, about halfway to Jasper. By that time, the clouds had dropped and solidified so the view was not as bold, but the glaciers were impressive, even in the flat light.

We stopped for coffee at the Icefields Discovery Center, across the road from the glacier fields. We just sat and watched as the busloads of visitors were carried up to the Athabasca Glacier to board special buses which drove them onto the glacier surface. A few intrepid groups had guided walks onto the glacier as well. We were happy to just look.

The icefield was the literal high point of the trip at 6500', so it was all downhill from there to Jasper. As we left the rain arrived. It was a light rain but it dogged us most of the way, with the clouds and forest obscuring the mountains. It had stopped by the time we reached the Wapiti Campground outside the Jasper townsite.

We checked in and found our sites just in time for lunch. It isn't the best of the campgrounds we've been in. It has about 300 sites set in a series of loops running along the river, but they are small, fairly open and lumpy. They assigned us sites at the far end of the campground, about a mile from the only showers. We're only going to be here for a couple of nights and this will probably be the last of the large campgrounds until we get to Denali.

After a quick lunch we drove to the Jasper town, to stop at the park visitor center and just wander a bit...and have our afternoon coffee, this time at the Bear's Paw bakery. We didn't have the bear paws, but split a tasty rhubarb crumble. We took some time to visit the local historical society's museum which had a series of exhibits on the history of Jasper, including a special exhibition on Bears in Town.

Evidently, up until about the 1970's bears randomly roamed through the town, mostly looking for scraps. In the early days, it was pretty benign. The people didn't hurt the bears and the bears didn't hurt the people, but as the population...and the amount of garbage grew, they became more of a problem, mostly to the detriment of the bears. It was finally solved by requiring bear-proof trash containers and electric fencing the landfill. Now the problem is the traffic. Most of the bear injuries are from traffic and train accidents, but you don't see them wandering the streets of town.

After the museum we drove up to the Pyramid Bench, set of lakes above the town. We wanted to check out a wetland called Cottonwood Slough. We hope to take a walk there tomorrow. It is supposed to have good birding. Just driving by, we saw ducks in the pond.

It was then back to Wapiti CG to set up in our lumpy site and have a damp outdoor dinner. It is forecast to be warmer and dryer tomorrow, at least for the first half of the day.