Jasper to Hinton AB (Day 14)

We both had an amazingly quiet and restful sleep in the cozy bunkhouse. We almost beat the tourbus rush at the kitchen too. But, once they had moved on for the day, the peacefulness of the hostel came back :)

Sascha, the hostel manager, suggested a few short hikes for us to try. We started off with the little hike behind the hostel which was supposed to give a really good lookoff of the mountains to the west, but the drizzly sky stole a bit of the view. Then we headed across the road to the Athabasca Falls.

Aside from the two tour buses already there, the falls were pretty cool.

We wandered around a bit, taking in the feeder stream,

the lake that it all feeds into

and the rock overhand that shelters some of the boardwalk.

Then we made a quick exit before we got tangled up in any more tour buses.

We had a walk around in Jasper before we headed off to Maligne Canyon, which had been recommended to us by Sascha and one of the park officers in the info centre. On our way out of Jasper, we drove by a big group of elk who are apparently semi-permanent grazing residents of Jasper town.

Maligne Canyon turned out to be a really beautiful walk.

The canyon houses an underground river system that spans 15km between two lakes (Maligne and Medicine Lake). We started out at the bottom of the canyon, passing different seepages (holes where you got a little glimpse of the water among the ice)

where the waterfall drops into an eerily dry river bed as the water drains into the underground channels

by the deep throat of the canyon

until we got to the waterfall at the top.

Being out in the sunshine was a welcome change from the weather we have had so far in Alberta. We almost didn't want to get back in the car, but the drive out supplied our greatest wildlife viewing yet. I saw my first wolf (or coyote?) crossing over the road,

followed by two different herds of big-horn sheep,

past more elk and a few white-tailed deer,

and finale with a huge, bearded and horned elk. Wicked!

We ended up at William Switzer Provincial Park, just outside of Hinton AB. We were back in pretty thick snow cover, but we managed to find a sunny, dry spot with a great view of Jarvis lake.

The washrooms are open and the well even draws up water. And, it was so sunny and warm, we sat in our shirts, for the first time this trip, and just soaked in the sun. And, still no bugs. Sweet!

It got a little chilly as the sun was going down, so we wandered off on a little jaunt only to be met by what we thought were park officers (suppose we should in fact self-register and pay afterall...). It turned out to be a really nice older couple who normally supply the firewood for the camp and were just poking around to see if anyone was looney enough to be camping (Hello). Even by the time we got in the tent, it was still a lot warmer than it's been, even if we are camping in snow.