Jasper September 2011
9/26/2011 6:41:00 PM
We made a quick one night excursion to Jasper Alberta this past weekend which was most welcome.
We left Spruce Grove around 11:00A.M. on a Friday and returned by 6:00 P.M. on Saturday evening. We packed a lot in.
On the way up to Jasper we made two stops. The first being a quick stretch your legs stop at the Pembina River Provincial Park just east of Evensberg Alberta. You wind your way down a scenic valley to the river park. The trees were just starting to turn so it made it even more lovely. I would like to go back and do some more hiking around but since our goal was Jasper we did not spend but maybe 15 minutes. Pics are in the Gallery.
Our next stop was in Hinton. We arrived about 2:00 P.M. so we had some time to kill before heading up to the Overlander Lodge just east of the Jasper Park entrance so we stopped in at the visitors Centre in Hinton. The very friendly and informative gals pointed us to their town project call the Beaver Board Walk. It is a very large area on the south end of the town where they have let the beavers do their thing and have made it a nature and learning center. We spent about an hour there walking on just part of the extensive board walk system they have built. If it were not for these board walks it would be very messy business to get to view how the beavers build their dams and lodges. The area is very scenic and very much worth the time to find and spend some time. We will probably go back some day.
Our check in time at the Overlander was at 4:00 P.M. but we arrived 15 minutes early but this was not a problem until we went to the room we had reserved. It had a very strong musty smell of mold and neither Laura nor I would have stayed 10 minutes much less a night in that room. But they were happy to move us to another room.
Just a s note my parents used to stay here years ago when ever they came through Jasper and it was a great place to stay but now I am not sure I can recommend as it has become so large. They used to love the food here but when Laura & I looked at the menu and found that the least expensive Entry was $25.00 plus the fact that they tack on a 15% Gratuity automatically we decided to go back into Hinton and eat at Boston Pizza. We gave our waiter a 20% tip at Boston Pizza. There is just something about the practice of automatically adding the tip on to the bill that rubs me the wrong way some how. But to each his own.
Anyway the next morning we were off exploring. First we drove into the Town of Jasper and went up to Pyramid and Patricia Lakes to take a gander. Got some great shots of Pyramid Mountain and Patricia lake. We were also lucky to get close to a 6 point Elk. See the photo gallery. Its rutting season so you need to give these guys a lot of room but some of the visitors seemed oblivious to this. I did not get out of the car until he was in the lake. The first sign of this guy was hearing him snort and whistle as bull elks do during rutting season. It was his way of warning us tourists that he wanted a drink and was coming down to the lake and for us to get out of the way. Well some genius got too close but our Elk was polite enough to just give a warning charge to the idiot but still others wanted to get closer. Poor elk, he could not even have a drink in peace. Bull elk are very dangerous during rutting season but we left before we witnessed anyone get hurt but the way the humans were behaving it would not surprise me.
We then drove across the valley to Lake Edith Cavel and had a picnic lunch. As a side note Scuba Divers us Lake Edith Cavel to train and test in. This is the lake I earned my Open Water Scuba license.
After lunch we drove up to Maligne Canyon for a look see. I had never been there before, not sure why, but the place is beautiful. We spend a leisurely hour hiking the well fenced trail. This is a place that we must return to and spend a whole day exploring. There are 6 foot bridges that cross the canyon and we only crossed two of them so one day I would like to drive to the 6th one and hike up to the top of the canyon so the return trip is down hill. They estimate the return trip to be 2-3 hours. It would make for a great day.
We then headed home and were having supper by 6:00 P.M.