A bit of a different sleep experience — this hotel is on one of the main streets in town, as opposed to a lodge in the wilderness — but no less effective; we woke up ready to go. It was pretty cold outside (around -6, I think) but the forecast promised sunshine and temps in the teens, so we knew it’d get warmer. We picked up some delicious breakfast from the Bear Paw bakery and hit the road around 9:30.

Our first stop was Mount Robson, about an hour away across the border in BC. Robson’s the highest peak in the Rockies, and not just by a nose either. It kind of comes out of nowhere, emerging grandly after a parade of impressive but non-miraculous peaks, towering over everything around it. It was probably the single most inspiring mountain I’ve seen so far. If we had more time we would’ve hiked to Berg Lake or even Kinney Lake for a closer look, but our schedule was tight. We soaked in a few more looks at the mountain and got back in the car. On the way back we stopped at Moose Lake, which had much fewer moose than its name would suggest…none. At least, none that we saw; we were beginning to think that we wouldn’t see any animal larger than a pika on this trip.

We got back to Jasper and had some lunch at La Fiesta, then got back to the hotel and changed into some non-hiking clothes as our plans changed on the fly. After getting a long-distance shot of some big-horned sheep grazing on a hilltop just outside of town and a short stop at the Jasper Park Lodge where we saw some muskrats swimming around a pond (hey…our luck with animals is improving!) we decided that rather than hike the Maligne Canyon we’d simply take pictures at the top, where the waterfalls are, and drive the 40 km to Maligne Lake as well. Shortly after we left the canyon we saw (and nearly ran over) a deer grazing by the side of the road. A little while later, after passing Medicine Lake (which was nearly gone; it disappears over the course of the summer and fall) and taking numerous shots of the surrounding mountains we saw a family of big-horned sheep grazing at a roadside pull-off, standing next to a camper and some dude holding his coffee. We got quite a few pictures of those before getting up to the lake.

Maligne Lake, one of the more famous lakes in the Rockies, was another stunning view, on par with Lake Louise or Moraine Lake. The lake itself is huge, so we could only see one end, but we had a clear view of the surrounding mountains and the glaciers feeding it, and the tourists were reasonably sparse. After many shots we turned back to Jasper once again, but had some excitement along the way: the same sheep were grazing by the road and — being so tame — posed for a few quick shots — like this one — before we drove away, but when we encountered the deer again there were two more keeping it company. Other cars had stopped to take pictures; we snapped a few before deciding to drive on, but suddenly the deer began running alongside the road, keeping pace with our car. I switched to video and got over a minute of footage of these three deer bounding along the road, crossing it in front of us, and running along the other side before slowing down to catch their breath (it’s a weird thing to see deer panting). We felt bad, as if they might’ve been fleeing from us, but each time we slowed down or sped up they matched us. Maybe they’re so used to cars they now play with them…who knows? Anyway, it eliminated our worry about not seeing any interesting animals on the trip!

From there we drove past the town and caught one of the last gondola trips to the top (almost) of The Whistlers, a mountain overlooking Jasper. It was amazing to see things from almost 8,000 feet up, including the peak of Mount Robson (some 50 miles away) and a whole field of mountains stretching in all directions. Had there been time we would have climbed the rest of the way to the actual top of the mountain and gotten an even more impressive view, but that takes 2 hours and we had only 45 minutes. No loss, though; the view was quite astounding enough. We took the gondola back down, drove back into town and went around the corner for a bite to eat and a drink at the local brewpub. The cream ale (actually an extra-special bitter) and roasted stout were my favourites; Nellie liked the cream ale and the IPA.

Tomorrow we’ll leave Jasper and head back down the Icefields Parkway to Banff; there’re still quite a few sights we’d like to see, and Nellie’s healed knees should afford us that chance.

[tags]Jasper, Mount Robson, Maligne Canyon, Maligne Lake, gondola[/tags]