Jasper National Park!

Our train pulled into Jasper on a rainy friday afternoon after some spectacular scenery courtesy of entering Jasper National Park.  Even with the rain, our introduction to the national park and the Canadian Rockies was breathtaking and had me happily snapping away with the camera.

It was Brendan's 31st birthday so we had booked a special B&B for a few days with the "luxury" loft at the Glasshouse Inn. Unfortunately loft equaled upstairs open area which, while beautifully presented, was completely open (no door at the entrance to the stair case and no roof dividing the downstairs sitting area from our bedroom). A little odd, but the people were so lovely that we overlooked the fact that we felt compelled to whisper the entire time.

We decided to celebrate Brendan's birthday with a restaurant suggestion that we found on tripadvisor - the Downstream Restaurant. The Elk Sirloin steak was so-so...very similar to beef in my opinion, but the burger we had there would definitely be in my top 5 burger experiences of all time. I know we do tend to go on sometimes about the food we eat (and we seem to have burgers quite frequently) but this burger was sensational due to its size, its flavour and the zoo of animals that it represented - it had Alberta beef, chicken breast, smoked muscovy duck, double smoked bacon (and cheddar and mozzarella added for good order). Amazing, stupendous, deliciously succulent and so many other adjectives. I am sure we will do a full review on TheTravelBites website, but in the meantime let the above whet your appetite. We of course finished the evening with cake and candles....how could I not take the opportunity to thoroughly embarrass Brendan. Mission accomplished.

But back to Jasper. What a beautiful place. Because the town is in the national park and bordered by mountains, it has reached its geographical limits and will remain the small town that it is today. Despite the obvious signs of tourism, Jasper has somehow managed to retain it's small-town identity and integrity which seems to be so quickly lost when a town's main source of income becomes tourism. There is a definite community feel with a large percentage of the population being long-term residents that are incredibly proud of their little mountain paradise. And so they should!

Despite the turbulent weather that would go from downpour to grey clouds and back again every 20 minutes, we decided to seize the day and on our second day in Jasper we headed off on a epic 18km hike from the town centre, out over a mountain track to Pyramid lake. The walk gave us some great views back over the town and definitely pushed our hiking boots (and our legs) to the limit. We hobbled back into town several hours later and headed straight for a long hot bath.

The next morning we went on a tour with a Jasper local, Joe, who took us on a trip to the Maligne Canyon, the beautiful Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake. The following afternoon we went on the nature trip with Joe again - which is basically a 3 hour drive around the national park where he spots some of "the locals" that we would have clearly missed if we had been driving around by ourselves. While I headed out on the boat trip around Maligne Lake that was eerily bathed in grey clouds (not great for photography, but amazing just being there), Brendan and Joe went for a walk and came across a female Moose and her baby which were going for a bit of a stroll around the lake. We got some great footage of the two of them which I will try to get up here soon.

Other animal sitings of the trip included a huge black bear which popped out into the car park near the lake as we happened to be walking by, plenty of Elk and hip hip hooray... two beautiful grizzlies that were feasting on dandelions not far from the road's edge. We had almost given up on seeing some and were about to call it a day when we came around a corner in the road and they were right in front of us. Thankfully they were far more interested in munching away on the flowers to show any interest in a van of camera clicking tourists, so we happily sat there ooohing and aahing for a good 10 minutes - probably only 20 metres away from these massive creatures. So many great wildlife photos that I will spam this post with a bunch at the end!


What else did we do in Jasper? We walked and walked and walked. There are just so many fantastic walking tracks that we didn't get time to cover even a small percentage of them. One morning the sun decided to find its way out from the never ending layer of clouds so we headed off on a trail that took us around Beauvert Lake and the golf course of the Fairmont hotel - which must be the most picturesque golf course I have ever seen - granted, I haven't been to that many courses, but it was stunning. After stopping for a light liquid refreshment at the hotel we continued out on one of the many tracks before deciding at the last minute to take a different path (only to see minutes later that a very large black bear was perched on the track that we had originally planned to take. We would have walked right into the bear). He/She (i didn't get close enough to inspect) obviously heard or smelled us before we spotted it, but was too engrossed in chewing & sleeping to bother with us. Needless to say, we backed away and promptly walked the other way. We were later told by our guide that he had spotted the same bear that day with another tour group and that there was a second bear hanging around with the one we saw. I can only imagine the second bear was somewhere close by watching us scared little humans scurry away into the bush.

Jasper was fantastic, but exhausting. There was a definite feeling of guilt if we weren't outside exploring or climbing some mountain. So it was with sore legs and a mild sense of relief that we boarded the final leg of our cross-Canada train journey and sat back on our seats and watched the Rockies pass us by. Next stop Vancouver.

 //Kate

P.S - keep scrolling down for a bunch more photos. There were just too many that it was hard to pick, but here are some of the ones I love.