Day 21 - Saturday July 7 - Maligne Canyon - Icefield Parkway

 We started the day early because we knew that we had at least an hours drive to get to Jasper.  I went across the street to the Visitor's Center to use the Wifi.  I was concentrating on my phone and when I finally looked up I was surprised to see about 30-40 people standing around.  A tour bus had pulled in the parking lot and they were all taking pictures of Mount Robson.

We decided to hike at Maligne Canyon first thing before the crowds showed up.  Just before we reached the turn off we saw a herd of elk foraging along side the road.

We stopped at the overlook and got a good view of the mountains surrounding Jasper.

The Maligne Canyon is the result of water emptying out of Maligne Lake and cutting a deep channel through the rock.  In most places you can't even see the river, but you can hear it.  They have built a series of six bridges that you can cross to get good views of the river below.

We chose to hike up the trail rather than walk back across all the bridges

Glad we started early.  This is bridge two after the tour buses arrived

After we left the canyon we were driving down the road and noticed cars pulled over.  This always means a wildlife sighting.  In this case, there was a black bear feeding on the grass on the opposite of the road.  We took several pictures and was surprised to see him cross the road right in front of our vehicle.  When we was right in front of the car, he put his head up in the air.  Buck's window was partly open and the bear smelled him.  About that time Buck started barking.  I rolled Buck's window up really fast.  Good thing the bear ran off into the woods.

We hiked at Sunwapta Falls.  It wasn't quite as spectacular, but still cool.

We left Jasper National Park and headed south along the Icefield Parkway.  The road was lined with mountains, tall mountains topped with snow.  It was like each mile was trying to compete with the mile before.

Then we reached the Columbia Icefield and saw the glaciers.

This is what Athabasca Glacier looked like in 1844

This is today

We would have liked to hike up the glacier, but we were pretty tired from all the hiking we had done earlier.  Plus, there were like a million people there already.  We went into the Visitor's Center and it was packed.  There was a Starbucks and probably 40 people waiting in line.   You can buy a ticket to ride in a snowcoach up to the glacier and actually walk on it, but that would have been impossible today.  Maybe next time.

We thought about camping here, but it was pretty high elevation and we knew it would be really cold in the morning.  In fact, most of the campgrounds along the parkway were already booked.  We jumped off the parkway on Highway 11 and drove a few miles up the road to Thompson Creek Campground.  This was a small campground on National Forest Land.  It wasn't crowded and we easily found a sight.  While we were sitting around the campground host stopped by and told us the night before a grizzly was right behind our campsite.  And earlier in the week they chased two grizzlies out of camp.  Bear spray was in hand any time I walked around after that.

Thompson Creek