August 8 –  August 12:

Jasper was challenging in many ways. It was yet another beautiful area of the Canadian Rockies, for what we could see. With the exception of the morning spent on the Icefields and on the glacier, we have not seen the mountains that provide the spectacular views due to the heavy fire smoke from fires in British Columbia. We also had no hooks ups–no water,  no sewer and no power. We are fine with no sewer or water hook ups, but spent a lot of time worrying about and managing power. We had 3 days of unusually hot sunny weather, which the solar performed well, but then two days of rain, which put us on generator power. Then again, we had some oddly fun times with the Jasper Food Tour for our 31st Anniversary, and had a bear in the camp ground.

August 8 (Wednesday): Drove to Jasper with some smoke in the sky and then spent the afternoon on the Jasper Food Tour by Estelle Blanchette. Great time with interesting food and beverages at 4 local Jasper establishments with 7 other like minded “foodies”, 3 of which were farmers–we keep meeting farmers. I never thought farmers got to take vacations! Check out the black T-shirt of the guy below–he was one of the farmers from north of Edmonton. The woman in the hat next to him was a farmer from east of Sidney.

Drive to Jasper

Check this guy’s shirt! He’s a farmer from Edmonton

Estelle telling us about the community garden

Jasper establishment

August 9 (Thursday): Maligne Lake

We took a walk around the lake then stopped in to see the Maligne Canyon Falls. The lake was lovely, but you couldn’t see the mountain back drop that makes it is so famous although the photos look better than I remembered.  But we did see a black bear on the way out of the campground that morning and I spent the afternoon and evening sewing outside! Oh and there’s our solar panel that we depended on to top up the batteries. It required getting back to the campsite mid-day to move for optimal sun angle.

August 10 (Friday):

• Icefield Parkway, Athabasca Glacier, Glacier Skywalk

Columbia Icefield looks like a layer of frosting on the mountain peaks

Athabasca Glacier used to be on the same side of the road this photo is taken in 1844

Ice Explorer vehicles–our ride up to the glacier!

Standing on Abathasca Glacier

Glacial well–water running down the hole

Glacier Skywalk

• Athabasca Falls

August 11 (Saturday): We drove up to Miette Hot Springs for a morning dip and then took a wander around Pyramid Lake, another iconic areas with huge backdrops of mountain views shrouded with the smoke.

The view we didn’t see

Loon on Pyramid Lake

Looking over Pyramid Lake with mountains in the background

And what visit to Canada would be complete without trying poutine–French fries, gravy and cheese curd!?