We awoke to the sound of rain and wind. Yep. Not hiking today! We left Hinton KOA and headed to Safeway and Wal-Mart for a few supplies. Then we headed to Jasper NP.
The drive on Hwy 16 is beautiful. Tall crag like mountains surrounded us with a little snow on their peaks and rivers at their base. The rain and the cloud cover gave it a unique look. But, it made it very hard to take pics while driving!
We arrived in Jasper in the early afternoon. After a quick drive through the town center, we headed over to Whistler Campground. They had some dry campsites still available. The site is nestled in among the woods. Easy spot to get into, but not at all level! I feel like I could tumble towards the driver’s seat from the back of the RV if I picked up enough speed. :P But, at least our head will be higher than our feet in bed.
After a delicious sandwich lunch, we walked into town. The town seemed larger than Waterton Lakes Townsite and with a lot more restaurants and shops. It has a unique feel with its tall mountains surrounding it and a train track that borders the town. David’s been dying for some ice cream and everyone around town seemed to be eating some, so we found place. MMM … hit the spot. After another walk around town and a stop at a gift shop, we waked back to our campsite and had dinner. If walking into town wasn’t enough walking (8 km), we walked back up to the registration booth and paid for another night. On the way back, we saw some elk and took some pics (glad I grabbed the little camera on the way out!).
We are both pretty tried from getting up early and from all the walking so we’re going to bed early tonight. We’re gonna hike up Mt. Whistler tomorrow and ride the tram. Hopefully the weather is better tomorrow. Night!
August 12, 2008
It was so hard to get out of bed this morning. Probably cuz I knew I was gonna do a long hike. Today we plan on hiking to the top of Mt. Whistler. But, we are gonna take a gondola tram most of the way to the top first, hike to the summit and then hike back down to the campsite.
The weather was very pleasant when we woke up. Warm and sunny. We left the campground early and hiked up to the bottom tram. It was all up hill.
I was gross and smelly before I even started to climb the mountain! :P We bought a roundtrip ticket cuz they only sell one way tickets from the top. Dumb huh. Hopefully, we can sell them to a hiker who hiked up and wants to ride the gondola down.
The view was pretty from the gondola. We had a nice view of the town of Jasper and the surrounding lakes and river. The river, due to glacier runoff, is opaque blue. A really neat color. The lakes had this same color around their outer edge and then a solid dark blue in the center.
At the upper terminal of the tram, there’s a little overpriced restaurant we chose not to eat at. We hiked to the top of the mountain (about 1.5 km), took a break there and then climbed back down to the upper terminal of the tram. While I went to relieve myself, David was able to sell our tickets. We only lost out on a few bucks, so that’s cool.
click image for galleryThe hike down was grueling. It was very steep and very rocky. It took us about three hours to make it down to the road and another 1/2 hour back to the campsite. In total, we walked about 15 miles today. Fun, huh! :) I’m so exhausted. I think that all of my body hurts. I have trekking poles so they helped save my knees but they are a really good workout on my arms and back. Ouch! I need to stretch a lot tomorrow! We’re taking showers, having dinner and heading to bed! Good night!
August 13, 2008
Ouch!! Oh, man, I hurt something awful! My back, my hips, my calves, my feet! Yep, probably shouldn’t walk too much today. Just a little bit will do. :)
Today, it is onto Lake Louise. Lake Louise is in Banff NP in Alberta, Canada, but north of the town of Banff. We made good timing getting ready and heading out of Jasper. We stopped along the way to take pics. The Canadian Rockies are just beautiful. I don’t remember the Colorado Rockies being this pretty. We stopped at Athabasca Falls, go out and took pics.
This river flowed with such a high velocity that it carved out the rocks along these falls. We had to wait a bit for a bus load of tourist to clear out so we had breathing room to take pics. :) Next, we continued onto the Columbia Icefield.
The glacier was pretty neat to look at. They actually have tours where they load you into this big tractor bus and dive you on top of the glacier. It was a bit expensive and I felt like I was contributing to the melting of the glacier, so we opted out of that. We had sandwiches in the RV instead. :P
We continued on the road south. I saw about four bears along the roadside. One crossed in front of us and we had to hit the breaks. I took a few pics of it from the RV. Hopefully, one will come out.
We arrived in Lake Louise around 2:30 pm and were delighted to see that the campground still had spots. They put us near the back :( but we are still pretty close to town. After we set up camp and rested a bit, we walked into town for some oil and antifreeze. Need to top-up the fluids! The town is pretty little but they do have a little grocery store. We picked up a hiking map at the visitor center and headed back to the RV. I read my book while David processed pics (we have electricity here). That’s pretty much all for today. We are both so so sore from the hike to Mt. Whistler. Hopefully tomorrow, we will feel better. And hopefully we can sleep. We have a train track (a pretty loud train) not too far from our bedroom window. And the train shakes the RV! Fun! Night.
August 14, 2008
We awoke to aching muscles. I really didn’t feel like doing a hike today. But, what better way to ease the pain from aching muscles than to hike it off! So, we had pancakes and hiked to Lake Louise from our camp site. It was a pretty hike and not too difficult. We walked along side two separate rivers.
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Lake Louise was packed! No one told me that there was a huge hotel right next to it! The Fairmont Hotel overlooks the lake. The lake is an opaque turquoise colored lake. So beautiful!
We looked at the map of the trails and were interested in checking out the teahouses. One teahouse was located at Lake Agnes. This was the closer of the two so we hiked up to Mirror Lake (which wasn’t a mirror at all and pretty tiny) and then up to Lake Agnes. The teahouse overlooked the valley below and Lake Agnes. It was inside a two story log cabin with inside and outside seating. We chose to eat inside to rest from the sun. It was quite warm today.
The food was very good. We shared a vegetable barley soup with bread, some banana bread and some jasmine green tea. The concept of the teahouse is pretty neat. Everything is homemade. A group of college kids run it and sleep upstairs. All the food and supplies are flown in by helicopter, ridden in by horseback or carried in by the staff. They boil the water from the lake and they live up there without electricity. The staff was very friendly. On the other hand, the customers were very rude and very impatient. Instead of waving down the one waitress to help them out, they complained about the service and left. We had great service but we knew when and how to flag down the waitress. Makes life so much happier :)
There was a group of Europeans outside feeding the squirrels which you are just not supposed to do cuz it makes them lose their fear of humans and they start to only eat human food which can kill them. So David tapped on the window to tell the people to stop feeding the squirrels. One of the guys actually came inside and acted all tough and was actually mad at David. He even asked if David was a ranger. Luckily the waitress was standing right there at our table, so he left. Stupid guy. The squirrels at the teahouse were so fearless of humans that they would jump right up on the picnic tables outside and grab people’s bread right off their plates. Crazy huh.
After a nice long relaxing break, we headed back down to Lake Louise and then back to the RV for showers. We walked like 14 miles today. I only wanted to do 5 miles. :P David got me steak tho to feed my aching muscles. :D
We found this cute restaurant called Lake Louise Station Restaurant. It was situated right next to the railroad tracks. It was decorated in a winter ski décor with old typewriters and telegraph machines. And, it was empty. The waitress said that it was normally packed but it was slow tonight for some reason or another. Lucky for us! We had a whole section to ourselves.
Dinner was wonderful! We each got a glass of red wine. They brought us out some roasted tomato bread with chive butter for starters. I had the Caesar salad and David had scallops on ratatouille. For the main course, we each got a steak over mashed potatoes. For dessert we shared a Bailey’s cheesecake. A very satisfying meal.
We’re paid up here at the campground until Monday, so we’ll hike a bunch here and then move onto Banff townsite. For now, I’m tired. I’m gonna lay in bed with my book. Goodnight!
August 15, 2008
For today, we were gonna go on a hike, but David woke up with a sore foot and my legs hurt, so we decided to rest today. So, that’s what we did. We watched a couple of movies. I finished my book (it was awesome: Clive Cussler’s Dragon) and started on a new one. That’s pretty much it. I remembered to clean out the fridge so it smells better. Tomorrow we are going to summit Mt. Fairview. Should be grueling, but this time we’re driving to Lake Louise and starting our hike there. K, that’s all for today. Gonna read a bit and head off to bed. Night!
August 16, 2008
So, ya, we hiked to the top of a huge rocky mountain today. Fairview Mountain was hard. Very hard. It was so steep to the tip! I think we did about 11 miles today. It was worth it tho. We first hiked up to the lookout point that overlooked the lake.
Figured we should do that first before all the tourists in buses show up and get in our way. After a quick stop, we continued our hike. We saw two marmots along the way. We stopped to take pictures.
Next, we hiked up the trail to the base of the mountain and then scaled the mountain.
click image for galleryThe view from the top of Fairview Mountain was amazing. You could see the town of Lake Louise, the lake itself and a couple of glaciers. And the summit of the mountain was very rocky and small. There was a fair bit of people at the top with their kids running around and their backpacks thrown everywhere. Needless to say, you had to climb over them and try not to fall off the mountain at the same time. There was even a dog at the top. Also this big guy hiked up to the top. I wasn’t sure if he was gonna make it or have a heart attack. But, lucky for him, he made it. It was chilly at the top and a squirrel tried to steal my food.
The hike back down went so much easier and faster. And it was all downhill. It was tricky hiking down the side of the mountain cuz of all the loose rocks and shale. Once we were clear of the mountain, the rest of the way down was a lot easier.
We are both pretty beat up. We have the RV parked in the parking lot at Lake Louise so we wouldn’t have to hike back to the campground. And we can take showers here before we drive back! I’m gonna sleep well tonight.
The evening was pretty uneventful. We just relaxed and had a good dinner in the RV. Tomorrow, we’re gonna head into the little village of Lake Louise. Probably pick up some supplies for Banff. That’s it for me today! Night everyone! :)
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