Day 10: Jasper

Camping night

We both slept well in our tent, but it was a bit on the cold side. Thankfully in the morning we even had sun, so this made it easier to get up and start moving.

Maligne Area

Our plan for today was to explore the Maligne Lake area, this is on of 5 larger areas in Jasper. The Maligne Lake area itself, consists of roughly 3 subareas: Maligne Canyon, Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake.

Maligne Canyon

First on the list was Maligne Canyon, which is up to 50 meters deep and provided some spectacular views on the part of the Maligne River that flows through it.

There are six foot bridges that are connected with a hiking trail. On each of them you realize how the river got a bit bigger & wider. This is thanks to the fact that there is a large underground system of springs that join the river in the canyon.

We did the hike to the sixth bridge, which followed the canyon on the way downstream. On the way back up, we then took an alternate route, which was a bit higher up and provided some amazing views of the surrounding mountains.

Medicine Lake

We did it like the biggest tourists and just stopped quickly with the car to take a picture… :)

Maligne Lake - Hike

Maligne Lake has a larger Shop/Restaurant and also offers tourist boat tours. But we decided to first go to the other parking lot, which is next to the trail head for Bald Hills. We didn’t plan for the hike, but it was listed in the information magazine we got at the park entrance. It was listed with around 9 km and a lot of elevation gain. But should provide nice views of Maligne Lake. So we were sold on that and off we went.

Due to the fact that it’s quite early in the season, we had the thought that snow could be an issue and maybe prevent us from making it all the way up. After around 1.5 km we met two people coming down and asked them about the trail and the confirmed that the snow was “knees deep” even before the top of the hike. We decided to continue a bit, just to get some activity in, but were prepared to turn around as soon was we reach the snow. This happened around 500 meters later, and even if the first snow would have been doable, there was no point in it (beside of getting wet feet).

So back we went, direction parking lot. Before we were back at it, there was a sign that pointed to another Hike called “Moose Loop”, around 5 km, we were sold again :) This time it was mostly on narrow single trails and was really beautiful.

There was also the option to do the “upper Moose Loop”, for which we went. This was an unmaintained trail (whatever that exactly means), only difference we noticed, some of the fallen trees where still on the trail and not removed.

We even came to an further split, which led to trappers creek. But there was no information about the distance, so we decided to skip that and stay on the “Upper Moose Loop”. Shortly after we came to Maligne Lake, which was beautiful but our #1 enemy was also there… The mosquito’s… We had some flashbacks from Sweden…

Maligne Lake & End of the Day

After the hike we moved to the main parking lot and had a quick look at the shop, but it was a bit too touristic. But we found another quick hike there, the Mary Schäffer Loop. Named after Mary Schäffer, which first recorded the Maligne Lake. We also saw a bunny on this hike, which was Nicole’s highlight of the day.

After that we decided to call it a day and drive back to Jasper, which was roughly a 45 minute drive. There we had dinner (Burgers again), did some quick shopping (camping gas, warmer socks for Nicole) and then went back to the camping ground.

The weather isn’t as good as yesterday, and we had some rain so far. Currently we are sitting in the shared & roofed area. Which at least provides good protection from the rain.

Over & Out!

Pictures

Activities

Hike: Maligne Canyon
Hike: Bald Hills try, then Moose Loop