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Jasper
Entry 86 of 92 | show all | print this entry |
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After getting to bed so late, it was no wonder we only awoke at 9:30am.
We took a walk into town. We had missed almost a full day with the train being late, so we wanted to see what activities we could fit into our 2 days we had left.
We found the "Overlander Trekking & Tours" company office and booked the Maligne Canyon Ice Walk for 1pm (the only one left) and the Icefield Parkway tour for the following day. We were gutted that we couldn't do a dog sledding ride, but that took up half a day, so by arriving 12 hours late, we had forfeited that activity!
We continued our walk around Jasper and found a neat café called "Bears's Paw Bakery". Very Canadian and very good food. The temperature was -16 and the inside of the café was 16, so it was very warm and cozy.
We settled in and had soup, chicken Somoza, and a sandwich with our lattes. We sat listening to the Canadian locals and soaking up the atmosphere.
We did a short tour of the town, popping into souvenir shops and generally having a look to see what was on offer. We were a bit irritated as we wanted to dog sled, or ski, but we knew there was nothing we could do about it, so instead we headed back to the chateau to get ready for our canyon ice walk.
At 12h45 our guide, Trevor, picked us up and drove us into Jasper to get snow boots and strap on cleats, and then we were off to the canyon.
On the way we stopped twice, once to get a shot of a coyote and the second time for a shot of a male elk.
Trevor explained that the animals had become accustomed to humans and vehicles, as they were protected in the National Park.
We reached Maligne Canyon after 25 minutes, strapped on our cleats and made sure we had our gloves, beenies, scarves etc.
The pamphlet advertising the ice walk explains best what we experienced ......"experience the wonders of the Maligne Canyon from the ground up. Your guide will lead you safely along the frozen canyon floor through its maze of fascinating ice sculptures. Explore the entrance to a cave system, ice caves, fossils and towering frozen waterfalls stretching over 30m up the canyon walls."
It was an awesome walk. We started by crossing a swingbridge and then we walked down into the canyon.
Trevor pointed out where underground springs fed the river running through the canyon. The current weather conditions meant that the river was frozen over, but we could still hear it flowing under the ice. In places we could see through the top layer of ice, and we watched the water flowing beneath us.
There were spots where we walked 5m behind each other, so as not to crack the ice and fall into the -34 degree water below!
We had a look inside an entrance to a cave system where stalagmites and stalactites had formed because of the sudden drop in temperature. We broke off little bits and put them in our mouths - good cold water.
One of the most amazingly cool things we did was to go inside an ice cave. Flowing water had frozen as it flowed over the edge of the canyon wall, forming a solid frozen wall.
Trevor went in first and poked around with his ice axe to make sure it was safe to go inside. It was truly amazing. We crept inside and were totally surrounded by ice, all over, top, bottom and sides.
I get knocking down the long pieces of ice hanging from the ceiling because I would grab hold of one to assist while moving, and it would break off!
We couldn't take any photos inside as the camera lens misted up completely, I did try a few but they are very hazy. At least the video camera worked, so we have it all on film.
We took photos from the outside of the ice cave, so you will have to use your imagination when thinking what the inside looked like (until you see the video that is).
We moved further along the canyon and saw some fossils, before coming through a narrow area to where the Angel and Queen waterfalls were.
The waterfalls were obviously not flowing anymore as they were all frozen. As we studied the falls we could see water dripping down onto the frozen falls and freezing, thereby making the falls bigger.
Trevor explained that many people participate in a sport called "fall climbing", whereby they climb up a waterfall. He showed us marks where climbers had recently been climbing up Angel falls. This looked very dangerous to us ...... climbing up frozen water .... how do you know if the wall is frozen enough to take your weight? Trevor just shrugged and said it was all part of the adrenaline rush, "it's 90% mental he said" - I agreed with him, fall climbers must be mental!
The Queen Falls were much bigger than Angel falls, dropping some 50m down. We admired all the frozen patterns of the falling freezing water, but we could not get too close as the ice was too thin in this area, and Trevor thought we may go through it!
We had to head back from this point as it was too dangerous to continue walking on the canyon floor. We climbed up onto the canyon edge for the walk back, and this elevated view was brilliant.
All too soon we were taking off our cleats and boots and heading inside our chateau room.
We decided to go and take a hot tub, so we grabbed our costumes and headed for the pool room. A 20m indoor pool had a hot tub next to it, which we climbed into. We were joined by an Aussie couple from Darwin and a local Canadian girl from Edmonton.
The tub was very hot and relaxing. We didn't know, but there was also a hit tub outside, in the snow! It had a roof, but was otherwise open to the elements, so we decided to give it a bash the following day.
We walked into town and went grocery shopping, buying goodies for our forthcoming 56 hour train journey. We then stopped in at an Italian restaurant and had some brilliant pasta for supper.
We hit the sack earlyish as we had to be up early in the morning for our Icefield Parkway tour.
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