Day 5: August 13
A lake crossed
An island visited
A canyon explored
A town visited
Memories:
Danny: Meeting Mr. Slug at the campsite. (Slug Slug), Ice Cream (Scoops and Loops) in Jasper Town, the Boat Tour that mom was right about, random piece of red hot charcoal coming out of the fire.
Grace: GIANT splinter and drama - would prefer to forget,
Therese: getting up early and dragging everyone to the car, Maline Canyon, Danny complaining about everything in the morning, the $250,000 toilet
Gordon: Seeing Elk, driving around for 20 minutes looking for parking at Maligne Canyon, killer bears (not)
This morning was agony for the first two hours. I woke up freezing because the one thing I didn’t get done before we left was to buy myself a new sleeping bag. Grace has graduated to my bag which used to be Jane’s. I prefer the non-mummy configuration so I was in the market for a new sleeping bag. But we ran out of time and I packed up the cheap Walmart bag we purchased on our trip out west during sub-zero temps. Last night I could not sleep for more than about an hour at a time. I woke up at 5:30 thinking I might as well stay up since we needed to get everyone up at 6:00 only to realize about half an hour later that my watch is on central time and it was only 4:30.
We got up at 6:00 and dragged the kids out of the tent to make our 6:30 departure time. Grace was grumpy. Danny was beside himself. His shoes were wet (I warned him about playing in water the night before) he didn’t want to ride on a boat. He didn’t want to get in the car, he didn’t want to leave the car.
I was exhausted and the drive was long and foggy.
It was still cold at the lake when we arrived. We had hoped for breakfast at the chalet but had to settle for pastries. Although the coffee was good.
Then we got on the boat and headed down Lake Maligne and everything changed. The lake is stunning, even in our early morning fog cover. The water changes from a deep green to a stunning blue. On either side, the mountains rise up and the slopes filled with Ridge Pole Pines catch the sun. We arrived at Spirit Island, which is a very small, sacred site. People are not allowed out to the actual island. However, it was close to shore and we had time to take pictures and view it from a number of different perspectives. Our tour guide also pointed out that the bathroom on the mainland side where we docked was a $250,000 structure running on solar power and designed with a special filtration system to restore everything back to a pristine form.
As we returned to our starting point the sun broke above the clouds and above the clouds we could see the rocky peaks of mountains in the distance. It was truly a stunning sight.
We never would have taken this boat trip if a friend hadn’t suggested, or rather insisted, that we do it. It was expensive but worth every penny. And wonder of wonders: Danny had a great time!
On the way back from the lake, we took a detour to hike down Maligne Canyon. We drove around for about 20 minutes looking for a parking spot before we gave up. But lo and behold, there was an overflow lot just about a quarter of a mile down the road. So off we went. It was a beautiful hike, but a very steep climb on the way up. Various complaints were registered.
After another 45 minute drive back we headed into Jasper, the town in this national park. Jasper is like a less crowded, slightly less deliberate version of Banff. We grabbed the recommended ice cream and got some literature from the visitor center. The only big disappointment was that in order to actually touch a glacier, we would have to pay for a tour that cost about $300 for the whole family. We decided to skip that attraction although it was a bummer for all of us.
We hit the campsite and lit up the fire for our Hot Dog dinner followed by s’mores. We had talked about possibly heading down to the hot springs tonight but we were all tired after a long day and lounging around the fire sounded like a better bet especially since we would have time tomorrow since we weren’t going to truck all the way out to the glacier.
So here we are, tuckered out and burrowed into our sleeping bags. Tomorrow we can sleep in before heading to the tram ride and hot springs.
No comments:
Post a Comment