August 19, 2014
Last night was not nearly as cool as
the previous night and it was 54 this morning. It started raining
around 6:00 but by 9:00 had quit and the sun came out. We then had
intermittent rain and sunny blue skies the rest of the day.
We decided that today we would go to
Maligne Lake, Medicine Lake and Maligne Canyon. There are east of
Jasper but you have to go through Jasper to access the Maligne Road.
We stopped in Jasper at the Visitors Center to check email and take
care of a little business. The center is in an old historic house
that was restored. Nice.
After leaving Jasper we first stopped
at Maligne Canyon and were disappointed to find that there was
absolutely no parking available and there were people everywhere.
After making two trips through without finding any place to park we
just decided to go on down the road. The Maligne road is a very nice
drive and parallels the Maligne river for much of the way. What a
nice river – actually more like the creeks that run through the
Smokey Mountains – not like the Tennessee River. The water is so
crystal clear that you can see the pebbles on the bottom from the
road. There are numerous rest areas/trail heads and places to stop
for pictures. We stopped at several locations because they were just
so pretty. Medicine Lake is lovely and quite interesting. It is the
lake that water runs into but not out of. Well it really does run
out but it goes underground. It resurfaces elsewhere as springs.
The lake receives its water from Maligne Lake by way of the Maligne
River. The water disappears, and then reappears in Maligne Canyon.
The lake actually goes almost dry in the winter becoming a mud flat,
when there is no snow/glacier melt. Then when the weather warms it
fills again. This is a large lake – not a pond. It is also very
pretty currently since it still has a good deal of water. You can
however see at the upper end where the water is going down. We read
that the Canadian pioneers tried various methods to try to stop the
lake from going dry, such as stuffing the leaks with sand bags and
old mattresses, all to no avail. This lake is one of the reasons the
UN created the Rock Mountain Parks World Heritage site because it is
one of the largest “sinking” lakes in the Western Hemisphere.
While at Medicine Lake we saw a golden eagle soaring on the air
currents. Nice.
We then went on to Maligne Lake the
largest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies. It was pouring rain
when we were there so only one picture. The purple tinged mountains
surrounding the lake and the turquoise water have brought the lake a
lot of notoriety but today was not the day for pictures there as you
could barely see the opposite shore. There are boat tours on the
lake and they were actually still taking people out, but we declined
that option even though we had our rain gear on. It just didn't look
like fun in the downpour. You can also rent kayaks and paddle the
lake (and some people were doing it in the rain) which looked like it
would be lots of fun on a sunny day.
We headed back down the road toward
Jasper enjoying the views in the opposite direction. Just about 10
minutes from the lake the sun was back out with blue skies. We
stopped at a rest stop for pictures of the river and met a delightful
habituated chipmunk. We know he was habituated because he was
eating a piece of tomato someone had given him when we first saw him
and he came to us and posed, but when we wouldn't feed him he ran to
the next group that walked toward a picnic table. Cute little
beggar.
On the chance that the Maligne Canyon
would not be so crowded we stopped there again as we were headed back
to Jasper. We are so, so glad we did. There were plenty of parking
places and not nearly as many people. The canyon was absolutely
amazing. Pictures can not tell the story. Videos are better, but
you really have to see it. It is quite narrow is places and over 165
feet deep with huge quantities of water roaring through. The water
has carved the gorge through solid limestone. Magnificent. We now
understand why so many people were there when we first stopped. It
was a wonderful stop along a beautiful road and this afternoon the
lighting was much better for pictures than this morning.
We then headed back to Fred to grill
some burgers for supper and eat a few s'mores. On the way back we
saw another mule deer that really wanted to pose for us.
That's it for today. We plan to leave
in the morning heading south. We will probably cross the border back
into the USA sometime Thursday if we don't see something that changes
our plans. We are both ready to get our cell service back.
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