Aug 20, 2010 - Wicked River

A day of smoke - but no fire or brimstone Friday In the day before there were bridges - a day when you had to ford rivers if you wanted to cross them - a French priest traveling in northern Alberta came to a river he couldn't cross. Assuming, in his priestly conceit, that anything that opposed him was the work of the devil he uttered the words ‘Wicked river’! The name stuck and the river has been ‘Maligne’ ever since. We took a drive along the Maligne (maleen) River today, and to the lake that is it’s source. The air was heavy with smoke,...

Aug 14, 2010 - Oh No!

Well today when we left Grande Prairie our goal was to reach Jasper, Canada's National Park, but while driving just about 19 miles past Hinton, "remember our tire that would cause us no more problems," well it did. The patch they put on must of come loose and the tire began loosing pressure which put all the pressure on the inside tire which cause it to blow apart. I was driving the jeep behind Tom and I though he hit something, because something flew out the back of the motorhome. I then realized the tire had flown apart. Tom limped the...

Aug 10, 2010 - Hiking in August - through snow?

The hike to Cavell Meadow had been recommended to us. It is high altitude so it is caribou country. The alpine meadows are in bloom at this time of year. The trail doesn't even open until the end of June. We decided to give it a try. It was 48° at 10:00 when we started. The trail is unrelentingly up and is quite steep rather than just steep in lots of places. The weather cooperated with a light breeze, white puffy clouds, and incredible blue skies. The views were magnificent. The alpine meadows were, indeed, full of flowers. Except for...

Aug 9, 2010 - Our heads in the clouds!

Did you know that very few mountains are named for women? In Jasper National Park, they honored Edith Cavell with a 10,827-foot mountain. Edith Cavell was a matron nurse of the Belgium Red Cross in Brussels. She aided 200 or more allied soldiers to escape from behind enemy lines in Germany into freedom in Holland, via the underground railroad. Her capture led to her execution by firing squad in 1915. That, of course, ended her career. A mountain that high in this part of the world means glaciers. We did not attempt to climb the entire...

Aug 8, 2010 - Onward and upward!

Our goal today was to make it to Old Fort Pointe summit. Obviously hiking to a summit means going up. Part of the trail was a gradual climb through lovely stands of aspen. Part of the trail was almost vertical. Why do we do these things to ourselves? Well, the view cannot be obtained in any other way. And one meets the nicest people as we stand together, gasping for air, pretending we really wanted to chat when we actually just wanted an excuse to rest for a minute. From the top, we could see mountains as far as the eye could see. We also...

Aug 7, 2010 - Trouble in Paradise

We have spent quite a bit of time driving through clouds of dirt on back roads so we weren't too worried when the wheels started squealing. They sometimes do that when they have gotten dust in them. This time, however, as we were coming down a very, very steep one-lane road in a remote canyon, the brake pedal not only made noise, it didn't feel right. We found ourselves an auto shop right away. Turns out that our brakes were gone. It was metal on metal. Having trouble locating a repair shop, we pulled in 10 minutes before closing - for the...

Aug 6, 2010 - Colors of the rainbow

The Valley of Five Lakes really does have 5 lakes, quite near each other. It's just that the walk to get to the valley takes a while and has lots of ups and downs. The 5 lakes were an amazing green color, quite different from the turquoise lakes we had been seeing. As an added bonus, we saw 2 other lakes on our way - one was brown and the other was blue. Who knew lakes could be so many different colors? After that hike, we checked out Athabaska Falls. These are very powerful falls and the viewing area is well done. And Athabaska Lake is yet...

Aug 5, 2010 - Evil River

Maligne River was named by a priest who had great difficulty navigating it. Maligne translates to "evil". We decided the best way to view the river and to see just how "evil" it and its canyon are was to hike up the river. There are 6 footbridges that cross the river. We started at Number 5 and headed up. When one walks next to a river, one sees water in every form. The water was at times still, lying in shallow pools - not evil at all. Sometimes it was swirly, as it gouged out cirques over many years from hard rock. Sometimes it meandered...

Aug 4, 2010 - GyPSy

Canadian Rockies sightseeing has been revolutionized by GyPSy Guide. It mounts on the windshield and automatically plays through the car radio. It uses GPS to always know where it is and activate itself when a place of interest is reached. Rather than hike, we spent the day listening to our GyPSy guide and put over 300 miles on the car. It works quite well and has a lot of flexibility. We will be returning to many of the areas we saw fleetingly so that we can explore them thoroughly. One of the stops was Miette Hot Springs. At 104°, these...

Aug 3, 2010 - On ice

Did you know the largest campground in North America (1,000 campsites) is near Banff? Naturally we had to check it out on our way out of town. It was moving day again. We made our way north, passing through amazing scenery as we went. The day was in the 50's and very comfortable with long sleeves, quite a contrast to back home where it is miserably hot and humid. A quick hike to Bow Summit and the overlook to Peyto Lake , although fairly steep, took only about 30 minutes total. The walk through the forest was very peaceful and it was a...

Jul 13, 2010 - Hinton CA

Tuesday morning, it is off to Jasper and Hinton on the Glacier Highway. The rain is in the distance and we head north and it continues to rain and the clouds sink lower. Not much to see except raindrops on the windshield and gray clouds. As we watch the temp on the rearview mirror drop the rain splats get softer and it is 30 degrees and snowing: YES snowing. Periodically we get glimpses of spectacular mountains and green lakes. By the time we reach the glacier interpretative center there is perhaps 4 inches of snow on the ground, wet slushy...

Jun 24, 2010 - Pouce Coupe to Grande Cache, Alberta

Lots of deer along the road today. The trip was about 4 hours from Pouce Coupe to Grande Cache, Alberta....but the blog's system can't find it on the map! Grande Cache is about halfway between Grand Prairie and Hinton, Alberta. We found the Municipal RV Park and enjoyed the afternoon AND hot showers. They have wi-fi too, so we were able to research a bit about Jasper and Banff National Parks. Looks like we will get up early and check out Jasper, then camp in Banff tomorrow night... reservation is for 2 nights.