Moose!

I did manage to convince my feet to walk the 8 minutes to the brewing bar yesterday.  I got my burger with a side of poutine which seemed slightly classier than the last lot I ate, and was pretty good.  I also tried two of their beers, a pilsner which was fine and one of their signatures Jasper the beer which was good.  A better dinner than tonight's, but I'll tell you about that later.

Today was a tour up to Maligne valley and Medicine lake.  I was glad this morning that I had an easy going day planned.  I've been fighting an oncoming cold since Toronto and this morning it hit, I woke up feeling worse for wear.  A bit of food and some advil helped a lot.

In contrast to yesterday this tour had three people on it (yesterday was 46).  The smaller tour group was a little strange, but as we managed to time our stops differently to the other buses out there felt a lot more peaceful.  The other two were a couple of South Carolina.

The closest we got to spotting Caribou.  Apparently there are only about 40 left in Jasper National Park.  Our guide Kendra apparently made three trips, walking 5 days each time to try and find a Caribou and saw one on the last day of her last attempt as she packed up to leave.

The results of a massive forest fire that went through a few years ago.  They're currently building a fire break around the town so that they can let forest fires burn more than they did in the past.  The previous century of stopping forest fires has had a negative impact on the landscape.  The fires would clear old trees and allow new growth and also would control the pine beetle.  Forest fires are a real thing in Jasper though.  This one was created by a lightning strike so apparently when they've had dry days and then there's a thunderstorm everyone gets on edge.  Kendra said she had a go back packed.

We started at Medicine lake which is a lake that disappears every winter.  A stream remains, but the rest of the lake dries up.  Then in spring as the snow melts it fills up again.  There was apparently a bear hanging out around that rest stop yesterday but no such luck today.  

Bald eagle sitting in her nest.

On the way up the valley they told us about Mary Schaffer who named many of the mountains and rivers around Jasper.  In 1903 her husband died and at the age of 42 she became a mountaineer going on a few long expeditions into areas not often traveled.  On her journey's she made incredibly accurate paintings of the local flora.  Also she never named anything after herself, always after the guides and others.

We had two guides for the day.  A guy, whose name I've unfortunately forgotten, and Kendra (that I remember because he said it a bunch).  Kendra was a master animal spotter.  He joked that it's a good thing she's not a hunter.  The first thing she noted was this Harlequin duck sitting on a rock (the black and white thing in the middle).  Apparently this is the first they've seen this season, the start of them migrating back for the summer.

Her next spotting, a Moose!

Maligne lake, with ice.  The tour usually has the option of doing a cruise, but not this week - they're still waiting for the ice to break up.

Rainbow trout.  They were introduced and now thrive in the lake.  Seriously seemed like there were so many you could just stick your hand in and pull one out.

Moose hiding behind trees, my camera would only focus on the trees,

Not long after the moose spotting we pulled over in this rest stop that we'd checked on the way up the valley.  There's a marmot that hangs out there they were trying to spot for us.  Kendra went out for a quick look and saw nothing.  As she jumped in the van she said "I didn't want to look to closely under the RVs" and as we turned and looked back at them she yelled "there he is" and jumped out to try and scare him out from under there as she had said before she was worried he'd get run over with his tendency to hang out under cars.  Unfortunately we got a look at him wiggle then jump up and go into the suspension of the RV.  She tried for a bit to get him out, then found the owner of the RV and told them they had a marmot in their suspension and not to drive off, she was going to send a warden to sort it out.  It took a while to find a ranger, but some way down the road we did, and they jumped out to tell them about it so they could radio to the ranger up by the lake to go and sort it out.  When they got back in the van he said the ranger that they knew said "oh him again" about the Marmot.  So he may be captured and moved to stop him causing trouble, and to protect him.  Kendra was very pleased to have told someone, she was pretty worried for the little guy.

Big horned sheep holding up traffic.  Oh yeah, yesterday I accidentally called one of these a mountain sheep.  I take it back, it's a big horned sheep.

Mule deer.  Check out those ears.

Maligne canyon.  On the short walk around the guide grabbed a berry, crushed it and handed it to me saying "do you like gin" um, do I?  Heck yes I do.  They were juniper berries and oh man the smell.   So good.  He told me that there's a local company up in Banff that takes berries from the area and make gin.  I may or may not have tracked down the name and found myself a bottle.  Only a little one I swear.

Chipmunk friend.

So the tour itself wasn't necessarily the greatest, but the guides were fantastic, the lake was beautiful and the wildlife was great.

They dropped us back in town just before 1pm, so I grabbed myself a flat white and a bear claw for lunch.  The flat white was not a flat white.  The bear claw was a cinnamon scroll shaped a bit like a bear claw.  Pretty good.  After a bit of organising I went to the local museum.  It was pretty good for a small town museum.  Somewhere in the realms of the Mokau museum, but with slightly flashier signs and quite a well sequenced time line.

Check out that view from the football field.

When I finished up at the museum it was 3pm and I was just starting to wander back to the hostel to do my laundry when I opened google maps for one last look at what else there was.  I noticed there was a track very close to the museum so thought I may as well check it out.  What began as a quick stroll turned into a 2 and a half hour walk, so I managed to make it to 20,000 steps today even with most of the morning being spent in a van.   I'm glad I went looking for the track.  If I'd realised just how many tracks there were such an easy walk from town I may have not gone on the tour today and gone out walking all day.  Google didn't show the extent of the trails, it seemed like you needed to drive to the start of the trials, and I didn't want to walk 5 kms on the road.  Though it probably would've been a very long day walking once you added up getting to either of the lakes I had thought of walking to with the walk to the carparks so maybe I wouldn't have managed it.  And if I hadn't done the tour I wouldn't have seen a moose.  So it's better this way, I got both.  If I ever come back to Jasper though I'm bringing hiking boots and a companion and I'll take on a bunch of the tracks around here.  Views are better when you've had to work a bit to see them.

Bird friend.  Google tells me he's a black billed magpie.

The trail I started on started behind the town and ran the length of the town.  There were some pretty spectacular views back out over the town.  There were signs all along it warning not to approach elk.  I could see skeet indicating there definitely animals around, but it didn't seem like I was going to see any.  Then I rounded a corner at the end of town and bam, there were four up the back of a row of houses. 

Train tracks that'll take me out of here tomorrow.

A standard Parks Canada washroom.  Functional not fancy.  Short drop toilet and hand sanitiser.

I walked around the back of the town, under the train tracks along to a junction where I could turn left to go back to town, or right.  I chose right.  I could see on the map of tracks that not that much further I might be able to see a lake or river.  I saw both.  A small lake and the Athabasca river.  

"Lake".  It's got some growing to do before summer.

With 2kms to get back to town I got to the top of the first set of stairs, got my photo back across the bridge and river then decided it was time to head back.  I was down to the last toe on the bear claw energy wise.

Back in town it was a supermarket dinner for tonight as a good way to save money, and as I needed to do laundry anyway.   I grabbed the cheaper of the two pasta ready made meals meaning dinner was $2.50.  It was not good.  I should have at least grabbed the cheesy one.  For some unknown reason I grabbed the pasta salad one and it was sweet and just not very nice.  So I ended up eating an apple and then popping across the road for a cheese croissant and a snickers bar after throwing half the pasta away.  The croissant was another bad decision, end of day croissant, 20 seconds in the microwave could barely save it.  Oh well, train dinner tomorrow which will be much better.

Also, the final countdown is one.  Both to turning 30 (2 sleeps to go) and to the end of the trip (5 sleeps).  I'm really starting to look forward to getting home though.  I had a brief moment of looking forward to going home when mum was preparing to go.  Now it's kicking in again.  Helped along by the worst snorer I've ever come across a couple of nights ago.  Seriously.  I almost left him a note telling him to see a sleep doctor, it must have been messing with his sleep.   No consistency.  It would go from heavy breathing, to full on snores, to snuffles and occasionally just cut off half way through a noise.  It didn't sound healthy.  Luckily I was so tired I fell asleep anyway.  But it'll nice to get home to my own bed, my own bathroom and to unpacking my bag.