Wayward Newlyweds – Day 8: Clinton/Jasper National Park

Of Ravens and Icefields

We woke up, a bit later than intended thanks to a lot of good homemade wine, and poured ourselves out of bed around 9:30am. We got ourselves organized, and more or less ready to go. Ross graciously made us eggs Benedict for breakfast that we gratefully received, mmm mmm tasty! We got on the road by about 11:00am and pointed our way towards Jasper.

I know I keep going on and on about the views we have been seeing, but hey, you spend all day in the car driving through amazing country how can you not! I mean look at these vistas! I will admit I went a bit crazy with the photos. We finally got the camera battery charged up and I had a great time shooting out the car windows. Dodd has learned that when I whip out my phone or the camera he rolls down a window for me to go snap happy. There is just something about coming around a corner out of Cowboy Country and suddenly appears a massive mountain range that just keeps going up…and up…and Way up.

We didn’t really stop much until we got into the park itself. We had an in the car snack lunch and just kept going. Once we were in the park, we would pull off every so often at a viewpoint to get the sweet photos. We drove through a bit of rain on and off, but most of it was beautiful sun breaking through bits of cloud cover. One view point we stopped at had some great peak views and…off to the side sitting happily on a railing…was a raven. Quite content to look around, all huddled up in its feathers. As you can see, we got some pretty good shots of this very chill raven.

We hit Jasper itself by about 4:30pm (but it was actually 5:30pm because time zones…) and were thinking it was time for a break. We did a quick wander and tried to figure out what we wanted to do. This was the one stop that we didn’t have a solid plan for camping as the website we had been using was rather bare in this particular area. Eventually we decided to just take a drive and stop at the cheaper campsites along the Icefields Parkway and see what had room. So that is what we did.

This is where the serious views got going. This is also where the evidence of the Pine Beetle devastation was most evident. There were huge swaths of trees that was all red/brown, and dead. It was a sad sight to see. But they are working at careful restoration, and there is hope.

We did have to stop briefly for a quick PB&J sandwich dinner, because I was fading fast. By then it was about 8pm Alberta time, and still pleasantly light out. It was this stop where we really realized how COLD it was! This was serious mountain air we were in! So we had our quick sandwich, debated about checking out the hostel that was located at the pullout we just happened to stop at for our dinner, and decided to go on. We checked out about 3 campsites that were all full, until we got to Wilcox Pass campground. We found a cute little spot there and called it good. We got some wood, registered, and while Dodd got a fire going, I set up the bed. I would like to mention that the mosquitos of Jasper National Park are hardy and violent creatures. It was quite chilly but they were still quite happy to be out and harassing people well into the evening. Once the bed was all set to go, we snugged up by the fire, more to keep the mossies at bay than anything. Dodd read a bit and I wrote the past two blog posts I had gotten behind on. There was absolutely no service for most of the Icefields Parkway, so sadly the actual posting had to wait. Eventually (around 11pm) it got dark and I finished writing and figured it was time for bed. We climbed in with curtains up and ready and snuggled up for extra warmth under the sleeping bag for the first time all trip.

 

One of the most spectacular drives of the trip so far!

Cheers

Sláinte

Skol