Friday, September 17, 2010

Our Day in Jasper, Sept 17, 2010

First this morning we headed off to see Athabasca Falls, nice bright sunny day for some great photos.

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Well, above I say first this morning, it was actually about 11 am when we left, so by the time we left the falls it was lunch time. We stopped at the confluence of the Whirlpool and Athabasca Rivers for lunch.

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We then drove up north of Jasper on the same road we ended up on by accident yesterday with the coach to the Maligne Canyon. They call this canyon a slit canyon, now after seeing it, I understand why. Where the water goes is a very narrow slit sometimes perhaps 4-6’wide. We enjoyed seeing and looking down into the canyon while crossing three pedistrian bridges.

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Our first bridge.

The view looking down 167 feet from this bridge. A long way down and yes my tummy felt uneasy!

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Another bridge, and another view! I understand these falls are used in the winter to do ice climbing.

Our next stop was the Jasper Tramway.

IMG_1887 Our view of the village of Jasper from the top 7400’!

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Bob, on top of his world!

IMG_3977 Here I am doing my best to copy this Inukshuk, by pointing the way to go. The temperature up on top was 28 degrees (-2 C), but with the sun shining was not too cold.

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IMG_1879a We could see where the coach is parked from on top, we are in the front row, on the end, left side.

IMG_3981Soon it was time to head back down and back to the coach.

Soon Bob noticed a traffic jam out in front of our coach over on the park road. It was an Elk Jam!

IMG_1889a The beast in pursuit…

IMG_1893a … of this beauty!IMG_1890a

We later took the trash out and heard, after dark, the elk bugle, man-o-man what a scary sound, like a person screaming. I found this description of an elk bugle online, “The typical bugle of the bull elk is a surprising, distinctive sound that begins deep and resonant, and becomes a high pitched squeal before ending in a succession of grunts.” I only heard the high pitched squeal!

Also the articles states, “The characteristic rutting call of bulls can be heard from just before dusk to dawn.” It is 10: 30 pm and I just went outside and guess what I heard, the bull elk squeal in the distance. Here is a link to the article about elk bugling.

Tomorrow, we are heading out early (8 am) with the coach to the Columbia Ice Fields, then hope to stay in an RV park at Lake Louise. The next few day are forecasted for rain, so glad we had a beautiful day today.

3 comments:

Erin said...

Nice view of the townsite from the top of the mountain. When we were in Jasper last fall, there was so much haze from wildfires that we skipped the tram; will have to do it next time we find ourselves visiting the area.

Diana of Diana Rambles said...

Beautiful! We missed this cause we had to turn south at Prince George with our RV issues. I'll just enjoy it through your blog!

Kathy said...

Wonderful blog on Jasper!
I loved Maligne Canyon and the views from the top of the tram!
Our campsite was apparently the headquarters for a whole family of elk! We had to wait for them to move so we could back in the trailer!
Did you enjoy the Jasper Brewing Co. Pub yet?! :)

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