Mount Robson was our last park in BC, so we headed east for an extended stay in Alberta, starting with Jasper National Park. Much to Sue’s dismay, this part of the trip involved some early morning starts, either to snag a campsite at a first-come first-serve campground or to do a popular hike before it was overrun with people. The first part of our exploration of Jasper was based out of the Snaring River campground, just north of the town of Jasper. We left Mount Robson early and were fortunate to get a nice site at Snaring River, as it is popular place and the overflow alternative is basically a dusty old river bed with parking spaces and picnic tables for trailers and RVs. After getting camp set up, we headed to town to do chores – after 2 1/2 weeks on the road it was time to do laundry and we also needed to stock up on groceries.

The next day we got up early and hiked Maligne Canyon from the bottom, starting at the Sixth Bridge and working our way up to the First Bridge. The canyon gets deeper the higher you go and the waterfall at the First Bridge was the highlight of the hike. Then we drove the Maligne Road to where it ends at Maligne Lake and hiked up the Bald Hills trail with the goal of enjoying the view back down to Maligne Lake. Unfortunately, smoke blew in on our hike up and you couldn’t really see anything.

Two hikes in one day toasted Sue, so she took the next day off and I did a long hike over Maccarib Pass and down to the Maccarib backcountry campsite (22 miles round trip). My goal was to get a peek at the Tonquin Valley and I saw enough to know that I need to go back and spend a few days in there. One of the best things about doing a day hike on trails that are typically only used by backpackers is that you don’t see very many people.

That was in sharp contrast to our third day of hiking, when we went to Cavell Meadows. Fortunately, I had insisted on an especially early start, so we had Cavell Pond and the first viewpoint on the meadow trail all to ourselves. Then the floodgates opened and there were people everywhere for our descent back to the trailhead. But there’s a good reason the trail is so popular – the views of Mount Edith Cavell are magnificent. To celebrate another great day, we treated ourselves to a nice dinner in town at the Raven Bistro.

And then the weather changed! After enjoying four straight sunny (if sometimes smoky) days with highs in the mid 80s, a front came through during the night, it rained almost an inch, and the temperatures dropped to the low 50s. So we enjoyed another rest day in the trailer, reading and relaxing. Fortunately, the weather cleared out that night, so Cato and I did a short hike of the Valley of Five Lakes for our last adventure near the town of Jasper. I was hoping to get a view of Mount Edith Cavell with new snow on it, but the mountain stayed mostly in the clouds. But we did see a bear!

We continued to have good weather as we packed up at Snaring River campground and headed south on the Icefields Parkway. We arrived at Wilcox campground by mid-morning and got a nice site with a view. But sadly the smoke had blown up the valley, so the view was almost completely obscured. Based on that, plus the fact that a tour bus had just dropped a load of hikers caused us to decide to spend the afternoon in camp rather than hike. Our decision was rewarded when we had the trail to Wilcox Ridge mostly to ourselves the next morning. And even though the views still weren’t great, we were further rewarded with three bighorn sheep that grazed right by us and a momma grizzly bear and two cubs foraging across the hillside in the distance. In the afternoon, I hiked up Parker Ridge to get a look at the Saskatchewan Glacier but unfortunately you almost couldn’t see it.

As forecasted, the rain came in just after bedtime and it poured all night. We got up fully expecting to have to pack up in the rain, as we were due to head south to Lake Louise in Banff National Park. The good news is that the clouds started clearing – even though we were packing wet gear, we were happy it wasn’t raining. The bad news came once we headed south on the Icefields Parkway, when we learned that the road was closed from Parker Ridge to Saskatchewan Crossing due to mudslides and wasn’t expected to open until at least 4 PM. So we headed back north a few miles to the Icefields Center to hang out and I walked up to the Toe of the Athabaska Glacier to kill time. Thankfully, the road opened by early afternoon and we made it to Lake Louise campground and got set up just before the next round of rain started.