Stopped at recommended viewpoints along the way, including the Icefield Discovery Centre.
Eric makes a new friend.
Booked ourselves onto a glacier adventure tour - a Snobus that takes you onto the Athabasca Glacier, where you get out and walk around for about 15 mins. They wouldn't accept our bus pass!
Unlike our reassuring friend Ben, the guide today warned us not to step off the designated areas because of the crevasses. He told us that all he was allowed to do if you fell into a crevasse was call Jasper Mountain Rescue, and they'd take 2h to get there. Information given was that you'd only last 45min in the cold and that the Mountain Rescue had not had a successful rescue in the last 20 years! We were goody two shoes and stayed where we were supposed to - quite a few people didn't!
Eric sits on the front of the Snobus.
Eric gets his feet cold an wet - gosh it's very blue down there.
The Snobus was very slow but excellent at negotiating the incredibly steep face of the glacial moraine, a 1 in 3 slope.
A familiar name for a mountain?
Yet another waterfall - this time Athabasca Falls.
On the drive to Maligne Lake there were lots of signs warning you to slow down because of caribou - once again the wildlife evaded us. I think they must be popping out behind us as we pass, saying haha you missed us.
No caribou, but we did see long horn sheep.
A long horn sheep seen on the way to Lake Maligne.
...seen later at the side at Medicine Lake.
At Lake Maligne in the evening.
Medicine Lake later that same evening. The bedrock is limestone and the lake fills with glacial water in the summer, but in the fall and winter the level drops as the water drains through the limestone and there is little glacial input. A bit topsy turvy to how you might expect. The First Nations people thought it was magic and hence the name Medicine Lake - or so the story goes.
Call into Jasper for some dinner - a bison burger for the non-vegetarian - very enjoyable. Our B&B is over the border in British Columbia, so as we left Alberta we gained an hour - but also had had a very long day. Our reward was the outlook from our bedroom...
