Jasper – Riveted

We’re Home

Laura Domela — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 03:27:35 +0000

I know. Bor. Ing. Except this time it's NOT boring, it's awesome. I'll share some stuff (and some photos I forgot to post from our trip) soon.

In the meantime, look at this cool photo Kyle took of us all, dining at the Athabasca glacier where we were camped for the night!

Back Down the Icefields Parkway

Laura Domela — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 18:28:48 +0000

We left Jasper this morning with Kyle (after saying goodbye to Tiffani and Deke, *sniff sniff*) and are heading down to Glacier National Park (the U.S. one) for a couple days before heading back to Portland. Bummer…that meant we had to drive the Icefields Parkway again. It was a bit rainy and cloudy and a totally different drive this time than the drive to Jasper was a few days ago. Totally breathtaking in a whole different way.

Us, Kyle, and the Columbia Icefield, which is a triple Continental Divide. The waters here ultimately flow north to the Arctic Ocean, east to Hudson Bay/Atlantic Ocean, and south and west to the Pacific Ocean. The only other triple Continental Divide in the world is in Siberia. Cool, huh?

Our old friend, the Athabasca Glacier:

Now we're at Lake Louise for one night before heading down to Glacier N.P. We're finishing up a little work and then we'll head over to Moraine Lake to hike around a bit since we missed it when we were here last week. Bonus!

Hiking Maligne Canyon

Laura Domela — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 20:12:00 +0000

This morning Kevin and I headed over to do the Maligne Canyon hike (pronounced mah-leen). We started down at the trailhead at the Sixth Bridge and hiked up to the main trailhead (about 4.5 miles round trip).

Somewhere around the Fifth Bridge the canyon starts to get all canyoney and the trail is rocky and sometimes a little steep. Gorgeous hike.

It's tough to get a photograph of the depth of the canyon that conveys how it feels to stand on one of the six bridges over it. It's super deep (160 feet at some places) and it's bright outside and dark in the canyon. Even HDR is tough. You'll just have to go there.

Canyon shadow self portrait:

We took a slightly different path back to the Sixth Bridge trailhead. Nice view:

Tree bark art:

Tonight is our last night in Jasper. I think we're all going out to dinner in town, and Kevin and I are trying to figure out which path we'll take back to Portland tomorrow (we've got a week). I think we may follow Kyle South and take a quick tour through Glacier National Park before heading home.

Canoeing on Maligne Lake

Laura Domela — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 13:53:20 +0000

Yesterday we headed out to Maligne Lake to see what the fuss was about. The fuss is about this:

There's a little boathouse right as you approach, and we decided we owed it to ourselves to get a couple canoes and head out into the blue:

Would you just LOOK at this place!

We canoed across the lake and down to a spot the guy at the canoe rental told us would be a good place for us to have our picnic lunch. Turns out he was right:

View from our picnic:

One more of Tiffani and Deke in this gorgeous place:

The drive out to Maligne Lake was not too shabby either. And bonus…we got to see some wildlife:

(We also saw some caribou and some goats, but the photos weren't as cool.)

Today we're heading over to hike Maligne Canyon and do a bit of work in town afterwards.