Walking on a Glacier!

It was a rainy, grey and miserable morning as we left Jasper, I can promise you now the weather did not stop raining once for the whole day & most certainly got worse on the glacier.

Anywho we headed out to the Athabasca Glacier to do a hike and experience the fantastic weather, our guide for the tour was excellent with his knowledge and provided us with waterproof gear and hiking boots as well as the attachable studs for walking on the glacier.

There are markers as you walk towards the glacier marking how far it has receded, going back to the early 1900's. It is receding at such an alarming rate, it's not a good sign for the future and I'm really glad I was able to see it, as it may disappear altogether one day!

The rain did not let up once on the glacier and with the wind chill it was around -5 once we got up onto the glacier, but it was absolutely worth it, the deep blue colours of the deep ice, the flowing water and deep cracks in the ice, I'll probably never get to do something like this again, it was so surreal! Of course we filled up our water bottles from on the glacier, quite possibly the freshest water I've ever had! I've attached a short video on the glacier as well, I hope you get a feel for what it was like! (It really isn't the best quality but you get the gist of it).

By this point we were all getting cold and despite the wet weather gear, very wet! So we ventured back down and took off our rain gear, most of us had got pretty soaked underneath somehow...and I stupidly left the top zip on my waterproof backpack open, leaving my ipod and wallet to get marinated with the rain and an open bag of skittles! I really need to say a thankyou to Chris, I was a little annoyed that I was so stupid to let myself do this, he was so helpful with cleaning it up and even went as far as buying me some new packets of skittles! Thankyou so much Chris!
Lets just say my ipod is no longer working...

We had lunch back at the glacier tourist shop then set off to the township of Lake Louise, unfortunately the weather made the normally gorgeous drive horrible and visibility was very poor so we were unable to get any photos. We very quickly stopped at Peyto Lake but only a few of us were willing to venture out of the bus to look with the weather and some snow around on the ground, the lake sort of looks like a wolf on the right side!

 After checking into our hotels we went to a local pub for drinks and dinner, then to a bar for a few drinks before calling it a night...with the rain still not easing up!

Bears, Maligne Lake & Jasper!

Well, things got a little out of hand on the previous night, drinks wise, yet feeling pretty worse for wear, Amelia and I decided to get up 5 hours later for sunrise over the lake. Unfortunately nothing came to fruition as the cloud wrecked any sun possibility. We ventured back to bed for a couple of hours until everyone else rose from the dead. 

Soon enough we were on our way to a bear safari just outside of Blue River, we were on board these little boats, I don't know the proper word for them, they look like little tin zodiac. We set off and the wind chill was absolutely bloody freezing! I most certainly did not come prepared for it haha, it didn't take long before we found a male black bear strolling along the water front looking for food. The feeling seeing an animal in the wild is so much more special than in a zoo, it was the only bear we saw on the safari unfortunately but the guide took us upstream (the river levels were really low, I honestly thought we were going to hit something a few times, he drove like a boss!) to see the ecosystem, we were literally in an inland temperate rainforest, which sounds so odd when you say it being in Canada. 

We went back into Blue River for lunch and had a BBQ by the lake, I love it here in Autumn, the low lying clouds on the mountains, the colours of the trees changing and of course the cooler weather!

We set off after lunch heading towards Jasper & Jasper National Park, I thought the mountains we had seen were big back in Whistler, seeing Mt Robson as we entered the national park blew my mind, it just absolutely towers over everything and we weren't able to even see the peak as it was covered in cloud! 

We arrived in Jasper, checked in and spent the rest of the day going for a wander in the town and dinner. Of course I had to suss out the famed "Laundromat Coffee Shop", I've heard nothing but good things about it, it literally is just a laundromat with a coffee shop but the coffee and I can confirm, is really good! 

The next morning we were off to Maligne Lake to catch a ferry and visit the famously photographed spot of Spirit island! On the way there we went past some land that had recently been burnt out by bushfire, it's astonishing how barren and devastating it looked, it takes so long for it to re grow again, but as we found out over the years the trees grow and become to clustered so nothing on the ground can grow and no nutrients can land on the ground for animals etc, so this spot of land that was sadly destroyed will become the healthiest spot of the forest in a certain amount of years.

All of these lakes are varying shades of blue/green, all sourced from glacier water. We caught a boat over to Spirit Island, with a very funny (Aussie) tour guide keeping us all well informed. It is so picturesque, you can see the reason it is such a popular spot, we sure got our share of photos and group selfies. Unfortunately due to quite low water levels, Spirit Island was more of a peninsula than an island haha.

We stopped briefly at Maligne Canyon on the way out, it had only recently been reopened by the police, we believe there had been an accident there & there were still some people abseiling into the canyon.

We headed back into Jasper and spent the afternoon browsing too many gift shops and relaxing together. That evening we drove about an hour out of Jasper to a Greek restaurant for dinner, it was literally in the middle of nowhere, but had fantastic food. Afterwards we drove up the road a bit to Miette Hot Springs, they had 4 different pools ranging from in temps from 10-40 degrees Celsius! Myself and a few brave others ventured into the coldest pool a few times...I can assure you fripples made multiple appearances again, we would then run quickly into the hottest pool, it was refreshingly glorious! It was such a nice evening for our last night in Jasper as the sun was setting and the evening was getting chilly with the pools are surrounded by towering mountains.

Thanks again for reading folks, keep your eyes peeled for another post soon!