After our time on the Icefields Parkway, we arrived at Jasper National Park, about a 4-hour drive north of Banff. We spent just a few days in Jasper, but had lots of adventures (good and bad!) while we were there.
Athabasca Falls
Just south of the town of Jasper, at the far north end of the Icefields Parkway, sits Athabasca Falls. This is a spot where the Athabasca River cuts through a gorge, creating a waterfall with impressive force.
The power of the water was on show at the falls, where the water had carved deep grooves in the rock.
The day we visited this waterfall, on our way up to Jasper, we happened to spot some people white water rafting just past the waterfall.
From earlier research I knew this was a class 2+ river, and that kids 5 and older could go participate in whitewater rafting. We decided it looked pretty fun, so figured we could check in with the tour company, Maligne Rafting Adventures, when we got into Jasper later that day.
We ended up booking a tour for our last day in Jasper. The day of our tour, we rode a bus back to Athabasca Falls (and had elk sightings on the way there and home!), where we donned our wetsuit and other water gear (provided by Maligne) and prepared to take to the river. There were a few other people in our group, but we had a raft to ourselves (and our guide).
We were the second raft to take off, and started with a little hard paddling to get into the river’s flow, but then had a pretty easy time paddling along. C and A took the front row, so they took the brunt of the waves, which is either exciting or totally sucks, just depending on your attitude (thumbs up from the guys). L did a good job pulling his weight, but little N, still traumatized from his trip to the emergency room the prior night* gave up paddling quickly and just rode along with us in the bottom of the boat.
The ride was a decent length with enough waves to keep it interesting, but not long enough for us to get bored. After the end of the trip, we got changed and headed back to Jasper (with another elk sighting on our way back!). It was for sure a really fun adventure for all of us, and we are already plotting when we may be able to do it again on our future travels!
Maligne Canyon
While in Jasper, we woke up early in hopes of spotting some wildlife as we drove the scenic road towards Maligne Lake. We didn’t luck out that morning (though as I mentioned, we did manage to see elk when we weren’t looking for them on the way to and home from our whitewater rafting trip).
We stopped at Malign Canyon to hike through the canyon. Walking along the canyon, the route is marked by bridges, and we walked just past the fourth bridge, then decided we had seen enough (canyon/waterfall fatigue), and headed back.
The canyon was pretty, but the highlight was a spot where water flowing from the nearby Medicine Lake through a large underwater cave system into the Maligne Canyon.
The really cool part of this is that during the summer, Medicine Lake looks like a normal, even fairly scenic lake (see below).
This lake, though it has no easily visible outlet, completely drains in the fall and winter.
It turns out there is an extensive limestone cave system under the lake, and the water actually drains out like a bathtub, running through these caves before it spills out into Maligne Canyon. In the summer, the meltwater comes into the lake faster that it can drain, so a lake results. When the meltwater slows, the water drains as soon as it comes in.
We only had a few days in Jasper, but we did find a little time to walk around, and the boys even became Parks Xplorers, the canadian equivalent of the US’s NPS Junior Ranger program.
* I will go into more detail about this in a future post, but Nate split his chin open and ended up getting five stitches at the local hospital when we were in Jasper, the night before our white water rafting trip.
