Our Trip to Banff (Part 2)- We Finally See Mountains!

When we first started planning this trip about six months ago we knew we wouldn't be able to stay away more than about six days. As I did my research of the Banff area the trick became to see just how much of the Banff area we could get through in six days. Seems most people fly in through Calgary, as that is the closest airport to the mountains, but we came to realize that driving from Calgary to Banff, Lake Louise and then further north to Jasper couldn't happen in six days if we were also going to backtrack and fly out of Calgary again. That's when Edmonton came into the picture, even though it's a further away airport. By flying into Edmonton we could drive through Banff in one direction and then fly out of Calgary a week later. And since the trip from Edmonton to the mountains is twice as far as coming from Calgary we decided to do that stretch at the beginning of our trip while we were still fresh. Also, there would be the excitement of driving the longest stretch -toward- the mountains, so we'd have something to look forward to.

And so we headed out from Edmonton for Jasper. And Highway 16 was really nice, not too busy, and picturesque even before the mountains were in sight.

But actually -getting- in view of the Rocky Mountains for the first time, well, that's one of those life-defining moments and it lived up to the hype. As we travelled into Jasper National Park we were in proper awe. The mountains started cropping up all around us and I spent the first half-hour switching off between John's 3-D video camera and my own still camera to capture as many scenes as I could. It would take me awhile to realize that there wouldn't be a place I would be standing or driving for the next four days that wouldn't be a breath-taking panorama of mountains.

We stopped at the Jasper National Park gate and paid a three day admission, that would also allow us to travel freely through Banff National Park and Yoho National Park later in the trip. My parents had given me a hard-cover photo book of Canada's national parks for Christmas (Canada's Parks are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year) and there was a coupon in that book for a free day in any national park that we finally got to cash in.

We passed the first two attractions we wanted to go to, Miette Hot Springs and Maligne Canyon, on our route to our hotel in Jasper, but we'd backtrack later in the day to get to them. It was onto Jasper first.

We pretty much fell in love with Jasper on first sight. In fact, of all the towns and cities we saw during our trip it was my favorite. It was quaint and rustic and laid-back and it never seemed too busy or over-crowded, even in the height of tourist season. That stripy building with the pointy roofs above was our Jasper hotel. It was also an older building and quaint and the friendly staff gave us a room right away even though we arrived four hours early.

This was the view from my hotel window. I never got over the fact that I could see mountains from every hotel room window where we stayed :). It was nice that we got to settle into our room early, because it meant we could head off for the rest of the day to take in attractions in Jasper National Park.

We started by heading to the Jasper Tramway, a gondola that goes up to the top of a mountain. We had decided to take our gondola trip first thing the next morning and have breakfast on the mountain before heading off down the Icefields Parkway toward Lake Louise. Choosing Thursday morning for our gondola ride would be a fateful decision, but more on that in turn. We picked up our morning tickets and moved on.

We travelled next to Maligne Canyon, a hugely impressive channel carved through the rock by the Maligne River. Now, I must say I've always had some fear of heights, especially above water, but I am -grateful- that everywhere I went in the Banff Parks the bridges and canyon trails I travelled were very sturdy, and, most significantly, NOT SEE-THROUGH. Many such trails, bridges and stairs in Ontario are made of metal mesh, so you can see the height right through your feet and such trails just set my irrational phobias soaring. There were no trails in Banff, despite a lot of height and vertigo, that triggered my fears much. Which is good, 'cause we were crossing bridges over canyons that looked like this:

Impressive, like whoa. Maligne Canyon also had fossil displays and a gift shop, where I bought a fridge magnet and then John warned me I couldn't get a fridge magnet at -every- place we went to because we were running out of room on our fridge, so it was the last fridge magnet I bought until Banff :).

Moving right along we headed back down Highway 16 to Miette Hot Springs. Now I know the three hot springs are very popular attractions in Banff, but we weren't really interested at first. Still, more and more people kept putting them on the top of the list of places we should visit in Banff, so curiosity got the better of us and I figured the hot springs in Jasper would be much less crowded than the hot springs further on in Banff. To show how infrequently John and I tend to go swimming, both of us had to buy swimsuits in Richmond Hill especially for this visit to the hot springs.

I am so glad we decided to go to the Hot Springs! It was wonderful to sit in the warm water on such a gorgeous day with stunning mountains all around us. The pools were all different temperatures, so we started in a warm pool and then moved to an even hotter pool. So relaxing!

And it was right outside the Hot Springs that we encountered our first Banff wildlife! Mountain goats! About six or seven of them wandering about the roadside munching on grass. I especially liked this little guy.

Back in Jasper we had some dinner, did some shopping and I bought a Banff National Parks Hoodie, as I was already starting to sense that breakfasting on a mountain in the morning might prove to be chillier than first expected. And then since it was still early evening we went to the movie theatre to see "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows- Part 2" and it's cool I'll always be able to say I saw the last Harry Potter movie in Jasper. As always, my first viewing of a movie based on a book I know so well was a love/hate experience, but we're going to see it a second time (in 3-D) now that we're home again.

Next: the Jasper Tramway, Athabaska Falls, walking on a glacier and the world's most beautiful highway.

You can see all my photos of Jasper National Park here: Jasper National Park