Monday, September 27, 2004
Maligne Lake, Jasper, Alberta 2004
Friday, my Dad and I drove up to Jasper and stayed in a B & B in town. We had Tapas for dinner at a little restaurant. We went to bed fairly early to begin our early morning trip the following morning.
Saturday we went and had a quick breakfast at the bakery, which was the only place open, and then headed for Maligne Lake. It’s 44km into the lake, and on the way we passed Maligne Canyon, and Medicine Lake – which is the disappearing lake, and then came to Maligne Lake. We parked our car, and took our stuff down to our canoe and started our paddle. It was so exhausting for the first hour, seemed like someone was pulling my arms off. We then continued to paddle, and taking pictures of the amazing scenery. We canoed about 4 hours to our camp ground and set up camp, and met the other guy who was sharing our camp ground who was from Kentucky – nice guy, but super quiet. I headed to the washroom, which turned out to be a type of port-o-pottie with no rough – hard to explain, but basically it was a toilet seat with an arm-rest surrounding the entire outside, with no cover, so while peeing, I was tapping my foot and scanning all directions in case I would encounter any animals – bears, grizzlies, apparently deer… crap… little scary. Sure makes you go fast.
Dad and I then canoed further down the lake, about 5km, to get to Spirit Island – most famous spot in Jasper National Park. We canoed past it first, and checked out the surrounding mountains: Mount Paul… really fascinating - looks a lot like a Cathedral (pictures coming soon…). We went back to Spirit Island and took about 10 pictures of it. Sprit Island is sometimes an island and sometimes a peninsula, so it could be a Tombolo – hey geography/geology friends, do you agree?? Or is that only formed by a sandbar becoming an island??
Well, we headed back to our site, got the tent set up and had dinner – yum chili, never tasted so good from a can, had a few beers, and then it started to rain, so we were forced to go to bed at 7:30pm since we had nothing else to do. I woke myself up a few times talking in my sleep – apparently I was dreaming/talking about a bank account that I had in my name and I didn’t know how – funny how my dad said his dream was about a bank account too, haha. It rained off and on all night and the next morning, the mountains were covered in snow. So glad we didn’t have freezing temperatures – brr!
We woke up, had breakfast on Sunday morning and started our 4 hour trip back to the Maligne Boat house. This time, we paddled along the west side of the shore. It wasn’t as interesting paddling back, since on the way south, the previous day, we were paddling towards the mountains, but this time, we were paddling more towards the hills. We passed some neat looking erratics however; some in the water, some sitting on the edge of the lake. They were kind of creepy to paddle by above, but interesting to look at. All limestone mountains and rocks; could actually see the blocks that were formed by the cyanobacteria before they were compacted into limestone. Along that same side of the lake, there had been a forest fire the summer before, so the forest was quite dark and creepy looking as we paddled by. When we got back, we decided to do a quick hike around Maligne Canyon. Apparently the water from Maligne Lake, flows into Medicine Lake and then through cracks in the floor of the lake, the water travels 15km underground, and takes over 70 hours to come up through seepages in the Maligne Canyon. The first falls at the canyon drops about 50m downwards. The site and the noises of the canyon were absolutely amazing. There were kettles all along the Canyon which added quite interesting looking features to the Canyon walls. It was a really great trip. Maligne Lake paddle was one of the best weekends I’ve had and was definitely worth all the work.
Thanks Dad.
Friday, my Dad and I drove up to Jasper and stayed in a B & B in town. We had Tapas for dinner at a little restaurant. We went to bed fairly early to begin our early morning trip the following morning.
Saturday we went and had a quick breakfast at the bakery, which was the only place open, and then headed for Maligne Lake. It’s 44km into the lake, and on the way we passed Maligne Canyon, and Medicine Lake – which is the disappearing lake, and then came to Maligne Lake. We parked our car, and took our stuff down to our canoe and started our paddle. It was so exhausting for the first hour, seemed like someone was pulling my arms off. We then continued to paddle, and taking pictures of the amazing scenery. We canoed about 4 hours to our camp ground and set up camp, and met the other guy who was sharing our camp ground who was from Kentucky – nice guy, but super quiet. I headed to the washroom, which turned out to be a type of port-o-pottie with no rough – hard to explain, but basically it was a toilet seat with an arm-rest surrounding the entire outside, with no cover, so while peeing, I was tapping my foot and scanning all directions in case I would encounter any animals – bears, grizzlies, apparently deer… crap… little scary. Sure makes you go fast.
Dad and I then canoed further down the lake, about 5km, to get to Spirit Island – most famous spot in Jasper National Park. We canoed past it first, and checked out the surrounding mountains: Mount Paul… really fascinating - looks a lot like a Cathedral (pictures coming soon…). We went back to Spirit Island and took about 10 pictures of it. Sprit Island is sometimes an island and sometimes a peninsula, so it could be a Tombolo – hey geography/geology friends, do you agree?? Or is that only formed by a sandbar becoming an island??
Well, we headed back to our site, got the tent set up and had dinner – yum chili, never tasted so good from a can, had a few beers, and then it started to rain, so we were forced to go to bed at 7:30pm since we had nothing else to do. I woke myself up a few times talking in my sleep – apparently I was dreaming/talking about a bank account that I had in my name and I didn’t know how – funny how my dad said his dream was about a bank account too, haha. It rained off and on all night and the next morning, the mountains were covered in snow. So glad we didn’t have freezing temperatures – brr!
We woke up, had breakfast on Sunday morning and started our 4 hour trip back to the Maligne Boat house. This time, we paddled along the west side of the shore. It wasn’t as interesting paddling back, since on the way south, the previous day, we were paddling towards the mountains, but this time, we were paddling more towards the hills. We passed some neat looking erratics however; some in the water, some sitting on the edge of the lake. They were kind of creepy to paddle by above, but interesting to look at. All limestone mountains and rocks; could actually see the blocks that were formed by the cyanobacteria before they were compacted into limestone. Along that same side of the lake, there had been a forest fire the summer before, so the forest was quite dark and creepy looking as we paddled by. When we got back, we decided to do a quick hike around Maligne Canyon. Apparently the water from Maligne Lake, flows into Medicine Lake and then through cracks in the floor of the lake, the water travels 15km underground, and takes over 70 hours to come up through seepages in the Maligne Canyon. The first falls at the canyon drops about 50m downwards. The site and the noises of the canyon were absolutely amazing. There were kettles all along the Canyon which added quite interesting looking features to the Canyon walls. It was a really great trip. Maligne Lake paddle was one of the best weekends I’ve had and was definitely worth all the work.
Thanks Dad.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Well, now that Jadine has a blogspot site, I feel inclined to update mine. Especially since I just had a huge weekend down in Calgary. I took the bus down on Friday night, then my brother and sister-in-law and I drove to Field. We woke up nice and early - 6am, to get to Field, to start our Burgess Shale Hike. The hike went from 8am to 7pm at night and overall we hiked 22 km. Quite the hike. It started off quite steep, and then flattened out, and then steep again up to the summit where the Burgess Quarry is. I started raining about halfway up the mountain, and then snowing a few hundred metres up from that. Right at the beginning of the hike, I felt some wetness coming from my backpack, so I opened it up to find that my Platypus which holds 3 L of water, had lost its lid and all the water was spraying all over my backpack. Kind of pissed off, and soacking wet the rest of the day - so I was a little miserable and brrr cold! The last few hundred metres up to the Quarry was really tough - had to stop a few times on the switchbacks. It had also started to snow quite heavily. Once up at the Quarry, I was kind of disappointed. After taking a whole course on the history of life and learning about the Burgess Shale - I thought first of all the area would have been bigger and that the fossils would have been bigger as well. All fossils were about 3-5 cm long except for the trilobites would were up to about 8cm long. I took a bunch of pictures, but it was tough to do with all the snow. We stayed up top for about an hour, but because it was so windy, and snowy we started our trek back down the mountain.
Overall, I guess I think I would like to do the hike again, sometime next summer when its nicer outside. We had no nice views of the valley or Lake Emerald which we walked by. It was so cloudy and stormy. With this weather - it should make my canoe trip with my Dad to Maligne Lake quite interesting next weekend. Yikes.
At the end of the day, we stopped at our favorite restaurant in Field. I had beef stew - it was quite good. We had to share our table with an older couple, since the restaurant was packed and it turned out really well. "Your whole life is an amazing journey" was the quote I think I'll always keep to heart from the elder gentleman. He and his wife had just gotten married after both had been widowed about 10 years back.
Sunday morning, my brother and I headed downtown to run the Terry Fox run. He ran 10 km in 40 minutes and I ran 5 km in 22 minutes - I was quite impressed that I did that, especially since I have only been running about 3km at the gym every day lately. Meh - its a good start.
Pictures from the weekend can be seen on my link:
http://community.webshots.com/user/envirochick03
Mel
Overall, I guess I think I would like to do the hike again, sometime next summer when its nicer outside. We had no nice views of the valley or Lake Emerald which we walked by. It was so cloudy and stormy. With this weather - it should make my canoe trip with my Dad to Maligne Lake quite interesting next weekend. Yikes.
At the end of the day, we stopped at our favorite restaurant in Field. I had beef stew - it was quite good. We had to share our table with an older couple, since the restaurant was packed and it turned out really well. "Your whole life is an amazing journey" was the quote I think I'll always keep to heart from the elder gentleman. He and his wife had just gotten married after both had been widowed about 10 years back.
Sunday morning, my brother and I headed downtown to run the Terry Fox run. He ran 10 km in 40 minutes and I ran 5 km in 22 minutes - I was quite impressed that I did that, especially since I have only been running about 3km at the gym every day lately. Meh - its a good start.
Pictures from the weekend can be seen on my link:
http://community.webshots.com/user/envirochick03
Mel
