Wild things in Jasper National Park!

On Tuesday, August 7th, after a very leisurely morning, we headed out of the pullout and toward Hinton, Alberta, a town perched on the edge of the vast Jasper National Park. We pulled into the Hinton visitor center and spoke with a very friendly guide who led us to a bunch of useful brochures about the park. After gassing up the RV in town (CAN$1.169 a liter) at much less than what we've been paying in the rest of Canada, we drove into the park.

Big Horn Sheep

Not far into the Jasper National Park we saw a crowd of cars stopped on the side of the road. We finally saw what they were looking at and photo-graphing... three giant elks. So naturally, we stopped to take some pictures, too. Our first elk sighting... how exciting! Just down the road we found another small traffic jam, this time clustered around a small band of big horn sheep. We slowed to a crawl and I snapped some pictures of them. They looked utterly bored with all the tourists clamoring to get their pictures. Ha!

We drove on and found the Wapiti Campground (after discovering the Whistlers Campground full), and set up camp. Canada sure knows how to charge for services. We paid a daily family rate to enter the park (CAN$19.60 per day), plus a campground fee of CAN$32.30 per night for an electrical hookup in a parking lot. For a 4 day, 3 night stay in the Jasper and Banff National Parks, we spent a whopping CAN$143. And if we had wanted to have a campfire we would have needed to pay CAN$8.80 per night for the privilege and a fire permit. Surprisingly, the campgrounds were all full, and lots of hikers and bikers were taking advantage of the trails and scenery.

Along Hwy 16 in Jasper Ntl Park

Now, despite the cost, the Jasper National Park is really beautiful. At the northern end of the Canadian Rockies, huge mountain vistas stretch up to the sky from our vantage point in the valley floor. We headed into the town of Jasper, still within the confines of the park, but offering everything imaginable for a 4,000 resident tourist town. The streets swarming with camera-wielding tourists of every nationality, we carefully navigated our way to a parking space.

Jasper the bear mascot

We stopped for lunch at the Soft Rock Cafe along
the main street, and though our food didn't leave an indelible impression in our minds, the meal will forever be memorable for what we witnessed at the next table. A family of four from Europe ordered omelets for the parents and pizzas for the two teenaged kids. When the young man brought his pineapple and ham pizza to the table, he sat down and squirted ketchup in a gag-inducing spiral atop the whole thing. When his pretty sister sat down with her margherita pizza and artistically dotted it with ketchup, we knew it wasn't limited to the hardened tastebuds of the boy. Yikes. Holding our stomachs as we left, we walked around town and through the throngs of people to the pretty stone visitor center in the town square. Just outside we found Jasper, the town's official bear mascot.

Jasper Community Garden

We hiked a short way along a trail that parallels the train tracks and found the Jasper community garden with small plots of beautiful veggies in neat little rows. Just up ahead we crossed into a residential section of town.

Bull Elk behind some houses

The houses in Jasper are mostly little Cape Cods, bungalows or log homes, adorably decorated with quaint yards full of flowers. Oddly, most of them have a fence with the posts sticking a good foot or two above the top of the fence and sturdy string or chain strung between the posts. We couldn't figure what the purpose would be for that until we saw a huge bull elk munching on clover just behind a row of houses. Completely ignoring the growing swarm of picture takers, he continued snacking on the little purple flowers. Apparently many of the animals here are accustomed to humans crowding around them.

Jasper Junior

We walked back into the downtown area of Jasper where we found another smaller Jasper the bear statue. We also found, to Ken's chagrin, a yarn store, the Stychen Tyme. Naturally, I detoured into the store and lightened my wallet a bit on leaving. Nice. Purchases in hand, we returned to the car and drove back to the RV for happy hour and dinner, in that order.

Jasper Lake

Some time later, we headed back out to see the sun set behind the impressive Canadian Rockies. Little pools of water reflected the sky, and the huge Talbot and Jasper Lakes shimmered in the sun. The whole scene was enchanting. We continued driving around just soaking in all the beauty. We found the herd of big horn sheep again, this time high on a cliff next to the road. They seemed to be settling down for the night as one after the other scratched a dirt patch and then sat in it.

Big Horn Sheep on the rocks

 We also found the three elks again, using the grass shoulder of the road for an evening buffet. Having donated entirely too much blood to the local mosquito population in a very short period of time, we watched the sun disappear behind a few low clouds and then the mountains from the relative safety of the car. We headed back to the RV and turned in for the night. What a great day!