jasper – evilmoose

A brief biking weekend in Jasper. Well, the biking seemed brief when compared to the amount of time we spent driving there and back.

The biking itself wasn’t anything to write home about either. Jasper seems like a fantastic area that warrants a lot of further exploration, I just don’t know if I’d bother bringing my bike again. On Saturday we rode part of Saturday Night Lake Loop, and some of the trails to the south of it (pictured above, Alex slogging up a hill towing the trailer).

The nights were fantastic and clear, and we manged to see a little of the Perseid meteor shower.

Sunday took us out the the Valley of the Five Lakes Loop, where we were all feeling a little overheated and uninspired, and were quite happy to have a long lunch and lounge in a lake for a while.

We didn’t even bother riding a full loop, but jumped at an excuse to cut the ride shorter than necessary, and get packed up and head home. Overall, it was … nice.

chipmunks and RVs – tales of the road

After living here for nearly a year, we finally visited Lake Louise and drove up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper on the weekend, in a bout of touristing with Mum. It wasn’t fatal, but camping and road trips sure are popular round here in Summer. We fought our way up the highway through streams of traffic, and battled for campground space with RVs. Vicious chipmunks attempted to eat our shoes and car tyres, and vicious panpipe and trumpet players attempted to assault our ears. We were not crushed by the relentless retreat of the Athabasca Glacier, and no tourists fell down a crevasse, despite crossing the barriers and dancing round on the glacier and posing for silly photos. Oh, and we also escaped unscathed from the man-eating Canada Geese at Maligne Lake.

Golden-mantled ground squirrel, at the Lake Agnes Teahouse near Lake Louise

Poppies outside the Lake Louise Chateau

Athabasca wuz ere in ’82

Train tracks outside of Jasper

Tomorrow we’re jumping on a ship and sailing up to the Yukon, where I’ll wrestle a moose, then tame it and ride it back to Canmore. And also drive up to Dawson City, and the Dempster Highway – well that’s the plan anyway.