Jasper National Park

We spent three days in Banff and Jasper National Park last week, before heading further South. Things are still only just starting to defrost up here, so some nights it hit zero while we were sleeping in our tent.

Our first day we drove to Banff and did the short hike to Johnston Canyon, which was not all that spectacular actually.

It was super busy up until the lower part of the walk, even though it was 5pm when we started the walk. I would hate to think what it's like in the peak season during the day! We were camped at the camp grounds just across the road, so we just walked from there. The camp grounds were nice, but expensive because you have to pay for a fire permit no matter what in Banff National Park.

The next day we headed to Moraine Lake near Lake Louise. We left relatively early because we knew it would be busy, and it was still pretty busy. It's a very pretty spot, and it's always funny to watch people taking 500 photos; selfies, pictures of each other, pictures of their children... I especially love watching the people carefully take selfies, and forget to smile...

We headed on to Peyto Lake, the bear shaped lake. Again, it was very busy, and difficult to get a photo without someone else in the background. There is a hike you can do that continues on from the lookout spot, and I would recommend doing that. It happened to be snowing while we were there so we didn't really think it would be a great idea to hike anywhere.

Our last stop of the day was the Valley of the Five Lakes walk, which is another fairly short and easy hike. It happened to be close to our campground that night, so we went there first and drove back once it was a bit later to avoid the crowds again. The lakes are all quite blue-green and it was a nice easy walk to finish off a pretty lazy day.

The next day we left again fairly early to go to the Edge of the World hike, which is not a marked hike. It's kind of hard to find, the best directions are to drive to where the ski hill gate is then turn around and drive back and it is on the left just before the curve in the road. Anyway, the view was spectacular for a 15 minute walk, and it gave me the jelly legs again!

Afterwards we drove just East of Jasper town to go to the Maligne Lake area. We accidentally did the 7.5km hike near the Maligne Canyon, which was ok since we had a good chat, but not terribly interesting since it was just through the bush. Maligne Lake was a pretty blue-green lake, ruined only by the ugly tourist boats jetting around on it.

After our slightly longer hiking day we headed back to camp and relaxed for the afternoon, while it tried to rain on us!