Sep 7 – Tram and Hot Springs

Another perfect day, weather wise. High of 25C, no wind and not a cloud in the sky but those clear skies sure make for cold nights. The forecast had called for a low of –1C last night.

It was a great day to take the Jasper Tramway high above the town for some long distance views. The tramway goes up about 1000 m to the top station at 2300 m or about 7400 feet. You can then optionally take a 1.2 km trail to climb the final 200 m vertical to the very top of the mountain for the 360 degree views.

You can also hike up a trail from the bottom and take the tram down for free. 1200 m or 3600 feet vertical steep climb. Nope! We talked to some girls from northern Germany (where it is flat) that did the hike up. It took them 4 hours and they were pretty beat. One just sat in the corner of the tram on the way down to rest.

They packed us in like sardines on the way up. Not one more person would have fit in. We heard some people complaining because they couldn’t see out very well. We were last in so we were right against the door window and had a good view.

Here is the view from the tram station, back down to Jasper.

Of course we took the trail to the top, marked by the arrow below.

 

There were some long steep sections but we just took our time and paused a lot to take in the view. The altitude also made us puff a bit more than usual.

 

Some parts Jennie didn’t care much for.

Here we are about halfway up looking back at the tram station.

Still a ways to go.

The moon was out again.

Made it.

The brochures had said that if you were lucky on a clear day you could see Mount Robson. Well today you could hardly miss it. The girl running the tram said that she can only remember about 6 days all summer that have been this good. She also said that two days ago when we stayed in for the rain, they had snow, fog and hail up here.

The view to the northwest with Mount Robson over Jennie’s head.

 

The white Toblerone bar as Jennie put it.

Some other colourful mountains.

 

The view to the east with Jasper.

The western view. We sat and had lunch here.

The view to the south with the Athabasca River valley and the Ice Fields Parkway.

 

There were a lot of Inuksuks around so we decided to build our own.

 

Someone was walking down the trail past the peak, over Jennie’s head in the picture below.

Then suddenly a mountain goat came over the edge and he did an instant about face. He seemed very casual about it.

By now we had been up at the peak soaking in the view for about 2 hours. Time to head down.

Back near the station we passed a wedding. The bride and groom had climbed the trail from the bottom.

We figured we deserved a break so we headed off to the Miette Hot Springs. You go about 30 km east towards Edmonton and then 17 km up a very winding road. The mountains look very different here. They are all limestone.

At one point the river was very shallow. People were wading way out. It looked kind of weird.

There are 4 pools at the hot springs. The water comes from a spring about 700 m away. These two were at 38C and 40C.

These two were at 11C and 20C.

As you can see the 11C pool was not very used. I dipped my foot in and it went numb. Some people did go in but not for long. I did get in the 20C pool but even it felt very cold especially after being in the hot pools.

What’s a day without a waterfall so we made a quick stop on the way back at Punchbowl Falls.

They were a bit of a disappointment for Jennie. The official trail only went a bit past the bridge. I went around the fence and followed a well used but very narrow and steep unofficial trail to get the picture. This is all that Jennie saw looking down

Another family with two young kids had stopped here as well. They got the kids all unloaded and ready for what they thought would be a 1 km hike.  It was maybe 10 m to the bridge from the parking lot.

We got back to the RV at about 7 pm, very hungry. Another great but long day.