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Hello from Jasper!
We had a long day yesterday travelling up from Banff. We left mid morning and it was the lowest temperature I think I have ever experienced at minus twenty, brrr!
Our first stop was at a walk we had wanted to do on the way in and it was brilliant weather for it, yes it is cold but it was our first day of brilliant sunshine. So we headed back towards Lake Louise to Johnstone Canyon. Completely wrapped up we headed out, we were unsure of whether we would just make it just to the lower falls or we would get all the way to the upper falls. It was a fantastic walk, they have built "cat walks" out from the edge of the mountain over the river and it wasnt as hard as we had anticipated. We reached the first falls which was amazing, it's really strange as they are frozen but the pool at the bottom isnt and you can hear the water pouring down from under the ice. As we were doing well we decided to go for it and head to the upper falls, the going got a little hard as it got steeper but we didn't have any problems! We had fun with stuff freezing though, as you can see from the pictures my eyelashes were frozen and I was definitely breathing through small icicles in my nostrils! My balaclava became useless after having it covering my face and pulling it down when I got warm, within minutes it was frozen solid! Anyway the upper falls were well worth the walk, it's like everything is frozen in time and it was really cool seeing the ice climbers there as well. Back at the car, with the heating on full blast we didnt think it had taken long but we had been walking over two hours, to do only around 2km!
On from Lake Louise where we stopped to have a little lunch we took the Icefields Highway which is 230km and has no towns or services along the route up to Jasper. We stopped at lots of viewpoints and in the end random points to take in the scenery, Canada is not great with placing its viewpoints. You'll have a great view and want to stop but the viewpoint will be 50m on behind the trees!
We stopped at one place to walk up to the viewpoint, we had no idea how far it was so we went on up a pretty steep hill where the snow hadnt been compacted so it was hard work. We gave up twenty minutes or so in but it was worth it to play in the deep snow! You'll see from the photos and in some places we were in up to our waists!
We were spoilt with the scenery though and on such a perfect day, we really got the view of the mountain ranges, it looked like something from a fairy tale. It's a long drive probably taking around 5 hours, so we had a little game of "I spy" it went something like this "I spy with my little eye something beginning with M" "Mountain" "...something beginning with S" "Snow" "...something beginning with T" "Trees" and that is pretty much as far as it can go!
With time flying past and with lots of places we wanted to stop and look at there are a few points we would like to go back to and explore a little more while we're here in Jasper.
We arrived into town around six, we had read in our book that Jasper is Banffs quiet little sister and that it definitely is, obviously it is low season so maybe more than usual. We have a lovely hotel though and we made full use of the facilities when we arrived, the outdoor jacuzzis and pool. We cant get used to these hotels!
Today we had a completely relaxing day so not much to tell. Had to do the boring stuff like laundry! We did have a little wander into the town to do some shopping and look around. After completely falling in love with Banff we are a little disappointed though no one can argue that the place isnt beautiful!
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