Lofty's Visit to Canada 2005
Continued.
I got up early and my way from Jasper to the Mount Robson Park, quite expecting to see a lot of wild life, no way, the only thing of consequence I saw was a Cougar which just happened to cross the road in front of me, it was in no danger from us I was going at an easy pace and he was still some distance away from the vehicle, I was later to hear from a park warden and others that they are rarely seen. When I reached Mount Robson as apparently is more often the case the summit was hidden by cloud. So I found a RV park for the night, avoiding the forest in this instance because of the mosquitoes which were jumbo size
The following morning I made a very early start and saw the mountain complete with summit, with the sun coming up behind it a site according to one of the park wardens rarely seen. I wasn't sure if that was because the folk weren't up early enough or if the weather rarely allowed the summit to be seen?
Having taken a steady ride back to Jasper I was there in time for breakfast, parking in one of my now favourite spots on the outskirts of Jasper. It was here that I was greatly assisted by one of the wardens who happened to stop by, he directed me to the hot springs at Miette some 40 miles out of Jasper where he had the previous day seen a lot of wild life, and so having had breakfast off I went.
I saw Stage Elk a total of six Black Bears, Female Moose and more Black Bears, it was interesting that I had seen numerous signs warning of all sorts of animals and had not seen one in the area of the sign, that proved not to be the case with this bear warning sign, just behind the sign centre picture is one bear just wondering off into the undergrowth. So if you go to Canada do take notice of the warning signs they are for real.
And if you are still not convinced, then look at the size of this bear and there were two, both ran down a steep bank to cross the road just a head of me the vehicle coming the other way had little choice but to stop. Just compare the size of the bear with the width of their vehicle, they were BIG Bears and contrary to what I had been told these did run down that steep embankment.
The inset picture is digitally manipulated to show what I think the first bear would have looked like had he stood up against the car, as it happened he wasn't interested in the car or contents and thank goodness passed it by.
Having now managed to see some of the wildlife, and in particular the Moose albeit a female, I made our way back to Jasper re-stocked with food, fuel and I just couldn't resist the temptation to purchase yet more polished stones, which looked more like sweets, even the flowers outside this shop looked good enough to eat!
Must be something to do with the Canadian air I'm hungry.
Now as the weather was very much improved with clear skies and high cloud I decided to head back into the Jasper National Park
The difference the the clear blue skies made to the views was unbelievable, reflections had appeared where previously there had only been dark waters, along with mountaintops where there had only been cloud.
I decided to stay in the RV park at the Glacier and were immediately joined by the locals in this case a Clark's Nutcracker, He appeared to enjoy my company and I enjoyed the improved views, the ice fields hadn't appeared anything like this when I passed through only a few days ago. Even Mount Andromeda on the left of the picture was clearly visible
This was a site I approved of, one of the only nights where we didn't have trains blasting their hooters and all for 8.5 Canadian Dollars , mind you there were no facilities apart from toilets and hard standing on the RV park but there was the hotel and restaurant part of the glacier site very nearby. Tomorrow I must move off back towards Banff but there is a lot to see before I exit the National Parks
The following day there were more surprises in store when I saw some big horn sheep and mountain goats both of which were loosing their winter coats. The goats were more interested in the natural mineral lick than humans with the sheep more adventuresome causing a considerable traffic hold up when they decided that everything including the road belongs to them, and as they were nearly four feet tall with well established large horns who was going to argue?
On a clear day one certainly couldn't fault the views, as well as the attraction and reflection in the various waters.
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