Jasper

 6th January

This is the quaintest town. The total population is 5000, much of whom are here to support tourism or the train line that runs in front of the main town. 

Apparently skiing earlier this week was not enough adventure because today was all about Ice Canyon hiking. Candice, our guide and Jasper born local was amazing and so passionate about Jasper. We learnt so much.

It had been snowing from before we went out for dinner the previous night and was still fairly persistently snowing as we set out.

We essentially walked down the river moving from the point of its highest flow to the open canyon. We were cited river volume and hights but I couldnt tell you what they are now. What is amazing is that at one point the water (under the ice) is reported to be at least 10m deep, but disappears into the Kast system that runs through and feeds into this area, contributing to frozen water falls seeping through the rocks walls and fluctuating water volumes through the river. The volume and speed of the water flow in the summer is considerably different.

Below is a series of photos from the canyon walk.

At this point we were walking along the rocks and/or ice over the river floor. At this
time of year you can expect daily changes with Candice showing us ares that were
free flowing open water yesterday and now slushy snow.

We were grateful for the suggestion to change into the company
supplied boots. At points around here we were stepping into 
puddles of water.

Do you love the helmets?
They did the job!

A bit hard to get a perception of the height of these falls, but I 
would say about 2 storeys high. The falls are a little 
unpredictable with large rocks along the levels of the falls that have
been pused over by the river.

On the way back to the hotel we were lucky enough to come across some grazing elks. This started conversations about comparatively deadly fauna. Its not the first time we have had this conversation on this holiday with either Canadians or Americans telling us that they would love to come to Australia but they are terrified by the spiders. I am not going to debate cockroaches, and I have certainly screamed at my fare share of spiders, but I have never looked at a spider and feared for my life. Show me a bear though and I am sure my reaction and fear will be quite different. 

We got a closer look at the elk when we went out to scope some local lakes with 5 sitting relatively close to the road.

Pyramid Lake

Close encounters of a different kind. I also wouldnt want to see
one of these guys in the wild. There were a whole host of these
ornaments hanging around the local hotel where we had dinner.