After a good night’s sleep we headed off out on Highway 16 to the N-E of Jasper. The views never cease to amaze: vast mountains, turquoise lakes, endless forests interspersed with emergency stops to avoid the deer and wild sheep which wander all over the road. We turned off the highway at Pocahontas (I kid you not) and drove up the valley past 350 million year old limestone rock faces and up to Miette Hot Springs. Here sulphur rich water pounds out of the ground from 3km below at a steady 54ºC. I’ll leave you to imagine the smell. We went for a hike up the valley –amazing wildflowers and butterflies- and then back to the springs. There are 4 pools: 2 hot ones from 30 – 40ºC and 2 cold ones at around 10ºC. Lying back in the bath-warm water gazing up at the pine-forested slopes around rejuvenated our train-weary limbs while plunging into the cold pool supposedly worked wonders on our circulation but certainly brought me close to cardiac arrest. Relaxing in this pool when the mountains are covered in snow must be incredible.
We picnicked, chasing off marauding squirrels and deer (which you are not supposed to feed) and then drove back to town.
Later in the afternoon, Angus and I rented bikes and abandoning the slothful ones, took off on the Athabasca River Valley Loop, a trail alongside the river and round Lakes Annette and Edith. We whizzed past the Jasper golf resort (a different world from the backpackers on the main drag) and came back feeling so virtuous that we just had to go for pizza on the rooftop café of Jasper’s Pizzas. Driving back at dusk, we spotted – as you do – an elk sauntering down the pavement not 50m from our B & B.
