My wife had really, really wanted to go to Jasper National Park for our anniversary back in May. Since I didn’t have my Covid-19 vaccine shots yet I was much more hesitant about it. So our anniversary came and went with little fanfare, much like last year when the pandemic was getting started.

We tried to book one of the Otentnik camping sites in Jasper when camping reservations opened up as I really didn’t want to camp in a tent but sadly, those sites never seemed to open for reservations. So I booked us in for 3 nights at the Tonquin Inn on the northern edge of town.

With all the forest fires in British Columbia this summer, we’ve had a lot of smoke in the air and when we left on August 6th it was no exception. Everything off in the distance had a slightly hazy look to it as we drove west but about 1/2 way between the Siffleur Falls parking lot and the Banff National Park East Gate we approached a thick wall of smoke that was like a curtain across the road. Soon you could taste the smoke in the car. Not nearly as much as you could when we stopped for lunch at The Crossing Resort at Saskatchewan River Crossing though. Mountain air wasn’t what I remembered it being. Lunch was pretty good and a lot less money than I had envisioned when we stopped.

With lunch over we headed north west on highway 93 and arrived at our hotel just before supper time.

Lynda was game to walk downtown to go find some food so off we set. After a kilometer or so we were having trouble making up our minds as what to try so we headed into Earls. It wasn’t exactly eating only at local restaurants like I had planned before we left but I’ve always had good food at Earls and I can start the local thing tomorrow for breakfast. The food was great and the service as well as the Caesar I had were fantastic.

The skies had cleared up a bit while we were eating but there was still a lot of cloud cover as we walked back to our room. The sun did hit the mountain top nicely across the valley from the hotel.

We could see mountains out our window too but it was a bit trickier with the trees growing out in front of the window.

With all the clouds I wasn’t holding out any hope of getting out to photograph the night sky so we settled down to watch some television and to think of tomorrow’s adventure.

Saturday morning dawned with a lot of clouds in the sky but we set off in search of breakfast before looking for adventure.

We tried the Bright Spot Family Restaurant and it was pretty good with decent service.

We decided to head up to Pyramid Lake and have a look around.

It was a bit breezy but it made it comfortable to wear a light jacket as we made the short walk to Pyramid Island.

We walked all the way across the island, all 150 meters for so to the north side to take in the view of Pyramid Mountain.

I had taken a photo for a couple of young ladies on a big bunch of tree roots as we got on the island and Lynda wanted to get a couple photos of her on them too. She rarely likes me taking photos of her so getting permission was a nice change and I readily agreed to her request.

I myself climbed many a tree in my youth (and only fell out of 1) so I declined to participate.

I had wanted to take a few images of the toy jeep that I had brought along so I set off to do a few of those. I didn’t realize at the time that I wasn’t happy with them and I would have to go back and try again. But I did take a self portrait showing my best side after I was done.

Lynda wanted to get a photo of the two of us so I had to reposition myself to make it happen.

We headed off to check out the Jasper Park Lodge grounds. Lynda wanted to show me where she had stayed the last time she was there and we checked out the shopping area. The art gallery had some really nice stuff in it but I don’t have a house to mortgage to be able to buy stuff there. We did have gelato while we were there though and it was really good.

We decided we would head up towards Maligne Lake in search of a picnic lunch spot. It rained on and off on our way and we saw a spot not long after we cleared on of the rain showers so we pulled over to barbecue our burgers. There was only 1 other car there when we arrived but soon the small parking area was full and the other picnic tables were in use. We either beat the rush or caused a rush.

With lunch over we made our way up to Maligne Lake. The skies still looked a bit threatening but it was nice enough walking by the lake.

We didn’t walk all that far when it started spitting a bit and since we are both made of sugar, we headed back to the car.

As we were driving back Lynda saw something along the side of the road as we whizzed past. When we turned around to go have a look we as a marmot standing all by himself on the side of the road. Lynda grabbed a few photos of him with her cell phone camera as that was all she brought for a camera on this trip. I turned around to head back into town and he was still there so I got a shot of him with my cell phone as my camera was in the back and I wasn’t going to try pulling it out. As you can see by the lack of photo of said marmot, I am less than impressed with the quality of my phone’s camera and it isn’t being posted here. You’ll just have to trust that I got a shot.

A little further along the road we crossed a small bridge over a deep chasm and decided to stop and grab a few photos.

By the time we got back to our hotel it was getting to be supper time so we walked a couple of blocks to The Inn Grill at The Jasper Inn & Suites. We just ordered a pizza and a Caesar for me. The pizza was really good and while the drink was good, I think the one I had at Earls the night before was better.

Sunday morning saw us wake up to a mix of sun and cloud but it didn’t look like it was going to rain. We headed out to find breakfast and saw the line up at Bear’s Paw Bakery was out the door and down the sidewalk so we kept looking. We found WickedCup near the south side of town and decided to try it. It was lined up inside but the line moved along pretty good and we went and found an outdoor table after we placed our order. Breakfast was fantastic. It was a little bigger than I really needed but oh so good.

We decided to go to Athabasca Falls and as we headed out of town we saw a bunch of elk along the side of the road. (Would be the only elk we’d see.) Lynda wanted a picture so I stopped for her to grab a shot or two. We had barely stopped when I saw the park rangers driving along to keep people moving. As we were leaving I heard them yelling at someone to get back in their vehicle. I know it’s a safety thing but they do seem like such kill joys doing that. Lol.

We took the old highway – 93A down to the falls. It used to be such a rough road but it was nice and smooth and there was hardly anyone on it. It was nice to cruise along looking at the scenery.

Lynda was scanning the ditches for wildlife but we saw nothing at all. We were going to check out the Whirlpool group campground but the gate was closed. As we were leaving I saw movement in the rear view mirror and saw a brown coloured black bear cross the road between us and the vehicle going the other way. He didn’t have any issues with the locked gate and continued on his way without us catching a good look at him.

The parking lot was pretty full at the falls but not as jammed as I’ve seen it in the past. We walked to all the usual tourist spots to take some photos.

We crossed the bridge and continued the tourist thing.

We decided to head down to the river below the falls as we’d never done that before.

It was proving to be a popular destination so there was a bit of a wait for traffic climbing back up.

We decided it was time to head out and we made our way back to Pyramid Lake so I could re-shoot the photos I wasn’t happy with yesterday.

I was a lot happier with the results so I took a few different setups.

It was a bit of a drive for a 15 minute photo shoot but it was fun so totally worth it. It was getting to be late afternoon so we figured we should go find some lunch.

We went back towards the Jasper Park Lodge and decided that Edith Lake looked good so we found a picnic table there and had our left over pizza and the Greek salad Lynda had made. After our late lunch we walked down to the shore of Edith Lake and watched the world not go by.

We watched a young man learning to do the stand up paddle board while his mother was learning to snorkel. After a while another lady was going to use on of the paddle boards so the young lady renting them gave her a lesson on how to use it. As we listened, Lynda thought maybe trying one of those out at some point might be fun. (I don’t know what’s gotten into her but having her relax a bit seems like a good thing.)

We sat and enjoyed the tranquility for about an hour before we went to check out Annette Lake on our way back to the hotel.

Our late lunch meant it was around 7 o’clock before we went in search of supper. It was sunny and hot as we walked along and I knew where I wanted to go but I guessed wrong on which road to turn at and we went farther than we had to. (Lynda is convinced it was on purpose to make her get her 10k steps in but it was an honest mistake.) She did get her steps in though. Eventually we made our destinations, L&W Restaurant. I’d eaten there a couple of times in the past but only for lunch and had always enjoyed it.

It was good for supper too and my Caesar was pretty good but still not as good as the one at Earls.

We strolled back towards our hotel along the main street checking out a few shops along the way.

With the sky clearing up there was hope we could get out to see the night sky.

We checked the sky at 11 pm and it was clear so we headed back up to Pyramid Lake once again. There were a few cars there already and we headed over to Pyramid Island to get Pyramid Mountain as my background.

I had put my widest angle lens on to get the most sky in the shots so we decided to go to the south side of the island to get more lake and sky in the frame.

When we got there we found about a dozen people just laying on the benches and watching the sky. I had forgotten it was near the peak of the Perseid meteor shower but the “oohs and ahs” coming from the crowd reminded me. I wasn’t seeing many meteors and none where I had the camera pointed but apparently it picked up a few.

By this time a bunch of the crowd had left but an Australian fellow and his girlfriend had come along and set up near my tripod so we chatted a bit as we took photos. Lynda was starting to get cold so we decided to shoot a few photos from the bridge on our way out.

As the first one came up on my screen she stared out at the black sky and wondered why she couldn’t see the northern lights with her naked eye? (I couldn’t see them either but the camera sure picked them up.

I went back to the island to show the Australian fellow what I was getting and he was pretty excited to try to get some of those. We headed back to the hotel and got to bed at 2 am. It had been a long day but it had been a great day of just relaxing and taking our time to do things.

Monday morning seemed to arrive awfully early. We were in no hurry to leave but still managed to get out of the hotel just after 10am and went off in search for breakfast. It really wasn’t much of a search though as Lynda had like breakfast the day before so much she said we’d go back to WickedCup and I wasn’t about to argue with her about that.

The line up was a lot shorter being a week day and soon we had our pick of outdoor tables to enjoy our breakfast at.

Leaving Jasper after breakfast we decided to head down highway 93A again as it’s a bit of a relaxing drive before getting into the heavier traffic.

We stopped at an unusual site these days.

A wild telephone is a rarity.

We crossed the road to watch and listen to the Athabasca River flowing past. Our moment of Zen done, we got back in the car and started our journey home.

We drove until we got to the Stutfield Glacier Viewpoint near the Columbia Icefield Skywalk. Wasn’t much glacier to see but that seems to be with most glaciers these days.

We drove all the way to the Kootenay Plains before we’d have another photo stop.

With what turned out to be our last photo stop behind us we made it all the way to Rocky Mountain House for a quick pit stop on our way home.

We made it home in time for supper. I really don’t remember what we had for food though. Obviously it wasn’t as good as the rest of the food on the trip.

Even with a full day’s driving, it was a very nice relaxing trip. And for as much as I’ve given Lynda a hard time over the years of turning date night into family night, it was really weird being in Jasper without Adam being along. Maybe I’ll feel differently in October when we go back for her birthday. If not, I have a month and a half to get used to the idea.