It was another more cloud than sun day on Sunday, May 18th. We were going to check out the Jasper townsite and a bit of the surrounding area today.

Jasper is often our go to destination, but after the wildfire last year, we decided we’d stay somewhere else to keep out of the way. One of the first images we saw come out of the fire scene was the singed sign at Wicked Cup and a totally destroyed building behind it. Wicked Cup was our go to place for tea/coffee and breakfast as it was always good and the service was top notch so there was a level of sadness involved with a visit into Jasper.

I had planned to make a stop or two along the way and the first place I wanted to go was Rearguard Falls. We had stopped there in the fall back in 2023 and I wanted to see it in the spring. The parking lot was jammed full so we continued on our way.

Mount Robson was only partly peeking out of the clouds so we felt there was no point in stopping.

When we got to Overlander Falls, the parking lot was almost empty, so we pulled in there to check it out. Like the hike down to Rearguard Falls, it’s a pretty easy walk. It looks to be a bigger falls than Rearguard is.

We hung around for a bit listening to the roar of the water and were looking at leaving when we saw some kayakers pulling in to check out the route through the falls and rapids.

They obviously agreed on a plan of attack as they were soon heading down the falls.

Having made it safely down, they didn’t take all that long to regroup, shoot the rapids, and continue downriver.

Lynda liked this tree stump and wanted here photo take with it. I’m always happy to take photos of my bride as she never used to like me taking them. It never stopped me, but she didn’t like it.

The downside of walking down to see the falls, is it’s pretty much uphill all the way back to the truck. But, it wasn’t too strenuous a hike and soon we were back on our way into Jasper.

When we got to town, we drove around a bit to see what was gone and what was still standing. I felt a little sad remembering places that used to be, but knowing no one died in the fire helped put it into perspective.

We parked and wandered around a bit to find a new cafe so Lynda could have a good London Fog. We had heard Andromeda Coffee was pretty good, so we decided to check it out. And it was very good. We’ll have to try it again on our next visit.

We checked out more of the streets while on foot and decided to try someplace different for lunch and ended up at Estío Jasper. The place was hopping and we each decided on one of the grilled cheese sandwiches and sat out on the patio to enjoy the weather.

After enjoying our lunch, we decided we’d go over to check out the Pine Bungalows and Jasper Park Lodge areas to see how they had done.

Before we did that though, I got into the crazy lineup at the only gas station standing to top up my fuel. It is beyond ridiculous that in the 9 months since the fire, no re-construction of any building has commenced. Even crazier is the fact a 2nd gas station hasn’t opened, or that the town hasn’t been allowed to put in tanks with a cardlock to at least make it easier for tour buses to fuel up. I would hate to be stuck in the line up once full blown summer season is upon us. It would be entertaining as hell to sit and watch though.

I was in and out of the gas station quicker than expected and soon we were heading over to the Pine Bungalows. We had stayed there back in 2021 and liked it so we wanted to see if it survived the fire unscathed; it had.

We made our way over to the Jasper Park Lodge and there were a lot of burned trees on the way in but it looked to us that any damaged buildings were along the golf course and not in the main lodge area itself. The trees however, were crispy for as far as the eye could see.

We pulled into the Lake Annette parking lot and walked down to the lake.

There were a couple of scraggly looking cow elk hanging out near the lake and I don’t think she was all that happy to have her photo taken. I was a long ways away and had to crop this in to see the expression on her face.

We backtracked a bit and drove up the Maligne Lake Road to the Lookout. The fire made it a whole lot easier to see the valley from the lookout. For many years, you looked through the gaps in the trees to see anything.

Now that we could see through the forest, it was surprising to see how close Maligne Canyon is to the road and parking lot.

It was getting to be time to head back for supper so we didn’t drive very far up the road before we turned around to head to BC.

We hit some rain on and off on the drive and as we got close to the cabin, Lynda pointed out that the 1 cloud in the area looked like rain so we should go to town for supper. I really didn’t want to cook over the fire either so I wasn’t about to argue with her. (It didn’t appear to have rained when we got back.)

We went back to Caribou Grill to have a drink and dessert like we told the waiter we would.

We actually had a meal too but kept it small to make it possible to have dessert.

Lynda had seen an Icetini listed on their online menu but not the printed menu. When she asked about it, they told us it was coming off the menu as Ice Wine has getting more expensive, it soon wouldn’t be worth making, but they could make her one. It consists of ice wine, vodka and frozen grapes. When the bartender brought it over, she explained that was the very last ounce of ice wine in the place. Lynda really enjoyed it and when the waitress asked if she wanted another drink, she said; “No, because you can’t make me another one of these.” It made me smile.

We enjoyed our supper and shared the Caribou Coupé. It was as good as advertised but I didn’t take any photos of it.

We headed back to the cabin for our last night of vacation.

We didn’t even have a fire before bed, just a nice cup of tea.