It’s been just over 3 weeks since I took my bride to Jasper National Park for her birthday and I still miss being there. I don’t really know why I miss it so much. The sound of a tripped out crack head meandering along the bike path is just like a bugling elk outside your window after all.

It was a cool and cloudy day when we headed out towards Edmonton to do a bit of shopping before heading off for our holiday. It’s a good thing I had planned it that way as I totally forgot my tripod at home and was able to stop by our head office to borrow one. (I also borrowed a lens to try and now it appears that I need a new lens in my life.)

We checked into the Pine Bungalows Resort not long before supper time so we unloaded the car and headed off in search of food.

I had told Lynda that she could eat wherever she wanted to for her birthday supper and she picked (well, had me pick as she is a bit limited on the kind of food she can have) O’Shea’s Restaurant in the Athabasca Hotel. It was a good meal and our waitress was excellent. We got dessert to take back to our room. (Really good carrot cake.)

Once we discovered there was no regular TV (internet TV seemed like a lot of work to find stuff) in our room, we made some tea and enjoyed our dessert with our respective books. It was still cloudy outside so there was no point in trying to go take some night sky photos so it wasn’t too late getting to bed.

Tuesday morning’s plan for Lynda included breakfast at Wicked Cup and it was a good as it had been when we discovered it back in August.

After breakfast, Lynda wanted to check out some of the local shops to see about doing some shopping for herself. It was nice and sunny but the breeze that was blowing was cool as we wandered around town. After a few stops I liked the look of the VIA Rail train with the mountains in the background so I headed over to the train yard.

Apparently it was my turn to pick an activity as Lynda had already picked 2 things to do. I really had no plan of what to do with our time as I was just happy to get away with her so in a bit of a panic I picked heading up to Pyramid Lake. I took a little heat on picking such an “easy” destination but we went anyway.

Once we got to the lake there really was no evidence of the wind we had in town as the lake was very glassy. The only disturbances on the water were the grebes and loons swimming on it.

Some Parks staff were getting work done before the snow flew.

The lake was still very calm looking across at Pyramid Mountain so I took a few photos. I thought I’d try a few different lenses from the same spot to show the difference in focal length perspectives.

I took a couple more photos from the island and we sat down and soaked up the sun for a while.

Still quite a bit of haze showing considering it was the middle of October but the sun felt nice.

We headed back to town to look for some lunch as our big breakfast was starting to wear off.

Saw our first grizzly bear ever in Jasper on our way back to town. He was happily munching away along side the road so we stopped for a few photos. Lynda learned she can stand on her seat and shoot through the sun roof. I just stuck with taking photos out my window.

I’ve cropped the image a bit as 135 mm was the biggest lens I had along. Bigger would of been better but I don’t go out looking for wildlife all that often so having a bigger lens I would hardly ever use just doesn’t make sense for me to have for the most part. (I did miss it here though. Lol)

Seems seeing a bear on the way to lunch didn’t count as me selecting 2 things as I had to pick where our lunch spot.

I picked O’Shea’s again as I figured we could have some pub food for a late lunch and still be able to catch supper somewhere later. (The nachos we ordered were very tasty but huge so I was wrong.) We even got the same waitress and booth as the night before. We were starting to wonder if she was the only one working. But she was a good waitress so we didn’t care.

We decided to head back to the hotel to check out the grounds to scout out possible night photography places. It was a short walk to the Athabasca River from our room.

Looked like it could be a promising location for night sky shot but we checked out the rest of the grounds while we had some time and daylight.

Not being hungry yet, we hung out at the hotel until it was time to go see the new James Bond movie at the Chaba Theatre. It is a nice little 2 screen movie theatre with tickets only costing $10 each. Theatre popcorn proved to be a late supper for us as we enjoyed the show. (Not your usual James Bond movie, but I enjoyed it none the less)

It was a beautiful clear night when we came out of the theatre but unfortunately, the big bright full moon was up and making it next to impossible to see any night sky. (The moon was up all night and checking the sky at 6 am looked no different except for the position of the moon itself.)

Wednesday morning’s breakfast was back at Wicked Cup but my bride must of thought her birthday was over as she bought breakfast. It was excellent as always but I told her I wanted to try some other places before we left Jasper.

After breakfast we decided to head up the Maligne Lake road as we had heard there were lots of moose to be seen along the way. (Spoiler alert: we saw 0 moose and all the people we asked that day had seen 0 moose.) We did see a few nice big horn sheep rams on the road by Medicine Lake. Lynda used here sunroof trick again to get some photos and I made sure we didn’t hit any of them.

It was a similar day to when we travelled up to the lake back in August with a mix of sun and cloud but a whole lot cooler. There was snow in the higher elevations this time and a whole lot less traffic. I had hoped the boat tours were still running at Maligne Lake but it was all shut down for the season. We decided to take a walk along the shore as we weren’t getting rained on this time.

It’s about 7/10s of a kilometer to the lookout on an easy walking path.

From here we could either go back the way we came or do a moderate hike of just over a kilometer back to the car. I was happy Lynda chose the longer, new way back.

Short hike in the books and no moose to be seen means it must be time to go find us some lunch. So back to town we went. I did stop at the place we had a picnic at in August to see the difference 2 months makes.

I know the angle is different as I really hadn’t thought it out when I stopped but what am I going to do?

We were getting frustrated looking for a lunch spot that was open and it led us to The Other Paw Bakery Cafe. It was the most disappointing meal we had on our trip but it wasn’t all their fault. There was nothing wrong with the food other than it wasn’t what we really wanted. Lynda had the soup which she said was good but it was so thick it was hard for her to eat. I wanted a clubhouse sandwich but they were out of bread so I got it as a wrap. I like wraps but a clubhouse really does need to go on bread. Also, I don’t particularly like whole wheat wraps and that’s what they had. Again, nothing wrong with the actual food but just not an experience we enjoyed as a whole.

We checked out a few more places while we were killing time before supper.

We decided on Something Else Restaurant for supper. It is Greek, among other things. The food was awesome and the service was very good.

We got dessert to go and decided we’d it with tea at the hotel. Well, we had the dessert and went for tea at the Kumama Bistro and Canteen but somehow my tea became a really, really good margarita. I guess I’ll have to come back for tea.

Thursday, October 21st was a nice clear sky day and after trying the breakfast at O’Shea’s, (different waitress and table than our previous visits) we headed off towards Mt. Robson as I was hoping the clear blue sky was there too.

Our luck held and the mountain was in display in all it’s glory.

I even took a couple of photos of the 1967 Volkswagen Beetle model that John H Read had given me to photograph for our Instagram account – spookie_bugz. I haven’t been posting to it much lately so I thought I should shoot something. (Still haven’t posted as of this writing.)

I took a couple more shots before we headed down the highway.

I thought it might be nice to check out Valemount as we were pretty close by. We’d seen a few signs along the highway advertising the Swedish Bakery so we thought we’d try to get lunch or something there. And if we were there from Friday till Monday we would have but they aren’t open Tuesdays-Thursdays.

While I’m sure there are other things to check out in Valemount, we decided to start heading back to Jasper.

We saw the sign and decided to stopped and check out Rearguard Falls Provincial Park.

Seemed like a good place to play with different shutter speeds.

I thought I could try something a bit artsy for my friend John.

I was enjoying the sound of the water and lack of people so I shot a few more angles.

It’s a nice easy path to walk down to the falls but it’s bigger than it looks coming back up.

It was a short drive to the Mt. Terry Fox Reststop for another stop.

Our road trip put us well past lunch time when we got back to Jasper. A few places we tried were closed for the season so we ended up visiting 2 different candy stores and Tim Hortons. (I know, I know, but I didn’t care.)

Back at the hotel, we saw a massive bull elk trying to hustle the ladies. They still didn’t want any part of him but he was rather impressive to photograph.

We sat and photographed him until it was getting too dark to take photos so off to search for supper we went.

We ended up at Evil Dave’s Grill for supper. They have a small but fabulous menu in a nice modern atmosphere inside. We beat the rush and enjoyed a nice dinner and very reasonably priced desserts.

Actually got some tea at Kumama before bed time. Took our time getting to bed as it was our last night in Japer and we didn’t want it to end.

Was a cold and cloudy day when we got up on Friday, October 22nd.

Kumama for a really nice breakfast before we checked out of the Pine Bungalows.

It was a nice relaxing stay and I am so glad we decided to stay there. I know where I’ll be looking to book the next time I am back in Jasper.

Lynda wanted some tea for the road so a stop at Wicked Cup on the way out of town was in order.

We headed back on the Icefield Parkway because I wanted to stop at Sunwapta Falls. In all the times I’ve been to Jasper National Park, I have never, ever stopped to see Sunwapta Falls.

It was still cold and trying to rain when we stopped but it is a nice little area and not nearly as far off the highway as I had it in my head it would be.

Sunwapta Falls was our last stop until we got back to Red Deer and went to Sobeys for a few groceries. I had plenty of candy to snack on (which may have been a bit of a mistake as I was a bit light headed wandering around the grocery store) so no need to stop for lunch.

And that was our Jasper getaway. It didn’t seem all that exciting but just getting away together was excitement enough for me at least. I think I saw Lynda actually relax so it seemed to be a good thing for her too.

Our 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in May of 2022 and as much as I’d like to be able to take her somewhere a bit more exotic, I can see a return trip to Jasper in our future for some R & R then. Of course, if I happen to win the lottery by then it might be somewhere more exotic, if that’s what she wants.