Thirty-Four Tetras: Canada

Enough driving, time for some more adventures :-)

When planning our trip, we had earmarked our day in Jasper for white-water rafting. It was touch and go in the final lead-up, wondering if Ryan would be sufficiently recovered from the man-flu, but he decided he was up for it (or just really, really wanted to go), so we booked on a tour for the morning.

We were taken by bus about 50km out of Jasper to raft some class 3 rapids on the Sunwapta River. Although there was still plenty of water for us to enjoy, the guides told us that the snowmelt had happened early this year and that many of the rivers had already peaked. In fact, they weren’t sure if there would be enough white water to last the rest of the season.

We shared a raft with 2 other couples, plus our guide. I'm pretty sure our guide's main job was to get us splashed at every opportunity while managing to stay as dry as he possibly could. And no wonder - because although it was a beautiful sunny 25 degrees, the river water was glacial (literally). It made for a fun (but chilly) 45 minute paddle downstream, with nothing too scary apart from a couple of spots where the boat dropped suddenly into "holes" in the current, drenching us with freezing water.

The trip ended just upstream of the Sunwapta Falls, and there were not one, or two, but three crews at various points along the riverbank armed with ropes to haul us in should the boat overshoot the takeout point. It made me wonder at what point they had decided one backup was not enough???

No photos of rafting, but this is what was immediately downstream of our take-out point

(ie certain death)

After thawing out, we had some lunch and headed out to the Miette Hot Springs. Not far out of town, we came across a few of these:

We checked out Punchbowl Falls along the way. I may or may not have jumped the fence to take this shot from the opposite side of the canyon:

You can sense his look of disapproval even from this distance...

The scenery was quite different along this road (more rocks, less snow)

In the carpark at the springs themselves, there were a mob of mangy-looking mountain sheep scratching themselves on one unfortunate car (and a defenseless garbage bin). Ryan designated them the "Zombie Sheep" for the rest of our trip (for their creepy yellow eyes and raggy fur).

The springs had been developed into a swimming pool which was crammed with people enjoying the tepid water. We left the crowds behind and took a short walk to the source of the springs – a small gap in the rocks spewing out steaming water accompanied by an unpleasant sulphurous stench.

Visually uninspiring (but very stinky) springs

We also passed the ruins of the old bath-house, verging on the slightly creepy, with a board-walk continuing along the creek above.

Walking above (or maybe below) the bath-house

The spring may not have been very photogenic, but the creek made up for it

We kept a keen eye-out for wildlife on the way back, and were rewarded with a sighting of the rare Canadian lollypop man

We drove back to Jasper, and decided to fill in the evening with a visit to Maligne Canyon. We were enjoying the fact that sunset was not until about 9.30pm with daylight persisting an hour or two after that (great for packing the maximum amount of adventure into each day)(not so great for Ryan's aspirations of taking photos of the night sky...)

The walk along Maligne Canyon was surprisingly spectacular, with the rushing creek threading its way through ever narrowing canyon walls. There were multiple small cascades down the canyon walls, and in several places, water gushed out of the rocks themselves. The canyon got deeper and the falls got higher the further upstream we walked, eventually becoming a deep, narrow slot with green water churning in its depths.