Day 3: Canyons and Waterfalls
After a grueling night of sleeping in a cushy lodge, we awoke somewhat later than originally planned. However, without a 14 mile hike out of the woods, we still had a whole morning wide open to us, so we decided to make the best of it and… go for a hike.
We checked out of the Fairmont and drove only a short 4 miles to the Fifth Bridge trail head for the Maligne Canyon trail system. the Maligne Canyon is a narrow canyon just east of downtown Jasper, and is the deepest canyon in the Rockies. We were the first to the trailhead on that cold, snowy morning. We crossed the trail head’s namesake bridge, and started out walk upstream along the river.
We had a really nice hike up the river toward the Maligne Canyon Visitor Center and Restaurant. We’d recommend doing the hike upstream like we did, as most of the crowds will begin at the large parking lot upstream, just so they don’t have to walk as far to get to the more impressive parts of the canyon. As we made our way along the river, the walls of the canyon started getting taller, and before we knew it, we were crossing bridges over waterfalls that were tumbling almost 160 feet down below us. The snow made for some slippery portions of the walk… especially the portions of the trail that were paved. As we got closer to the restaurant, we ran into more and more people, until we finally made it all the way to First Bridge, and we could see tour busses of people unloading to see the canyon.
We decided to follow a much less used trail, 7h on the map if you go there, which loops back towards Fifth Bridge, but stays above the canyon. We only ran into one other couple coming the other direction. It was a nice undulating walk in the woods, with a few viewpoints to the west towards Jasper, and to the south towards Signal Mountain, the northern terminus of the Skyline Trail. All in all, our loop was only about 2.5 miles or so… just a warm up.
It was time to begin the drive back south on the Icefields Parkway, but first we needed some coffee and food. On our way back into Jasper, we noticed a line of cars stopped along the road, and just like the previous night, it was people stopped taking pictures of a female elk feeding on the embankment on the side of the road. Just a bit farther up, however, where no one was stopped, Casey spotted two male elk with horns locked, just a bit further back in the field beyond some trees. We couldn’t believe no one else had seen them yet. It was like one of those scenes from a National Geographic documentary. I never thought we’d be lucky enough to see two male elk sparring during the rut.
In Jasper we did grab some awesome sandwiches at a tucked away little deli called Patricia Street Deli, and we also grabbed some coffee at the SnowDome Coffee bar, which is actually located in a laundromat. Don’t let that fool you, however… the coffee was spectacular. As for the sandwiches… we couldn’t wait until our next stop… we ate them as soon as we got back to the truck.
We didn’t need to travel far for our next stop. About 20 miles south of Jasper we stopped at Athabasca Falls. We followed the walkways around the falls, taking in the various views. This is an impressively powerful waterfall, and some of the viewpoints get you so close to the deluge of water. While it was still cloudy and snowing, we could see some shadows of mountains raising above the river. At the bottom of the canyon, through an old crevice that the river had carved out of the rock, we stumbled across a rocky riverbank where people had built rock cairns. They looked especially mysterious all covered in a blanket of snow.
Our next stop was very quick, but we thought sounded interesting was a spot called “Goats and Glaciers.” It was honestly a little underwhelming as we didn’t see either thanks to the weather, so we pushed on to our next super quick stop… Honeymoon Lake (we just HAD to get that picture)!
Continuing with the theme for the day, our next REAL stop was Sunwapta Falls, which is only about 15 miles south of Athabasca falls. Sunwapta Falls is actually a series of two waterfalls on the Sunwapta River… a tributary of the Athabasca River. We took a quick glimpse at the upper falls, where many of the view points were crowded by other tourists, before we decided to go on the 2km (1.24 mile) one-way walk to the lower falls. This proved to be a great idea, as there were far fewer people down there, and the lower falls were arguably more impressive.
From Sunwapta Falls we didn’t have any other stops planned, so we just headed the final 61 miles south to Saskatchewan River Crossing where we were spending the night. On the way there we passed by the Icefield Discovery Center again, and noted how different everything looked with a coating of snow. We also ran into some unexpected traffic on a bridge. As we creeped up, wondering what could be causing the delay, we soon realized it wasn’t a human reason. A group of female bighorn sheep were essentially blocking one lane of traffic on the bridge licking the salt off the road… and the fact that people were slowing down to take pictures didn’t help the traffic.
Our lodging for the night was at the Crossing Resort in Saskatchewan River Crossing. It’s a cute little “resort” that includes a sit-down restaurant with a buffet, a pub that features a cook your own food grill, a cafeteria, and a general store with a gas station. It really reminded us of something like the Inn At Long Trail in Killington, VT. There’s also absolutely no phone service, and wi-fi costs extra and is pretty spotty and unreliable since it’s satellite based… so it’s a great spot to not only feel unplugged, but to actually be unplugged.
When the pub opened we did swing by to check it out, but we really didn’t feel like cooking our own burgers that night… so we just downed a couple of beers then headed down to the restaurant, where we both did the buffett. I can’t say much about it, other than it’s probably marginally better than you’d expect from a buffet in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. There were plenty of options, and I actually overdid it a bit on the desserts, as I spent the rest of the evening in a food coma watching “Australia”, the only movie that came in on our TV in the room. Still though… I wouldn’t hesitate to come back to The Crossing, as it’s perfectly situated on the northern part of Banff National Park, just south of the border with Jasper National park, and would be a great home base for a long weekend of hiking, fishing, or just general exploring.
