17 June – Jasper

We had a nice lie in in the morning and a lazy breakfast. It had rained a fair bit in the night, but the sun was shining and looking like a nice day. We scooted up Whistler Mountain to the Jasper Aerial Tramway. We took the tramway up the mountain – its an amazing view from the cable car, soaring up the side of the mountain. We disembarked at the top deck and hiked to the summit of the mountain. It was still snowy at the top, and about 9 - 10 degrees colder than at the bottom. We were glad we took our mountain gear, beanies and ski gloves were welcome! The hike was quite strenuous, and we felt the altitude. The top of the mountain is 2473 meters, and going up its quite taxing on the lungs, Lots of stops to catch our breath. At the top, it felt like the top of the world! Views forever!

We sat up and looked at the views until it started to sleet, so we headed back to the tramway for a hot cuppa and some views from a more civilised spot (saw a chipmunk and a pika on the way). Then we took the tram back down and scooted back to the RV.

While we were eating lunch a female elk walked past the window. We dropped everything and bolted outside for a look and some photos. She happily wandered around eating and ignored us. We received a brochure when we arrived at the camp, telling us that the female elks come into the campground to calve, because the big predators stay away from people. Pretty smart.

We headed into Jasper for a potter around. On the way we saw the main elk herd grazing in the forest. We saw a calf, but couldn’t get any decent pictures because of all the trees and the poor light. We saw him / her stand up and stretch, then lie back down. Cute!

Jasper is like a tired version of Banff. So not a lot to look at. We pottered around the shops for a bit, then back to the RV to blog. We are hoping to get to an internet café soon.