Evan Hunter's Round The World Diary
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Yamnuska Snow and Ice Long Weekend - Day 1- Snow
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Sunday, June 05, 2005
Yamnuska Snow and Ice Long Weekend - Day 2 - Ice
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Monday, June 06, 2005
Yamnuska Snow and Ice Long Weekend - Day 3 - Mt Athabasca, to Jasper
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Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Jasper
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Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Jasper & Maligne Canyon
Today, I checked out of the Jasper International Hostel, and booked a night at the Maligne (pronounced Mah-leen) Canyon "Rustic" Hostel. I took the shuttle into Jasper, and spent several hours buying food, lunch, getting information at the visitors centre. I bought a ticket for the shuttle bus to Maligne canyon - it was expensive ($9 for 11km). I had decided to buy a mountaineering axe, as some of the places I wanted to go around Jasper (and in South America) were likely to have significant snow. There was only one place that sold them in Jasper, but fortunately they were not too expensive. I bought a 75cm black diamond axe, a 36" sling to use as a leash. I also got another bear bell and food hanging rope to replace the ones that had somehow gone missing.
I boarded the shuttle bus, and was soon at Maligne Canyon Hostel. It is rustic in the sense that it has no running water - a big tank outside provides water - and has pit toilets. It is right next to the Maligne river which is nice, and there are only 12 beds in two rooms.
I dumped my stuff and went across the road to the top of the Maligne Canyon. I soon found that the information about it is mostly tourism hype, it was fairly dissappointing. The canyon receives hundreds of people per day arriving in coaches, and there are metal fences lining the canyon, preventing tourists going off the extremely worn path. The canyon is certainly deep and narrow, but because of this, most of the time you cannot see down into it from the path. I walked down the path which was somewhat steep in places. There are 5 bridges over the canyon, and these provide the main places where there are good views of water thundering over waterfalls deep in the canyon. Toward the bottom of the canyon, there were a few places where water was rushing out of holes in the rock wall - underground outlets of Medicine lake. After the 5th bridge, the track flattens out, as does the river, and it no longer flows in the canyon, but becomes a wide flat river. I continued on to the 6th bridge (2km away), it was good because there was no other people there, but there were few views. After reaching the 6th bridge, I turned around and retraced my steps back to the hostel.
At the hostel, I found I was still the only one there, I made dinner and watched the sunset colours on the nearby mountains (those that I could see above the forest). I went to bed fairly early, as I wanted to hike tomorrow.
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