onroad18

From: Joe & Nancy Sue Reeves "On the Road"
Saturday, Sept 15 (Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada):
     We traveled from Dawson Creek, BC to Jasper, AB, a distance of 335 miles. The weather and the scenery were beautiful. The area from Dawson Creek, BC to Grande Prairie, AB is rolling hills and farms. We passed 2 elk farms just out of Dawson Creek, but they were on the wrong side of the highway and no place to pull over, so we didn't get pictures. We passed several horse and cattle farms and a bison farm and there were acres of hay fields.   When we traveled through there in the spring of 1995 most of those fields were bright yellow with canola blooms.   I suspect much of the hay was canola stalks, rolled after combining.   After turning south on Big Horn Highway, we left the fields and for 200 miles saw almost nothing except trees. Most of it is Canadian National Forests. We saw a couple of deer, an elk and two foxes along the road.   On the way into Jasper Park we passed a salt lick and there were about fifty bighorn sheep alongside the road, many lying on the shoulder of the road a foot from the pavement. We are in a nice site, with no hookups, and plan to stay here tomorrow and tomorrow night.
Sunday, Sept 16 (Jasper, AB):
     We moved to a spot with electricity this AM, then took the Honda on a sight seeing trip. We drove out Maligne River road and saw more sheep and a ram in the road.   We saw Maligne River Canyon.
It is a deep gorge, only a few yards wide, cut into the rock and at one point the river tumbles down over some harder rock in a really unusual waterfall. We followed the Maligne River to Mystery Lake. In spring it may be 60' deep, but by October it disappears into mud flats and a meandering stream. It has no visible outlet, but drains underground and comes back up to form the Maligne River. Apparently the drain is not big enough to handle the snow melt in spring, but big enough to drain the lake in the fall. We drove up a road to the base of Mt. Edith Cavell. We passed Cavell Lake, a beautiful green glacier fed lake.
Next was Athabasca Falls.   The biggest disappointment for us here is, when we were here in 1995, there were elk everywhere, on the highway, in front of the hotels and visitor center downtown, everywhere. So far we heard some bugling at night, but have yet to see the first elk. Why? Who knows??.

Joe & Nancy Sue, On the Road (Jasper Park, Alberta).