August Camping in Alberta National Parks

Veronica and I went camping in early August through Jasper, the Athabasca glacier, and Lake Louise. We are actually on the next trip already, in Seville after a few days in Madrid, so I will update you live on the progress on that trip in the next post.

The first stop was Kamloops where we stayed with my father overnight and took him to breakfast the next day to celebrate his birthday. Great to see him and spend time with him. The next day we drove up to Jasper. We had a small accident on the way up -- as I was trying to move out into a passing lane I misjudged the speed of the truck in that lane behind me (and he did not see my signal) and we had a side-swipe. The egg was only slightly cracked, fixed later for the $300 deductible. Good news was that no-one was hurt in either vehicle and I am loaded down with insurance. First accident I have had that was my fault in 35 years of driving. I will try not to make a habit of it!

First few nights were in Jasper. We camped in the Whistlers national park campsite, where against expectation, we were allowed to have a camp fire. We realized this was an essential ingredient of camping for both of us. We visited Malign Lake and rode up to the top of a mountain on a gondola (the SkyTram) and got great views of the mountain ranges in the park. You can see we had the smoke that was blowing all through North America, from local fires but also from California, Ontario and Siberia.

We then drove down the Glacier Highway, stopping at the Athabasca Glacier on the way where we took the tour onto the glacier (my birthday present). This glacier (and many others) is rapidly disappearing. The accelerated rate is a sign of global warming if you still need to be convinced by scientific evidence. This is a tour I remember doing 45 years ago with my father and stepmother, and it brought back some good memories of that childhood trip. 

 

   

Then on to Lake Louise, camping at the national park site there. We saw Moraine Lake, Lake Louise and took the lift up to the ski area, where we hiked around a bit through the alpine meadows. The smoke got heavier and heavier at this point of the trip, from Lake Louise, down to Kamloops (spending another night with my father) and then on to Vancouver, where the smoke was very heavy for several days. So, no particularly good mountain pictures from this part of the trip. 

Here are the two camps V&B. Of course we should have expected it, but we were surprised at how cold it got at night (30+ degrees during the day, but single digits at night). Veronica had to buy woollen socks.