Up until now my time in Canada has been graced with good weather, clear skies, concerns over UV exposure and hydration rather than how wet or cold I might get if I venture outdoors. Shame then, that it is precisely when I want to be outdoors that my luck with the elements changes. The mist may be mystical, but the cloud cover forms a closed canopy over the region, so the surrounding whitened heights are purely a thing of my own imagining.
The rain is heavy and the clouds low on my first full day in Jasper, so I drive the relatively short distance into British Columbia, to the base of Mount Robson - the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. Only fleeting glimpses of its' sheer 2000m south face - adorned with glacial flows - are afforded through the gathered water droplets, yet its' size is clear. It is vast, a whole kilometer nearer the top of the sky than anything I've seen in my 32 years. I choose against setting out on foot up its' lower reaches - an apprehension of the conditions and the fact I'd be on my own keep me in the car. Further research has revealed it is best to not venture out alone at this time of year, lest you find yourself confronted by the local inhabitants. Safety in numbers an' all that.
That evening the hostel is graced by a large high school contingent from a few hours south. The totalitarian teacher-in-charge ensures all decks are thoroughly swabbed (including toilets!), but the added volume of hostelers makes cooking awkward to say the least. Granted, four hobs and as many sinks is ambitious in a building that houses up to 100 people. The youths are trusted with cooking for themselves - refreshing in one respect - and an assortment of cuisine makes its way through to the dining area during the course of the night. Of course, these young 'uns have the wholly predictable diets of resident North Americans, winner of the most ridiculous meal going to the lad who cooked himself nothing but five massive steaks. Needless to say, he was the envy of all his contemporaries. The greedy ******.
I risk an early night, trusting my deep-sleepedness to keep me under for the duration of whatever unruliness might occur in the small hours, sharing a dorm with loads of kids. Next morning a couple from Yorkshire regale me with tales of bunk-jumping, phone games, angry teachers and not-much-sleep at 4am. I try really, really hard to hide my smugness.
The objective of day two is Maligne Lake, an hour or so's drive with promises of a turquoise lake (the Canadian Rockies biggest, in any colour) surrounded by snow-clad peaks. The first part of the drive is down the highway, where I experience my first wildlife encounter of the week: a moose! Mr. Moose! Well, not a moose exactly. More of a caribou, too big for the passenger seat, maybe in the back, and he wishes to cross the road. I don't get in his way. Two minutes later something catches my eye in the bushes off to the side of the highway, so I dart into a handily-placed side road and start filming...four more caribou, no doubt part of the same herd, are captured for prosperity.
En route to the lake I stop off at Maligne Gorge, a canyon formed over the millennia through weathering, water-flow and erosion. It's here, outside of the car, where the regular advice to not be alone is most profound, so I attach myself to Shelley and John (or Bob) (or something) (sorry John, er, Bob), an American couple from Tampa, Florida. "John" lived in Earls Court during 1966 and survives on a heady concoction of trail mix (nuts, currants and M&M's all thrown together) and beef jerky ("15oz of protein in every pack"). He gets it from Wall-Mart ("where all the really obese folk shop"). Shelley, meanwhile, had a relative whom studied at Exeter on exchange for a time. We exchange stories of not-seeing any interesting wildlife when the object had been otherwise (for me: Icelandic whale-watching minus the whales, etc.), and don't meet any bears, or cougars, or wolves, or anything really. In fact, in the three or four hours we spend with each other (we visit Medicine and Maligne lakes together too), the most vicious being we see is a squirrel, and a ridiculously tiny one at that.
Once again, the weather is poor, so the famed mountains around Maligne Lake are nowhere to be seen. The grey of the skies somewhat muddies the colour of the water too, so the lake isn't all it was cracked up to be. That said, the whole environment is still spectacular, and deer and mountain goats grace the road on the way back to Jasper.
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