One short trail takes visitors to a close-up view of Cavell Pond, with its back drop of the Cavell glacier. Even though the signs warn to stay away from the lake, we followed the rest of the visitors that went right up to the edge of the water to get a closer view of this unusual pond.
The warning signs are in place because several years ago a huge piece of a glacier broke off from high above and fell into this little pond. The splash displaced all the water and flooded the parking lot. It happened around midnight, or surely visitors would have been killed. So we are living on the edge as we are standing by the edge of this interesting pond.
With a new parking lot and facilities, this is now an easy place to visit and so it is crowded. That's different than two years ago when the flooded parking lot meant hikers had to get a timed permit to hike this trail.
As we started up the longer trail, we continued to take pictures of Cavell pond and glacier that we are now seeing from above.
As we widen the picture, we can also see Angel Glacier that sits high up on the mountain.
We finally break out of the rocks and the forest to the Cavell meadow.
These alpine meadows are above the altitude that most things can survive. Only very tough things grow, and they are usually smaller and somewhat dwarfed in size because of the very short growing season. These tiny pink heather wildflowers are one of those very tough plants that make a delicate carpet of color in the meadow.
We are also seeing those tough Engelmann spruces that grow even in the coldest places. The new vocabulary word for today is, krummholz. It means "crooked wood." The cold windy climate and the short growing seasons stunts the growth of these trees that grow crooked or krummholz as they age.
The animals also have to be tough, and we took a picture of the Columbian ground squirrels that seem to thrive in this environment.
After reaching the rocky top, a very steep path will take the most determined hikers to the views at the summit. From here, that still seems very far away.
Those hardy hikers look very small from here even with the zoom lens.
Because we have a hard time stopping before the summit, we made that crazy-hard last push to the top. From there we could could see the face of Angel Glacier at eye level. Our picture confirms that it is very windy and cold up there, so we didn't stay long to celebrate our accomplishment.
We would certainly recommend the Edith Cavell area to anyone visiting Jasper National Park. Its combination of glacier pond, low Cavell glacier, and high Angel Glacier make for some great views.
While we sat and gazed again at the ice bergs in Cavell pond, we heard a rumble and watched as some more small chunks of glacier ice fell into the pond from the lower glacier. We have once again wandered into another of God's wonders today. While the top of the mountain had been shrouded in clouds all day, it's rocky peak peeked out right before we left so we could take a complete picture of Mount Edith Cavell.
So who is this woman that has such a beautiful place named in her honor? She was a British nurse who secretly helped hide and transport Allied soldiers out of German territory during World War I. She was arrested for treason, and executed by the Germans in 1915. The secret life of Edith Cavell was honored in the Canadian Rockies in a very beautiful place.
After a great day at Mount Edith Cavell, we headed back into Jasper for some free wifi at Tim Horton's. We are such frequent guests that we now have two customer cards at this chain store bakery that has the fastest internet in town. We have now tried everything in the bakery case--the Boston Creme donut, maple nut danish, carrot cake muffin, chocolate chunk cookie, cherry cream cheese danish, cinnamon roll . . . the list goes on and on. We rate most of the bakery items as good (but not great). We are fans of the donut holes that come in various flavors, called "Tim-bits" here. We buy them in a box of ten to snack on while we are using their free internet.
On the way home we were one of the first at a recent bear sighting. We never got a sure count of the number of bears in the woods, but we do know it included a black bear and a cinnamon bear,
and at least one cub.
It's been another great day in Jasper, as we continue to wander God's wonders in the Canadian Rockies!
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