Maligne Canyon and Another Favorite Hike of the Year

We were up early this morning (it seems like we have started many blogs with that statement) because we have a full day planned. We are making the drive to Maligne Canyon, and we have heard that this area can get congested with tour bus traffic later in the day. If you look closely, you can see Mark all by himself on the left hand edge of the picture below. We were successful in beating the crowds!

We were in the canyon by 8:00. Bridges over this narrow canyon give the best views, and we are lucky to have most of those bridges to ourselves.

The water is already far below the bridges, but then it falls even deeper in a dramatic waterfall under us. 

After the waterfall, the river is so deep down that narrow slot canyon that we couldn't even see the water for a while. Then we followed the downward slope of the canyon walls, to catch up with the river once again.

It is an unusual walk down a slot canyon, and we were glad to be there early before the crowds. As we continue our down-hill walk to the fifth bridge, we should probably have another pronunciation lesson. Denisa has read about this canyon for months, pronouncing it like it looks. But when we arrived in Jasper we learned that the ranger said "Mah-lean" Canyon. We're having a hard time retraining ourselves to say it properly. Mark took a picture of our final destination on the canyon--the fifth bridge--from some distance away.

We have to zoom in to see that Denisa is on that bridge, raising her arms high in the air.

Now at the end of our canyon walk, we are heading back up to the parking lot. After meandering down-hill beside the carved canyon, it's a long steep climb to get back to where we started.

At the top we get a view of the mountains that surround Maligne Canyon, and we can see the little town of Jasper nestled in the valley.

The parking lot was full of tour buses when we returned to our car, and the walk along the canyon was jammed with people. We made the right decision to come early. Now we are continuing our trip down the road toward Maligne Lake at the end. It's an hour-long drive, and we're hoping to see wildlife. But even though the signs warned of caribou crossing the road, we didn't see even one. We did notice that a group of people had gathered near this forest of dead trees on the edge of Medicine Lake.

A ranger had a spotting scope focused on the young bald eagle still in the nest this morning. This baby is about ready to fly, as he is trying out his awkward wings this morning.

Bald eagles don't get their white heads for several years, so this young one is still completely brown. The ranger explained that there were two babies in this nest. But this stronger sibling ate the other, one day when he was hungry. That puts a whole new spin on sibling rivalry.

After that pause, we continued to the end of the road and the trail head for the Bald Hill hike. Just like so many hikes lately, we spent the first couple hours hiking straight up hill to get to those elevations with the great views. It's quite an accomplishment when we came out of the trees and could first see Maligne Lake below us.

We used our "just-take-100-more-steps-up-the-mountain-and-then-stop-to-catch-your-breath" philosophy to get us up that steep climb. That brought us to the top of a loop where many people then return to the trail head. But we came for the big views, which include an incredibly steep climb up the scree field to the top. We could no longer go 100 steps at a time, as we settled for 60 at a time now. Then you put your hand on your knee and try to catch your breath.

But the pay-out is great to get to the top, where we traded picture-taking with other hikers as we celebrated our accomplishments.

We had a hearty snack here, looking way down on Maligne Lake.

But we still aren't at the top. So we trudge higher for the ridge where we can see the other side of the mountain. Denisa took an old-fashioned panorama picture with Mark standing on top of that ridge. To the left is the Maligne Lake valley,

and to the right is a whole new set of mountains that we haven't seen before.

Mark scrambles to the top of the rocks, for the view with only the clouds around him.

Surely we are at the end of this hike since we're at this summit. But wait! There's an extension that other hikers are telling us is also great. So off we go along that ridgeline behind Mark where you see the worn path.

On that ridge are some dwarfed trees, so Denisa feels like a giant standing next to these old trees that are stunted by the high elevation.

The other interesting thing about these trees are that they are Engelmann spruce. We think that's interesting because that's our last name. The family tree has a botanist that named lots of plants in the 1800s. So the picture below is of an Engelman beside the Engelmanns.

The extension trail also took us across some snow, still hanging on even though it's the warmest part of the year. It's nice to be hiking in long sleeves during the summer. We don't have to apply sun screen or bug spray because we are covered up.

The trail took us across the ridgeline, and now we're heading up again into a rock field. Denisa mentioned that this seems like a good place for a marmot to live.

That was the cue for the marmot welcome committee to show up. They are some of the easiest animals to snap pictures of, because they don't seem to be afraid of hikers.

As we got closer to the end of the trail, we got our all-time favorite marmot picture with the top of the mountain as the back-drop.

As this is REALLY the last summit of the day, we took a few more pictures down toward the beautiful Maligne Lake.

This might be one of the most photogenic spots we've been in a while, so we took wide angle shots,

and narrow angle shots. We have truly wandered up to one of God's wonders today!

This pile of rocks is our final destination for the day, and a good place for another snack to fuel us for the long walk back to the car.

It was a long walk home, but at least it was all down-hill. We took a picture of the alpine flowers that grow here high on the mountain. Because of the short growing season, they are smaller and less showy than some of the meadow wildflowers. But those tiny little flowers are beautiful.

It was 5:00 by the time we made it back to the car, and we were tired! Between 3 miles in the canyon this morning and 10 miles on the extended Bald Hill trail, we had hiked 13 miles today. Thirteen miles wouldn't be that bad, but when you combine that with an increase of elevation that is equivalent to climbing up 221 floors, that's brutal. We thought about kayaking on Maligne Lake, but we just didn't have the energy for that. So we ended our Maligne day with just a picture of the lake from the dock.

We had just enough energy to drive back to the town of Jasper, and a stop at Tim Horton's for a sweet snack and some free wifi. Instead of cooking tonight, we opted for a subway sandwich in town. We have seen lots of restaurants with $16-19 hamburgers in these national park towns, so we have been cooking for the last two weeks. So a $11 subway sounded pretty good to a couple of tired hikers tonight. On the way back to our campground we had another bear sighting. We have lost count of the number of bears we've seen, but we always try to get at least a blurry shot of each one.

It was a good first day in Jasper National Park. We think we're going to like it here!