I've seen snow before. Like, in movies. On TV. In pictures. I saw snow at high camp in Squaw Valley in July a few years back. I got all excited and had to take some (bad) pictures with it because come on, I grew up in Southern California. We barely even get rain here. As a kid my parents would drive up (halfway) to Big Bear or Mt. Baldy (we couldn't get all the way up because we didn't have chains. Who needs chains in LA?) and see snow on the side of the road. And...that's about it. So...I drove through snow on the way to Jasper. Not as in I drove and saw snow on the side of the road. As in driving while it's freaking snowing!!!! Never done that before. I've never actually seen it snow. I've only seen it after the fact. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I decided that we're going to leave the hotel by 10 am - we still had to stop off to buy some snacks and water, and considering the long drive I didn't want to get started too late. Well...we started kind of late. We had breakfast at the M Lounge (that's what they call it now) and it was a very nice spread. I don't know what I expected, but it was much fancier than the included breakfasts they serve at places like Hyatt House (and I like Hyatt Houses) or Comfort Inn. The quality of the food served is actually stuff you'd pay money for. I figure breakfast per person here would be about $10 easy. Scrambled eggs with bacon and bread and some pastries with juice and coffee. A very nice continental breakfast with some hot items thrown in. Their croissants were pretty big (about 2/3 the size of Costco's) and really good - flaky on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. They had bagels and bread and fruit and a charcuterie platter along with some smoked salmon. What's up with the proliferation of charcuterie plates in Canada?
After breakfast we drove towards Costco (we had wanted to go the day before, but they closed at 6 pm! What??!!) but ended up at the Walmart by it instead. You can't really buy snacks for a week at Costco. You buy snacks for a month long trip at Costco, and since we were only going to be there a week, we decided to suck it up and pay a few pennies more for bottled water at the Walmarts instead. And like every Walmart we've ever visited on vacation, I got Walmart envy: it had a beauty parlor, a nail salon, a bank, video rental, photo shop, and other assorted awesomeness that our crappy Walmarts never have. We bought bottled water, bread, pastries, deli meat, a roast chicken, and other snacks for the road. As we walked out we saw the McDonalds. Yes, we did. We bought McD's for our trip to the Rocky Mountains. It was about noon by this point and my mom figured that McDonald's was a known quantity, so we loaded up on McChicken sandwiches and Filet-O-Fish and fries and started our drive to Jasper.
It had been raining on and off since we arrived, and as we continued west towards Banff (I had a planned stop at Lake Louise for lunch - which was foiled by our McDonald's purchase - as well as to gas up because the one and only gas station between Lake Louise and Jasper was supposedly outrageously priced) the rain became snow. WTH?????!!!!! I started driving like an old lady - assuming a position of attention I haven't used in a car since I was about 16 and sat all the way up to the steering wheel. I had the safety of the entire car in my hands and I've never driven in snow before! Ahhhhhh!
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| look! BOTH of my hands are on the steering wheel in the perfect 10 and 2 position. I don't drive like that. Unless of course, it's in snow. I'm from So Cal, ya know. I can barely drive in the rain. |
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| look at this crap visibility |
So we drive, and make a pee stop and my mom drives for a bit. But being a control freak I kicked her out of the driver's seat at the next stop and take over again.
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| we enter into Banff National Park! (this is still far, far away from the actual city of Banff) |
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| I love this about Banff - animal crossings above the tunnel so they don't get hit by cars |
When we got to Lake Louise it was still raining, but I really wanted to get a look so I drove up the road towards the Fairmont (there is public parking available before you reach the Fairmont. I SO did not want to pay the parking fee at the hotel and was greatly relieved to find plentiful -free - parking about a 3 minute walk to the lake) to see the lake. Even in the rain it was beautiful. And crowded. So freaking crowded.
But we oohed and aahed and took photos as well as advantage of flushing toilets (a luxury) before we gassed up and went on our way. We got very lucky that the spring thus far has been a warm one up there because Lake Louise had already melted. I had read that it's usually still frozen until early June, but while it didn't have the fluorescent milky blue color, it was still beautiful. Every season has its charms. I had two more stops I really wanted to make before we arrived in Jasper (well, technically it was three because I wanted to do the one mile uphill Parker Ridge Trail, but it was not to be as it was snowing and we were already tired) and the first one was at Peyto Lake.
Peyto Lake is gorgeous - and it has a short but fairly steep trail that takes you from the parking lot to the lookout point. I had read that this was a super busy stop with loads of people - but maybe because we went when it was raining, or it just hadn't hit tourist season yet, or it was just later (around 5 pm or so) but it wasn't crowded. Sure there were people there, but we didn't have a problem finding a spot in the small parking lot and had plenty of space to view the lake from the lookout. What slowed us down? There was snow. LOTS of snow. Bendi had never seen snow before - we put his little booties on (they're really for rain, not tough enough for real hiking, but since we don't usually hike, he doesn't have hiking shoes) as well as his puffy jacket and we took off. Or he took off - he dragged my mom up the trail while we were slower, trying to be careful not to slip and fall in the snow. It made the trail slippery and kind of muddy - but it looked like something out of a postcard! I couldn't stop taking photos of the snow and the trees because I felt like I was in a real Christmas card. We don't have this in Orange County!
It took maybe 15-20 minutes to reach the lookout point while walking slowly in snow, but it was worth it. I knew the color wasn't going to be the amazing blue that we see in postcards because it was too early in the season as the lake didn't have enough of the glacier rock flour in it yet to give it the color we'd associate with it. But it was still gorgeous and beyond what I expected. We got so lucky!
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| he got soooo dirty! |
After Peyto Lake we made one more stop before we got to Jasper: Mistaya Canyon. It was a short walk to the canyon/waterfall, but it was steep and rocky. Poor Grace was tired and stayed behind in the car with Bendi while the four of us walked. The trail was unpaved and steep, so it was a good thing she didn't come with us. It was a nice stop with a pretty view, but honestly, not a must see.
The view during the drive on Icefields Parkway was spectacular. Every turn literally brought us to a another amazing view - there was NO place where it wasn't beautiful. As I don't really know where else to share all these photos, I will wedge them in here - because it's my blog and I get to do what I want! Muhahaha (evil laugh).
We got everything from rolling hills to dramatic cliffs and mountains and glaciers and snow. It was amazing. And as I was driving, all the photos were taken by my mom.
So we head to Jasper. We (by we I really mean me) picked the Pyramid Lake Resort because 1) they're pet friendly; 2) it didn't break the bank (I didn't want anyone stroking out because I like to stay in nice places. If it were up to me, I would have stayed at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, alas, it was not up to me alone. Also, I have a mortgage to pay - sob! - so I had to be realistic about how much we could spend); 3) it was on Pyramid Lake, a place I wanted to visit anyway; and 4) it had enough room for our family of three (in the Whistlers suite, the pet friendly one) with a modicum of privacy as well as a small kitchen which we love having so we don't have to eat out all the time. So there we stayed. And although it wasn't luxurious, it was clean and comfortable and I enjoyed our stay. The sofa bed wasn't great, but I was so tired at the end of each day that I slept well on it and I liked having a little of my own space in our "suite" (heh). The rooms were clean, tiny kitchen was cute and functional, the shower had pretty good water pressure and the towels were fine. We even had a TV. CABLE TV. When we went to Yellowstone a few years ago, we didn't have a TV! Or internet! While our reception was pretty much uniformly bad at the resort (it's in the boonies, it was about a 7 minute drive down the mountain to teeny tiny adorable Jasper) the wifi sucked balls. You really had to be near the lobby and even there it was hit or miss. What was great? The view from our room. Our two families had two of the exact same rooms - they took the downstairs one and we took the upstairs one. We got lucky because the view from our shared balcony was phenomenal and we had a great view of the lake and the mountains. Not that we knew that when we arrived because it was cloudy, rainy, and I was too freaking tired to pay attention to the view. But I was satisfied with the room and the amenities.
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| yes. this is what it looked like when we arrived. This was the view from our room |
I didn't take any photos of the room until the next morning after I'd already slept in the not so awesome sofa bed, so here you go:
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| there's the laptop I'm typing on RIGHT. NOW. So meta! |
We were all tired by the time we finally arrived and it was 9 pm when we finally moved all the suitcases to our rooms. It wasn't even dark yet! But we were tired and hungry - so my mom (who is magical by the way) made us udon (yes, we brought udon with us), and we split the roast chicken as well as some dinner rolls. It wasn't fancy, but it was tasty and it hit the spot. Who doesn't love meat and bread? Only heathens and terrorists!
Thus satiated, we showered and went to bed. The next day, we go to Maligne Canyon and take the Maligne Lake cruise to see Spirit Island.
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