Camping in Jasper

The banks of the mighty Athabasca River as it flows down from it's headwaters at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park. The water is a opaque bluish colour from the minerals trapped in the glaciers and from the rocks in the peaks surrounding us. Whenever we go camping we love being by the water, especially rivers as they drown out the noise of cars, not that this place is busy.

Elk as pictured above, black bears, grizzly bears, dear, fox and all sorts of wildlife live in the Athabasca Valley. This creature has some impressive horns and didn't seem to mind us, we were in our car as you never want to get too close to this thing. Sometimes during rutting season they even attack cars in their territory. Try explaining that to your insurance!

Emerald Pond gets its name from the greenish hue, it is right off the Yellowhead highway from Edmonton, Alberta as one enters Jasper National Park. It is the furthest North we have been in Alberta and it is located near the gateway to the Canadian Rockies. The Miette Hot Springs are in the area and are a favourite spot for tourists.

Jasper National Park is just north of Banff National Park and is the second most popular tourist hotspot in Alberta. The town of Jasper is less exciting than Banff and it is a few hours drive off the main highway across Canada, although the only passenger railway across Canada does pass right by here. There's a ski hill, lots of lakes, mountains, camping, canyons, wildlife, and outdoor adventures.

This is Pyramid Lake, one of the many popular destinations close to the town of Jasper. We were relatively early in the season, as we came here for the Canada Day Long Weekend on July 1st. The waters would be frigid and the worst of the crowds are just starting to arrive. To get here, one often takes the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise. The drive is by far the best part of the trip as you follow river valleys through some of the highest peaks of the Canadian Rockies.

This photo shows you what mountains surround the lake. It was cloudy so we had limited visibility. At least there weren't any forest fires. Jasper became famous this year for burning down. Some of the photos in this blog would now look terrible after July 22nd 2024 as a fire destroyed 39000 hectares of trees including half the town of Jasper causing over half a billion dollars in damage plus an unquantifiable damage to the natural beauty.

Wildfires are often natural but sometimes they are caused by humans. The fires started in multiple areas during a very dry time of the year. Unfortunately there was a pine beetle outbreak a few years back and they cut down lots of trees to prevent the spread of the beetles and just left the dry tinder all over the place, that didn't help and now half of what you're looking at would be charred ruins.

This photo overlooks the entire valley and is taken from near Marmot Basin Ski hill which was closed for the Summer. We were really lucky to enjoy Jasper as it will take decades for the trees to grow back. These photos were taken in 2023, a year before the fire.

We went camping quite a bit that year and look forward to going again next Summer in 2025. This photo above was taken at 11pm and as you can see, it's still relatively bright out, it was not taken on night mode or with a long exposure. Jasper is in the North and around the Summer Solstice there would just be twilight. As you can see we camp light, unlike the RV type people. Trailers are popular in Alberta but they're not our thing.

My highlight of Jasper was Lake Edith, hopefully it's still looking great. All these photos were taken with an s24 and are unfiltered. Thanks for reading

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