Sunday, September 4

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES, AGAIN.

Day 328 – When we got up this morning, it was clearer out, like maybe they had gotten the fire under control. The air wasn’t as smoky either. It was supposed to be cooler from today on, and it was supposed to rain some tonight and tomorrow; both weather changes would help with the fire.

Last night a Park truck drove very slowly through our campground loop, stopping often to shine a spotlight into the woods around the campsites. This morning a Park mini-van with the logo “Wildlife Guardian” slowly cruised through our loop again, then came back with a Park ranger truck. They stopped several sites from us and went off in the woods. They didn’t come back with anything, dead or alive, but we assume there must’ve been wildlife sightings in our area. The Bull Elk continued bugling last night, also. I would not want to be in a tent sleeping when a Bear or Elk came running through the site.

We left for a drive this morning around 11 a.m. Since it was a bit clearer out, we thought we’d head south where there was less smoke and see the scenery. First we went into Jasper and picked up some brochures from the Visitor’s Center. We also grabbed lunch to go from Freshii.

Before going south we headed northeast to check on the fire. We were mistaken. The fire was worse, getting to the base of the mountain and spreading east and closer to the highway. We could see the flames at times. They’ve beefed up the fire response with quite a few helicopters bringing in water. Nothing official has been posted since Friday, so we don’t know the status according to the experts, but it sure looks to us like the fire is out of control. There’s not much between Jasper and the city of Hinton as far as population, and Hinton is about 70 km from the fire. If the fire continues in the direction it’s going, it will affect the trees and wildlife and environment, but probably not hurt anyone. If the wind reverses its direction, the fire will come into heavily-populated areas.

We turned around and headed back 20 km towards Jasper, then turned south and went sightseeing. Traffic didn’t seem too bad on the Icefield Parkway (Highway 93) – until we would pass a parking lot or pull-off. They were all packed with vehicles. Yep, the crowds were still here. This would just be a driving day. We’ll try to actually do something when the holiday is over. As we went further south, there was less haze and the sun was coming through. At first we thought, wow this is beautiful, but we’d heard SO much about the Icefield Parkway and our expectations were quite high. Honestly, we’d been seeing scenery like this very often in British Columbia.

We found a parking place and pulled off the road to have our lunch. We decided after lunch to go a little farther, then turn around on a different road and head back to the campground. Shortly thereafter, we saw what people were talking about: huge snow-topped mountains with large glaciers and deep valleys between them, filled with lakes and mountain streams and lots of waterfalls. We turned around on the 93A and headed back north. The sky was darkening and the wind was picking up. It started to rain lightly, much earlier than predicted. We had only covered about an eighth of the Icefield Parkway. Can’t wait to see the rest! Below is a picture of Highway 93A. There were no parking spaces that would allow us to photograph the rest. We’ll try again later in the week.

Before reaching the campground, we turned off on Cavell Road to see where that would take us. It was a long, narrow, winding road. Beautiful scenery. At the end of the road was Mount Edith Cavell and its two glaciers. And a large parking lot full of vehicles. We did get a parking place. Gorgeous!

Returning to the RV in the late afternoon, the sky was a deep blue with dark clouds. Here is the mountain view from our campsite (without smoke in front of it). You can see by the dark clouds that the heavier rain is coming. The high today was 80 degrees, but by sunset it was downright cold out with the wind. No complaints here.

Back again, I had turned off the computer, finished writing today up. Rob was on his computer dealing with the pictures – all to be assembled tomorrow morning. The Bull Elk made his bugling noise, followed by a scraping noise from antlers rubbing against a tree. He was passing through the campsite across from us. Huge and majestic. The couple who are camping in that site had just left to walk their two dogs. Can you imagine if the dogs had been there and got excited and the Elk charged them? Picture of Elk at campsite below. Never a dull moment at Jasper National Park.