26th Dec - 28th Dec 2010
After leaving Lake Louise quite late on boxing day we missed a lot of the famous scenery of frozen lakes and the big rocky mountains on the way to Jasper as it was dark. However we noticed a lot of trails that you could drive down to see all of the beauty were closed which we thought was odd because it's most popular time is winter. We had arranged to stay in Hinton which I (hayley) thought was only just out of Jasper (as all of the hotels in Jasper were full at that time) so we stopped at a petrol station in Jasper to ask directions. It turned out Hinton was another 75km out of Jasper! So we still had a while to go yet. When we arrived in Hinton it was quite late and it was another of those small industrial towns either side of the highway (like kamloops). The hotel we stayed at was called Nova Lodge which was fairly modern and nice, however pretty empty. But it was another hotel with breakkie included! So that was a bonus.
It turned out majority of the restaurants and fast food places nearby were closed because it was a holiday so we settled on Boston Pizza, a 'family' italian restaurant and since eating there we have now seen one everywhere, much like the A&W fast food place. We still don't know what A&W stands for!! We went to bed late and woke up to very cold conditions the next day and we trekked back into the town of Jasper. We went for a walk around, and the town was very small. We had a very cheap lunch in a pub and spent about an hour walking around trying to find the information centre after we were given wrong directions from about 3 different people. When we finally got there pretty much everything we thought we could do that was 'touristy' was closed, not just because it was holidays but because it was winter! So confusing, seeing as Jasper is famous for winter scenery. So we were pretty disappointed that we couldn't really see anything. We went for a drive up to the local ski hill, Marmot Basin, and just had a look at the view but by then it was getting dark and we headed back to Hinton for the night.
We went in the hot tub and my god it was HOT! It makes it worse when it's indoors and there is no cool air to help balance it out. After that we had Dairy queen for dinner and went to bed.
The next morning we woke up and got ready to head to Edmonton, about 300km away again.
Not much to tell about our Jasper adventure unfortunately as it was all closed, very disappointing. But there are many other things you can do within that general area as Jasper is a national park, so perhaps later on we might do some of those when we get a bit more money!
Stay tuned for our Edmonton travels.
Love Hayley and Shaun xoxo
Rocky Mountains
Jasper
Town of Jasper
Caribou
Snowy Mountains
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