Jasper

Another day, another hike, this one was going to take me all the way to the top of the mountains. I had to attempt it twice, I failed the first time due to bad signage. It started off at Miette Hotsprings and went all the way up to the Sulfur Skyline trek. Another straight forward in and out hiking experience, but this time I was able to make it to the top. The summit offered 360 degree views of the surrounding Rocky Mountains. I didn’t see a single person along the way but I met a pair of travelers at the summit. Once I had taken all the DSLR pictures, I flew the drone, which added another 500m to the 2600m of the summit. I was thirsty on the way back, so I tried to eat some snow, which worked out great, easing my thirst and cooling me down at the same time.

I spent my last night in Jasper back in the car, after two warm and relaxing ones in the hostel. I struggled every time, it was hard to make the decision and go to sleep in the car again and leave all the luxury behind. Camping in residential areas was making the most of Eddies stealthiness, I spent the night hidden away in a residential street parked in line with other cars. It was very cold again, Jasper seemed particularly cold during my visit, reaching from -14C to 3C at the most, temperatures constantly under 0C were normal, resulting in a lot of non-melting ice around the car.

To leave Jasper I had three options, go east, south or west, drive into Mt Robson provincial park, drive into the plains towards Edmonton or go back south. I decided to go back south, and take three more nights to visit all the attractions I had missed and revisit some of the better ones for a second or third time.

After freezing Jasper, the one thing I wanted to make sure of was a place to sleep for the next few nights. Jasper was just too cold, it took all the joy out of the operation. The center of the parkway lay even higher above sea level, if it was cold in Jasper any place along the parkway may even be colder. I stopped at all the three hostels but all were booked out. It was a long weekend and Canadians only have about 10 days of holidays per year, they have to make the most out of their long weekends. I still had the day to mentally prepare myself for another, even colder outside night. Without a warm bed I had to make sure to have a place to sleep for the next night. The friendly staff at the last of the three hostels agreed to host me for the coming night and let me spent this night sleeping in my car in the parking lot. The guy working in the hostel had to sleep in his car as well, we were in the same boat.

I spent the next two days around the attractions of the central upper part of the parkway, just before the glacier and the visitor center. I visited Peyto lake, Sunwapta and Atabaska falls, hiked to Helen lake and Wilcox pass. I met a German guy on the hike to Helen lake, he was driving cross Canada east to west in his Volkswagen T4 that he had shipped from Germany. To my surprise using his German plates didn’t cause him any trouble. The distance he had driven impressed me, he mentioned 20.000km. I had only driven 3000km on this trip, totaling in about 7000km in Edward adding earlier trips. We talked about all kinds of things on the way back, every now and then it was nice to share stories and adventures with other travelers. My mechanical odometer didn’t work, I never knew how fast or how far I was going. The digital side was still fine, with a bit of maths I was still able to figure out the distances I went.

The weekend was over and I left early towards Banff. I had stayed the last 2 weeks around the icefields parkway, I felt like it was time to leave the area and move further south towards Canmore. I visited some of the easy attractions on the way, stopped in Banff for a coffee after another failed attempt to shoot sunrise at Vermilion lakes. I didn’t get a good photo at Banffs hottest spot, even after four tries.

My destination was Canmore and more so its library. It turned out to be one of the libraries with the best views, I worked on a desk with the epic “three sisters” in the background. The sight of the the snow capped mountains made me do a bit of research and I found a hostel in the area, the Canmore alpine club of Canada. One of the best hostels I have ever stayed at, made completely out of wood, with average dorms, but the common areas, living room and kitchen were incredible. A large room with wooden floors and high ceilings, a spacious set of comfortable couches arranged around a large fireplace. After staying in the car for so long I didn’t know how to cope with so much luxury. I stayed for three nights and didn’t really do much except lounging around the fireplace, declare my taxes, a bit of work and some moderate sightseeing. It was time for a well deserved break after all the hiking, the cold and constantly moving around. I didn’t feel like taking too many photos either, even though the area around Canmore was still breathtaking.

Dustin and I had been talking about visiting Yellowstone National park in the United States for a catch up and treasure hunt. Due to bad weather we initially dismissed the plans but it turned out to be a mild autumn towards early November and once we were able to confirm a snow free Yellowstone we set the date. We planned to meet in about two weeks time, I still had to cross the boarder and insure the car for the next months. I had to leave Canada very soon one way or the other as my visa was about to expire. It was too cold to stay anyways, except maybe in Vancouver. With all these pressures the USA seemed like a good idea and if you think about it, you can’t really go anywhere else from Canada.

Crossing the boarder had to be well-prepared, if only they would let me in and grant me a tourist visa. I did all the preparations in Fernie, a ski-bump town without snow at the time. I stayed around the local library and slept in side streets for a couple of days but once work was dealt with I started my boarder crossing preparations. I had to go to a car wash, clean the car and most importantly vacuum every single weed crumb away. I spent 1,5 hours and 20$ on cleaning and vacuuming but the result spoke for itself, a very shiny Ed, hopefully ready to impress the agent at the US-boarder. My second, just as  important mission was to extend the insurance of the car, I had to extend it for another 3 months but the insurance was still valid for another one and a half, I just told the man “because I have the money now” and the guy was happy to bag the 650$ and his commission. With a clean, freshly insured vehicle it was finally time to leave Canada.