The Big Beaver at Beaverlodge

Nicky’s birthday today so we set off a little later than normal hoping to catch a quilt shop open about 5 km south of Dawson Creek. Unfortunately they were closed, taking an extra long holiday for the Canadian labour day holiday weekend.

However at Grande Prairie, about 150 km down the track, we found a fabulous quilt shop that did the trick. It was a ‘quick visit’ in quilt shop terms and we were back on the road again heading to Jasper National Park.

The landscape for most of the way was similar to yesterday except we started seeing lots of farms. It is beautiful country here with rich dark soil that will grow anything but not particularly photogenic.

Jasper has been one of the big ticket items for us this trip and greatly anticipated. As we entered the park about 50 km north of the town the flat plains gave way to soaring mountains again as we wound our way through the valley towards Jasper.

The weather was looking reasonable so with an uncertain tomorrow we decided to do the cable car ride to the top of the mountain. It cost $49.65 for 7.5 minutes of ride each way but what a view from the top.

1004 metre vertical climb to the top

Home base. Jasper is 1000m high, home base is at 1400m and the top of the ride is at 2400m. On top it was 0C with a high wind factor.

Jasper from the mountain.

You can walk another 1.5km to the top of the mountain but it was way too cold.

On the way back we had to stop for the Rocky Mountaineer, the sightseeing train of the Rockies.

Being Nicky’s birthday Collette organised a cake with candles before we went out to dinner which was fabulous. We came back to the motel for desert.

The motel is an antique from 1924. It has been touted as being like grandmas house, if grandma was a hunter.

Tomorrow we explore Jasper and I look forward to bringing you photos of this very pretty but very tourist oriented town.