(written on the 25th from notes taken previously)
The morning in the campground was peaceful. I noticed an owl had perched itself on the branch of one of the evergreen trees surrounding our little campsite.
I grabbed the bear spray and headed down to take a walk at the river, in the hopes of seeing some kind of living creature there.
I had a lovely little time walking around. Clouds had rolled in and mostly covered up Mount Robson. In fact, The weather was mostly cloudy, covering the tops of the higher mountains pretty much everywhere we went.
What we were able to see was beautiful, even still.
This is such gorgeous country. If it weren’t for the fact that it gets so blasted cold in the winter, I would definitely consider it as my new landing spot.
If I haven’t mentioned it already, it’s probably 90+ percent chance that I’m moving back west. My current plan is to go back to Arkansas, sell everything that I have, and then go out by myself for a good while.
When that trip is over, I mostly expect that I will be settling myself down somewhere out west.
I just don’t know where yet.
After walking around the river for a bit, I headed back to our little campsite, and we took some time to clean out Rover a bit. The campsite had recycling bins, in addition to the trash bins, so we were able to recycle some things. That feels good. I much prefer to recycle than to just throw things away, but it gets to be a fairly significant challenge living in extremely tight quarters with trash piling up and nowhere to recycle it.
Anyway, we headed out and East again, taking pictures along the way, and then stopping in the town of Jasper. If you’re not already aware, there were massive fires in Jasper.
They had fires coming from two different directions, and the blaze was such that it actually traveled down slopes and toward Jasper.
So much of Jasper National Park got burned up, as did a third of the Town itself.
They had already rebuilt significantly, but there was still a lot of devastation left to clean up, And a lot to rebuild.
It’s sobering to see that kind of destruction.
In town, we bought gas, my mom found some O’Henry candy bars that she hadn’t had in years and years and bought those, and we went to the grocery store and stocked up a bit on food.
Then we headed south, taking pictures along the way of the beautiful views. The colors of the rivers out here are simply beautiful.
It reminds me a lot of my time in New Zealand.
We stopped to eat lunch a good ways south of town by a bridge over the Athabasca River. I helped my mom get all the way down to the bank, we just sat, enjoying the beautiful vistas.
The weather started to move in a little bit more, though, clouds descending even more, until it was misty and rainy outside, the mountains, to use my mom’s term, socked in, by the clouds.
Despite the weather, we continue to stop to take pictures, pictures of the burned Forest remains, pictures of what we could see of the mountains and the clouds. I found the leftovers of a glass bottle that had melted from the heat.
Physically, I was in pretty bad shape. My spine issues were terrorizing me pretty good.
We stopped off to look at the beautiful Athabasca Falls, with the turquoise Waters flowing down the Cascades into a little slot Canyon before opening back up to the wider River.
Super beautiful.
But I was not doing very well. When we got back to the car, I just laid down on a picnic table and stretched a bit, trying to find some relief for the physical portion of my ailments.
There wasn’t much to do for the emotional side. I’m still trying to figure all that stuff out.
On toward dusk, we stopped at another waterfall, similar in some ways in that it was cascading into a slot Canyon before opening back up.
It was getting dark, but there was another waterfall mentioned on one of the signs that was a bit of a hike. I think it was like 0.9 mi each way, So after talking it over with my mom, we decided to head down and give it a look.
She was worried about my physical condition, and I don’t know whether walking helps or hurts, so I figured we might as well.
I know being sedentary is definitely bad, so maybe moving will help?
Anyway, so we hiked all the way down, with me a little concerned about bears because it was the perfect time for bears to be out, right at dusk and dark.
Gratefully, though, We made it down to the falls and back without any issues. The lower Falls was another one that cascaded down into a slot Canyon.
Apparently a theme in this part of the Canadian Rockies. 🙃
We thought about trying to stay the night there at the parking lot for those two waterfalls. We almost did it, but we weren’t sure that we were going to be okay there and didn’t want to get in trouble in the middle of the night.
So we got back on the road, heading south on highway 93 until we found a parking lot at a trailhead that seemed like it was a place where we would be allowed to stay.
Just before getting to that parking lot, though it was dark outside, we thought we could see what looked like a glacier coming down out of the mountain all The way level with the road, though a good ways away from the road itself.
Anyway, we got to the trailhead parking lot, set ourselves up for the night, and crashed.
Some other campers came by, trying to set up their RV, walking around and extending the leveling dealies, I think, and what not, but eventually they moved off. I’m not sure if they just drove to the entrance of the parking area, or if they left. I want to say they left, but I stopped paying attention once they moved away from where we were.
I’m really struggling. As low as my hope for the future has been, it took a pretty significant hit the other night, and I haven’t recovered. My confidence is mostly shot, and my self-worth, I think, is taking a pretty good hit as well.
But we get through it, right?
Lift the World 