DAY 18 - Maligne Canyon & Lake!
After a couple days off and far too much sleep we were ready to get back to it and get our legs moving! We started our day with some crunchy peanut butter and banana sandwiches and took off towards Maligne Road. There were two things we wanted to accomplish in the area, Maligne Canyon hike and the Maligne Lake. First stop was the canyon, to peer down the 50m drop of rushing water from 6 different bridges. The trails were not very obvious, marked randomly with 7, 7G, 7H etc. and no legend as to where it leads. I read a couple reviews online that mentioned 7H being the way to go, so we took off that way. As we walked along an edge of a steep cliffs, we noticed we were walking the opposite direction that everyone else was ... And seemingly veering away from the canyon. But we decided to trust the good people of the interweb and keep going! Perhaps we should have been more skeptical considering they also told me there was an ATM in the mountains and I believed them. It ended up taking us through a super nice, forested setting that quickly began to decline down really steep hills. After hiking for about 2km and still no bridges we started to get a little worried that we were on path leading completely elsewhere. And the worst part was thinking about having to trek back up that straight incline hill to get back on track...
Finally we reached a trail sign! Now this usually would be a good thing, except it made less sense to us than the original one at the beginning of the trail. After a good 5 minutes figuring out which way to go, we concluded we go right to hit the 6th bridge (which was out of the way) then head back and veer left to loop back to pass the rest of the bridges. After our last couple of seriously strenous days (😂), we were a little lazy to start out lol the nearly 15 minute hike to the 6th bridge felt like days!!! The worst part, is the view wasn't even over the canyon .. just the lower part of the river.
We headed back on course and finally the momentum started rolling. We soon realized though, that we had done the hike completely backwards ... You think we would have known that generally you start with #1?? Soon enough though we realized we actually did it the better way because we made our way from the lowest to the highest point of the canyon and each bridge view got better and better! After a stunning incline, 10KM and 71 flights of stairs we made it to the top and back to the parking lot. The last 3 bridges were a little bit extra tough for me seeing as how I very gracefully rolled my ankle and almost faceplanted about half way through 😑 but I tightened up the hiking shoe and kept on going!! Now currently icing it up as I write this, and thankfully it's not bad at all!
After our hike, we headed over to Maligne Lake about 38km away. We got extremely lucky today, as it appears the smoke had finally let up a singificant amount and we could actually see the mountains! As we drove further into them, the signs started appearing "CARIBOU CROSSING". Unfortunately we didn't get to witness any today, but many elk and deer so far.
We arrived at the lake and hopped on the tailgate for some lunch. We ended up seeing the older couple we briefly talked to at Peyto Lake, and chatting with them for quite a while about our trip. Once they headed out, we made our way down the the lake. It was another breathtaking view of Jasper. We watched as the boat tour took off, and people loaded up into canoes and kayaks from the Maligne Lake Boat House. All along the shore there were people from all different countries, old and young skipping rocks into the water. Zack was too busy trying to throw a rock half way across the lake to hit a sign. It was quite a picturesque moment, one that we didn't happen to capture of course.
On Maligne Lake is also the infamous Spirit Island that is a must see of Jasper. The only way to get there is by boat, either a 90$ boat tour or a 8/9 hour canoe ride. We did want to experience Spirit Island while we were here, but the insane lineups and wait times turned us away. It is something that has officially been added to our bucket list - to take a day trip to canoe there and camp for the night on the island. Well, it appears this is on MY bucket list as Zack reconfirmed his love-hate relationship with canoeing after getting heatstroke on our 8hr portage trip last year haha I suggested maybe we try kayaking instead then!
Since it's been a good 4 days since our last shower and Zacks armpits were starting to smell like an actual dirty lumberjack (since that's what his true goal on this trip is), it was time to shower. The tough part was, no campgrounds have showers here... Thankfully there were a couple options around town though. We decided on the coolest place we've ever heard of, called Snowdome Coffee Bar. This place has a coffee shop/laundromat/showers all in one!!! It was a pretttty sweet little place, but as expected, VERY pricey. We took the opportunity to throw in a load of laundry as well, since our hiking clothes were starting to pile up. We both showered ($5 each) while we waited for our $7 washer load to finish, and then enjoyed an iced coffee and iced tea while our clothes dried up for another $4. It was actually well worth the $21 for the experience, and we will probably be back before we leave Jasper.
After a good couple hours at the coffee bar we headed back to the campground to cook up some dinner, ice the ankle and head to bed before our big day of riding the Jasper Skytram and hiking the Indian Ridge tomorrow!
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