2013/08/08: Lake Maligne

Black bear, elk, moose, marmots, chipmunks, deers… No, I haven’t been in a zoo yesterday, I had just some wonderful wildlife experiences inside Jasper National Park. Surprisingly most of them not during my 24 kilometers of hiking, but out of a bus or car window. No I know what a “bear jam” is: if one car stops, all the other cars behind also stop, because they think the driver of the first car has seen a bear. It’s of course funny if the first driver just wanted to have a look at the map… In this case there was really a black bear next to the street. As the streets in Canada are wide enough, we could turn around on the street with our minibus and go back to see the bear…


I went by a shuttle bus to Lake Maligne, the most popular lake in Jasper National Park (return ticket 40$, to give you a feeling for Canadian prices…). When I arrived in the morning, it was so cloudy that you couldn’t see anything. When I finished my last loop in the afternoon, heavy rain and thunderstorm had already started. In between the weather was just perfect. It was warm and I had a much better view than the day before from Whistlers Mountain. I enjoyed my lunch break at a lonely viewing point at about 2,300 meters, where you could see not only Lake Maligne, but also the Maligne River Valley and the surrounding mountains. It looks like Swiss Alps or Königssee, but without any cultural influences: no houses in the valley or on the hills, no cows, no farms, no alpine huts, no hiking markers, only a few hikers, only one street in the valley, the valley as well as the mountains (up to the tree line at about 2,100 meters) full of conifers. A fascinating scenery.

Having hiked three different loops, I ended up with a hot chocolate (never drink a hot chocolate in Canada, it tastes horrible!) in the Lake Maligne Chalet. I looked back at a great day, happy that I’ve seen so much intact nature, also happy that I hadn’t been killed by an grizzly bear (as I didn’t have bear spray, I wanted at least act as if I would be a group of four or more, that’s why I talked to myself sometimes in different voices and languages…).

Surprisingly there were some more highlights waiting for me: on the bear-and-dear-watching-minibus-ride back to Jasper I talked to Chantal and Marcel, the third Swiss pair I met within two days. They invited me for cooking dinner at their hotel. Afterwards we played the great game “Saboteur” (sorry, Marcel, that I didn’t let you win even one game :P). End of the day? By no means. We started a tour with their car to the Miette Hot Springs. As we’ve seen a lot of wildlife again, which took us a lot of picture-taking-time, we didn’t arrive there before 10.15 PM. They close at 10.30 PM. “Sorry, we’re closed” … 30 seconds discussion, we fully accept that they don’t let us in anymore … suddenly: “Ok, normally we don’t do this, but: come in! You have 10 minutes *smile*” – We did not even have a pay an entrance fee! The pools are outdoors, the water temperature is kept at approximately 40°C. Great! What a wonderful day. I’m really happy that I met Marcel and Chantal. And I’m looking forward to see them again in Toronto in September.