Valley of the Five Lakes Hike – Gondola – Shopping – Earls - Wildlife Hunt

Got up to 3C this morning, but sun and no wind!  We’re off to the Valley of the Five Lakes Hike.  These five lakes are on the floor of the Athabasca Valley (the Athabasca Glacier was where we had our Glacier Adventure...same water).  They vary in size from just over a kilometer in length to a tiny pond.

Pretty drive to get there.

Over a boardwalk across the swamp..

A little up and down as we went over two small ridges and then flat most of the way.  Hit Lake 4 first – small but very pretty then on to the glorious Lake 5.  

                  We followed the shoreline around this until the trail quit about halfway around. 

  Lush woods with a lot of mosses!

This fallen hollowed out tree held hundreds of acorn caps..squirrels have been busy.

 

 Near 2/3 along the shore was a wonderful small island with great coloring in the water.  There were some ducks or seagulls preening on a rock nearby.  Also saw a kingfisher in a tree on shore.  The gulls would almost run on the water before they would dive.  Great to watch.  

 Couldn't decide what had made all these holes in the sawdust.

  Hundreds of mushrooms of all shapes and sizes!

Ran out of trail around lake so headed back and on to the next one. 

Reflections today were superb!

 

Another viewpoint for the photographers.

 The color of the water is again due to the rock flour from the

scraping of the glacial ice over the rocks & then being carried

down into the streams and carried to the lakes.

 This was one cool mushroom - catch anyone?

Wonderful seedheads! 

We made sandwiches and had a quick lunch and headed out to the Jasper Tramway.  The Tramway climbs more than 1000 vertical meters (3280') up the steep north face of The Whistlers, names for the hoary marmots that live on the summit. It's still really cloudy but they're high clouds and we're running out of days so we're going for it!

 

 

 Here comes our car!

 

 A little blue sky in there...

 Gretchen decided to walk the .9 mile to the 8104' summit.

 That Carolina Blue coat really helps track her--half way there!

 Before she got back it was 0C, very windy and 

flurries - but she made it and I'm sure has glorious pictures!

Meanwhile John was on every square inch of the walkway around here.

Incredible folds, bends and layering of this old sea bed area.

 After Gretchen returned and we all warmed up a bit in the gift shop we headed down.

 The weather began to clear as we drove along.

and look what we saw on the way back to town!!!!!

Pointing at this massive Colin Range!  Now we need to find a Ryan Range!

Headed back to Jasper where we did a little shopping and then headed back to Earl's for the Birthday Dinner!  Dessert was so good we decided to try dinner.  We weren't disappointed!  After dinner we decided to head back to Maligne Canyon to see if we could find any wildlife.

This coyote was hunting small rodents along the road.

And this male elk was trying to keep one of his harem in check!

Back to the campground and off to bed after a very full day!