In June, after our wedding, my husband and I went to Jasper in the Rocky Mountains, Here's a picture I took from the top of Whistler Mountin. Right across the way was this mountian called Pyramid Mountain. This mountain was my favourite because of it's red colouring unlike most of the other mountains which were all grey. Even in this picture I think you can see the colouring and you can also see the lines coming down. These would have been where water come down the mountian and etched it's signature into the rock. This peak is also the tallest in the area I believe.
Here's another view from up on Whistler Mountain. Here we're looking down at the town of Jasper with the railway going right by it. Jasper is not a large town, about 4500 people and is based around tourism. We spent some time in the town enjoying the unique shops. No two shops were the same. It was really neat. The water is all glacier fed and so has a turquois color to it. The cabin that we stayed at was right by one of the rivers. From up on Whistler Mountain there were mountain peaks all around us. This picture is one view of these spectacular mountains.
Whistler Mountain is named after the sound that the Marmots make that live on and around this mountain. The first picture here shows the tram line that we took up Whistler Mountain. The second I took looking down from most of the way up the mountain. Unfortunately we didn't make it all the way to the peak of this mountain, The air was a little too thin so we wore out quickly. You can see that we're above the treeline once we get to the top of the tramway. In the first picture you see a tower at the top, that's only half way to the station up the mountain. The white thing at the tip as we look out and down the mountain is the tram station. It was a 7 minute ride. To build the station at the top they used donkeys and people walking up the mountain with supplies as well as a helicopter. Pretty amazing what people do.
We saw some really high points like mountain peaks but we also saw the lowest point in the Rocky Mountains. This is the Maligne Canyon. This is a really deep and narrow gorge in Jasper National Park. Malign is Dutch for Evil and was named as such by a Dutch priest who attempted to venture down the river not knowing that it led into this treacherous gorge. Having almost died, he named the canyon, river and the lake which feeds them "evil" or "maligne". That gives you an idea of how dangerous this stretch of the river is. This picture shows the first water fall we came to when walking down the trail alongside the canyon. The water was gushing and quite loud. Probably echoing off the walls in this narrow space. If you got down there you could touch both walls with your hands easily in many places like this spot. Further down the river the gorge got wider, but the water was still moving very quickly.
Here you can get a sense of how deep the canyon from the bottom. The trail allows you to hike down to the bottom, right down to the water even (where it's safe and wider). We walked the whole length of the canyon and all the way back. The Malign Canyon was our favourite part of the trip, right in there with nature. You get rushing water and calm water, rock that towers over your head in some places and that you can see way down below you in other places. Trees growing right out of the rock face and straight up the wall. In this picture you can see that we're about 2-3 tree lengths down from the ridge where we started. You can also see a tree lying across the river. We saw this everywhere along the trail. Trees will just fall over. Probably what happened was that the trees became too heavy for the shallow soil to support them and they fall away from the rock and across the gorge and lie there. All in all an amazing part of nature, and found only a few hours away.One more picture of Maligne Canyon:
