Day 20, September 1

Day 20, September 1 — First-ever grizzly sighting

Locations: Athabasca River; Miette Hot Spgs Rd; Moab Lk Rd; Maligne Lk Rd

Miles driven: 270

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I had set the alarm for 5:30 and a light rain started to fall just prior. I snoozed for a couple hours and woke up at 7:30. I saw some light in sky and the clouds had broken up a little bit, though there were still a few drops coming down. I thought it looked like the system could clear out today—or at least I was hopeful that it would. There were low hanging clouds in the valleys and a couple spots of light on mountainsides, but they were few and far between.

I drove south to the Mt. Christie Picnic Area overlook and shot quite a bit until around 11:30, at which point I made a couple sandwiches.

I drove into Jasper and fueled up. I left town at 1:45 and drove northeast out of the park for the first time to see what the scenery looks like out that way. I drove the Miette Hot Springs Road and stopped at Punchbowl Falls. To get a straight-on shot of the falls, you have to walk a very narrow path. I had climbed over the fence barricade and I debated for a bit, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it for even a snapshot. If the falls were more picturesque, I may have given it a bit more thought, but it looked like a potentially dicey walk. Did I mention it is narrow?! From here, I drove the remainder of the road and turned back around and stopped briefly at the Ashlar Ridge viewpoint and took a couple of snaps.

I got back out on the Yellowhead Highway and took it a few miles outside of the park before turning around to go back in. It has remained overcast. I went back through Jasper and stopped at the Meeting of Waters (Whirlpool and Athabasca Rivers) picnic area. I took a couple snaps and fixed a cup of soup.

I then went down the Moab Lake Road a bit to a viewpoint where you can see back out to Mt. Hardesty. From here, I headed back out to make my way over to Medicine Lake for another sunset attempt, but wasn't too hopeful as it remained overcast, though the sun was coming in and out every now and again. A half-mile before reaching the Mt. Edith Cavell Road, at 5:52, I saw black bear #6 a couple hundred feet down the road walking towards me. As soon as he saw me round the corner towards him, he took off into the woods. Not to be outdone, at 6:55, I had my first-ever grizzly sighting coming down Maligne Lake Road a couple miles before reaching Maligne Lake. In fact, two of them were on the right side of the road. A blue PT Cruiser (which were the story of the trip—the blue ones were literally everywhere) was stopped on the shoulder observing the two bears munching on the grass. They were likely getting some good shots. I passed them perhaps around 20 MPH, and the bears started to scurry up the hill, but after I passed, I watched them in the rearview mirror come back down to continue their salad. I didn't stop, so as to assist in keeping them wild and not letting them get used to vehicles/human presence as much as possible. If the other car had not already been there, I would've likely went up the road a bit and used my long lens for some shots. Instead, I drove on to the lake.

There wasn’t much light getting through at the lake, so I circled back. The bears and car had since left. It started to rain at 7:00. I parked at a pullout midway along Medicine Lake and shortly after I got there, the sky above Maligne Lake started to break up and were taking on a different luminosity, that is, other than the gray that had been prevalent all day. The snow-covered peaks above the lake were also lighting up a bit so I headed back to the lake, but nothing more ever materialized. I probably would've been a little late even if it did.

It was a long overcast day and not very productive for picture taking, though I am quite pleased with a number of shots from the morning. At 8:30, I headed back to the Kerkeslin Campground for a fourth night. As I was coming out of the Maligne Lake Road, at 9:03, there was a hole in the sky off to where the sun had set and the skies were broken up. I was hoping that maybe tomorrow would be the breakthrough day. I arrived back at the campground at 9:38 and pulled into site #34 again. The skies appeared to be continuing to break up to the west. I couldn't believe I put on 270 miles based on today's route as it didn’t seem like I went very far at all.

7:53 AM — Athabasca River