Day 15: Photo Op Day at the National Parks

After 2 weeks away, the good internet at the hotel allowed me to jump on some work calls online. It was great seeing everyone and hearing the updates about what has happened since I've been gone. I told them I was in Banff and today I'd be headed to the Jasper National Park. I knew it would be a photo opp kinda day with so much of the national parks to explore.

After a bit of work, I packed up the car and was off!

Sunshine & Littering

First, I took the exit to Sunshine Ski Resort. I was hoping to try and go up on the cable car but with no luck. Apparently, the gondola only operates starting from June 23, so I'm only about 16 days too early. Although there are definitely worse places to hang around for 2 weeks, I still have a lot of ground to cover on my trip, so moving on!

I did notice the huge amounts of preparation going on around me. It seems they are getting ready for the thousands of cars that will be showing up in a few weeks when Canada's schools get out for the summer. There were tons and tons of huge parking lots!

I could see many workers with orange vests clearing up the litter in the area. I stopped to chat with a couple of the workers, Kat and Melissa, who were part of the litter-cleaning crew. I had noticed the park was entirely spotless in all the places I'd visited so far and had assumed that people were respectful and not littering in this beautiful natural park. Apparently, I was wayyyy off.

After speaking with Kat and Melissa I realized I am just seeing the park after this dedicated crew has swept it clean. I would have thought that in a place like this people wouldn't dare to litter, but I guess people litter wherever they go. I learned that Melissa usually works in the HR department, but today she is on the litter detail, which she says is nice for her because she gets to get out of the office and into the fresh air. I can imagine that being out here in the park amidst all this beauty can be really inspiring, especially inspiring to keep it clean!

These girls and the rest of the crew are doing an incredible job keeping the Banff National Park untouched by human trash. And I told them as much! It was lovely to meet Melissa and Kat, and a special shout-out from myself and the readers on the blog to them for being so dedicated to keeping all parts of the parks clean, like this beautiful river I found right by the Sunshine Ski Resort.

Animal Crossing

On the way to my next stop, Lake Louise, I passed under a very special tunnel! The park has created a few of these incredible tunnels that provide an overpass for animals to cross the highway safely. In order to keep wildlife from becoming roadkill, the park has put up fences along the roads, but that created a problem of animals not being able to move about easily. Thus, why they built these large bridges. In order to make them more enticing to the wildlife, they even covered them with earth and grass and shrubs so that it looks like a natural crossing over a hill. Isn't that cool?

Lake Louise

I reached the Lake Louise Hotel within the Banff National Park. It's been quite a few years since the last time I was here and wow has it changed. Back in the good old days getting to the hotel and to the lake itself was a simple task. You would just drive right up to the hotel, where there was a parking lot, and then you'd just walk on down to see the lake.

Nowadays? Well, if you are not an actual hotel guest with a pass, you are diverted by literally hundreds of parking attendants to a lot far far away. You then get bussed into the lake area. Think Superbowl parking experience meets Disney World Florida park entrance security. I was really flabbergasted at how commercialized the area has become.

How did this happen? When did this craziness begin? I explained to the parking attendant that I'm writing a blog and really want to speak with the hotel management to understand how the hotel and area have changed over time. Katie, the lovely concierge, promised to put me in touch with the right person and have them reach out to me so I could interview them about these changes. So stay tuned. I will update you all as soon as I get some answers!

In the meantime, I did the circus loop down to the parking lot in order to be bussed back up. I got some stunning pictures of Lake Louise, the culprit of all the parking madness, and bumped into some folks from Germany who were kind enough to take my photo with the view.

The two young ladies, Michelle and Marie, told me that they too were on a mission to discover Canada, and had been here 1 month ago as well. I gave them the card for the blog and told them about how when I'd been here years ago it had been relatively empty in the park at this time of year.

Despite the fact that it has become so commercialized, it really is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I made sure to take many photos of this incredible nature, some of which are within this blog post, but also check out the photo gallery for even more.

Jasper National Park

With so much to see within the national parks alone, I made a beeline to the next stop, Jasper National Park.

HECTOR LAKE VIEWPOINT

At my first stop within The Jasper National Park, I met 5 wonderful young ladies from Ireland - Suzanne, Mary, Julie, Jane and Martha. The girls told me that they are traveling in a big camper van across Canada and spending a lot of time in Banff and Jasper.

They were about to head off to visit Banff, where I had just come from, to see the Blue River and then the city of Banff itself. I loved listening to the Irish accent as we spoke! Wishing the girls the best of luck on their journey.

PEYTO LAKE

So far Lake Peyto takes the cake for the most stunning sight just for the color of the water alone. It is hard to explain and the pictures and videos will not do it justice. It seems so so blue – like someone added paint or food coloring to it. Even more blue than all the other super blue lakes that I've seen so far. It almost looked fake!

While admiring Peyto Lake, I met Sofie and Joanie. They were wearing matching outfits and I just had to get the story - was it a special occasion, are they twins, besties, what??? They told me in their lovely French accents that they are from Quebec, and work at the company Air Sup Acroyoga. Although they are out here to enjoy some time off (before all the Canadian kiddos are out of school) they are wearing their outfits to promote the brand while they are on vacation. So if you like their outfits, check out their page, and tell them Shlomo, from Jasper National Park sent you. 😉

WATERFOWL LAKES VIEWPOINT

Now, I'm sure you all can tell that I am often the one approaching people for a chat. And when I say "often", I mean "every time". 😅 But this time was different! I heard someone call out "Hey Texas!" and looked around to see two women looking right at me.

They introduced themselves as Melissa and Evelyn and told me that they too are from Texas. Though they now live in Denver (traitors hahahah) they said they always have the lone star state in their hearts. I asked what they were doing up here in Canada and they said they were here purely on vacation. They had found really cheap roundtrip tickets from Denver to Calgary and nabbed them up. They've rented a car and are doing 3 days in Banff and 3 days in Jasper National Parks.

It's a quick turnaround, but I learned that the girls have interesting jobs to get back to. Evelyn is an IT consultant who studied at UT and Melissa is an oil and gas engineer who went to school at Rice. Plenty of work for you in Texas, Melissa 😉. Although according to Melissa, there is also plenty of oil and gas in Denver.

As we admired the beautiful scenery, we discussed what it was like working remotely during COVID19. As an engineer, Melissa explained that they have a ton of meetings and that it was definitely a challenge to work from home. Meanwhile, Evelyn and I discussed working from home as an IT consultant which is definitely much easier to do, and that management doesn't seem to mind the remote work as long as things are getting done, which is easy enough to do from home.

After my nice chat with the girls, I continued on to find the next sites for more photo ops. I took so many incredible photos today that this blog post might really go by the motto "A picture is worth a thousand words" and let the photos speak for themselves from this point. So here are some of my favorite shots from the many viewpoints I visited:

BOW LAKE VIEWPOINT

THE BIG BEND

COLOMBIA ICEFIELD SKYWALK

TANGLE CREEK FALLS

SUNWAPTA FALLS

HONEYMOON LAKE

ATHABASCA FALLS

PATRICIA LAKE

Don't forget! You can find many many more photos in the photo gallery.

THE CROSSING STATION

Near the Saskatchewan River Crossing, I did what Tammy (my sister-in-law from Northbay) suggested and at half a tank I filled up. You just never know when the next 91-octane gas station is going to be available.

IN TOWN

I felt like Jasper was how Banff "used to be" before it was essentially turned into a Disneyworld. Jasper is a magnificent small city nestled within giant towering mountains and lush greenery. I went into town to find a grocery store to purchase some basics - milk, bread and eggs.

While at the grocery store, I met George. He was out shopping with his wife, Kaitlyn, and 3 kids (Andrea, Julissa, and Karson), and me not being a shy person, got chatting with him about where they are from. Turns out they are from wayyyy up north Alberta and have actually been in the exact areas up in the Yukon and Territories that I plan to visit next.

He waited for me to pay for my groceries and then out by my car he gave me plenty of tips about what to see, roads to avoid, roads that don't exist and more for my journey up north. What a godsend! And what are the odds?? I gave the kids a huge bag of my favorite popcorn to show my appreciation.

Do you remember who else got a large bag of popcorn? Leave the answer in the comments, and the first person to get it right will get a small prize! Maybe even second and third place too...

PYRAMID LAKE

Originally, I had tried to stay at The Patricia Lake, whose photos you saw higher up in the blog. It looked like heaven on earth, or definitely God's study or sunroom! Sadly, it was fully booked there. But then I arrived at Pyramid Lake where I managed to book a night stay and was very pleased.

There is definitely a similarity between Patricia and Pyramid, but if Patricia is God's study, then this is God's actual living room. He lives here, on this lake. The photos and videos can never do it justice but I was in complete awe. If you don't feel that sense of awe looking through my photos today, you need to get up and book yourself a ticket to Calgary and come see for yourself.

I got all checked in and found my room to be absolutely adorable. I shut off the AC since the evenings here are quite cool, and now I'm almost done with the blog and it's not even 10 PM. Maybe I'll have a movie night tonight and catch up on some shows.

Goodnight everyone! And don't forget to check out all the additional incredible photos from today in the Photo Gallery!

-Shlomo