Jasper, Alberta

I'm now in Jasper National Park, in the town of Jasper. Banff and Jasper parks are both in Alberta, the next province over from British Columbia, and both of the parks are right up against the B.C. border. So it was actually only about a day's drive from the Nelson area up to here, though I camped three nights along the way getting here. I left Nelson Tuesday evening, drove just a few hours and then camped at another free campground by a lake.

The next day I made it to Banff in a couple of hours, and camped there for two nights, doing a great hike the day that I was there, up to a waterfall that was coming out of a glacier. Then, yesterday, I headed north up through Banff, to Jasper, you drive from one directly into the other. I did another hike up to the Columbia Icefield (which was only a ten minute hike, with tons of other people on it)(oh yeah, and the name isn't just a coincidence, it's actually the source of the Columbia River that flows through Portland). That was pretty amazing. Then I continued north to the town of Jasper and camped in a campground here last night (no free ones in the national parks, unfortunately).

So far, I really like the looks of Jasper, seems like a great place to do lots of hiking, camping and exploring while it's still warm, and then to ski for the winter. It's a mellow little town that feels more like a real town than Banff, which although nice as well felt more like it was there just for the tourists. So we'll see what I manage to find here. I already got a job tip though, from the campground attendants that I talked to this morning, doing landscaping at a hotel where one of the guys that I talked to also works. But it sounds like this is a good time to be here looking for a job, as I'd expected, since people are leaving soon for school, and just with the end of summer coming. A number of the campgrounds actually close September 1st, in just a few weeks. So I took some more photos that I wanted to post, but my text messages aren't going through right now (although I do have cell phone service here), so I'll have to post them later.