Mt. Edith Cavell

Munchie and I are just hangin at the trailer, waiting for the family to get back from the playground.  Perfect time for a blog! (rather than 11:30 at night, which seems to be my new norm)….. lol.  Or so I thought.  About three seconds after I typed that I was off to the in-laws campsite for supper. 

Our trek today was to Mt. Edith Cavell, a very cool mountain just south of Jasper.  This mountain is home to two glaciers, and a moderate uphill walk from the parking lot brought us to the meltwater pond, and whole lot of glacial ice.  But first we had to drive 16 km up the mountain on a narrow (thankfully paved!), winding road.  Our lane was just slightly wider than the dually, and multiple switchbacks with blind corners tested mine & Bob’s driving ability and comfort. (But a good lesson in learning exactly how big and maneuverable the truck actually is.)  It all worked out just fine, and we arrived at the top just around noon. We passed the rest of Bob’s family, who were coming down, on the way up – they had managed to actually get up and going to the mountain by 9. We rolled out of our campsite around 11, in part thanks to a little girl who had a nap on the way back from Maligne Lake yesterday and then didn't go to bed until 11:30. Some days it just doesn't work out, no matter how much we’d like it to. 

Anyway, back to the mountain… Angel Glacier, the larger of the two glaciers, had several small avalanches while we were there.  This is a common sight during the summer when the sun warms up the ice, and I remember seeing an avalanche there when I was a kid.  It makes for a more exciting walk, for sure. We’d hear a low crack & rumble, a bit like thunder, look up and see ice and snow tumbling down. We learned that in of Aug 2012 most of the second glacier, Ghost, crashed down the mountain all the way to the meltwater pond, setting off a rather spectacular flash flood. Wouldn't that have been a sight to see!  There were many signs warning of the risk of walking past the viewing area up to the pond, but we chose to go down anyway.  The kids enjoyed seeing the floating chunks of ice and throwing rocks in the pond.  They both did really well on the walk and hardly complained at all. I was very proud of them. One of my personal goals on this adventure is to get out & be active with walks and such more often. It’s much more enjoyable when everyone is happy though!

We finished up at the mountain, got back into the truck & headed further south to Athabasca Falls. We stopped briefly to take pictures and then headed into town. Bob had promised the kids slurpees. Alas, there were no slurpees to be found as the machines were out of order. What a terrible thing! (at least according to my family, who , I swear, are all closet slurpee-holics). Back to the campground for supper and then we went to the kids Interpretive talk. The park runs several talks, and entertainment each night during the summer. Tonight, the kids’ one was about geocaching.  We've never done it before but thought it would be rather fun to try.  And it was! We were given a gps preprogramed with the locations of four caches nearby.  The kids each took turns guiding us to near the cache and then we all hunted for the box. None were very difficult to find, but they definitely kept the kids engaged. They both took the guiding quite seriously and I can see doing more geocaching in the future.

Tomorrow is move day.  Blech! I’d like to stay longer, but we've decided to move east towards Edson and then continue on to Edmonton area.