CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

Finally, after often talking about how we should do a road trip to the rockys we finally decided to ACTUALLY go. Although it was quite last minute so we had less than a day before we left when we started planning everything out, we quickly made a plan on what time to leave Edmonton and booked for the hostel we decided upon.

After an early start the next morning, we left Edmonton around 7, a quick stop at Edson we were in Jasper. We were originally planning to do the Palisade Lookout hike heading out from Pyramid lake. But after a quick stop at the information centre at Jasper it sounded like there were still some snow and the distance of the hike was a little long for our liking. After lingering around thinking of what to do for a while we decided to go and check out Sulfur Skyline. But the thing was that it was almost an hour drive away. In the end we decided to do the Overlander, the trail head was between Jasper and Sulfur Skyline. We unfortunately didnt have any maps of the trail, so we just found a little trail and decided to follow it. At first what looked to be a proper trail, but we ended up going up a super steep side of a mountain that lead to a rock face going pretty close to vertical.

Different areas like with moss, or open areas, areas where there was a forest fire in the past, where new baby trees were growing, etc! After hiking around for 1.5hrs we looked at the little trail guide description and realized that it was 4-6hrs ONE WAY! When we started we thought it was 4-6hrs return, so after we realized we said we would hike for another hour than turn around. The views were super nice on the trail and we were surprised to see quite a few trail runners that we encountered. When we followed the trail back to the parking lot, we realized that the trail head, and a big board with a map of the trail was on the other end of the parking lot. FACE PALM. In the end we were both exhausted, we stopped by Pyramid lake to take a few photos then headed into town for dinner at the Curry buffet place. When we rolled up to our hostel that we would be staying at the outside looked quite rundown, and sketchy. But the inside was relatively clean and updated, also the staff were really friendly as well.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to try and maximise our day in Jasper, a quick stop at A&W and we were off to the trailhead. We decided upon a trail called Virl, Dorothy and Christine Lakes, it was 8.6Km return. The elevation gain/loss was only 250m so we expected the trail to be relatively flat. The trail started off with a pretty steep and long switch back section. The trail was mostly always under the treeline and we really didnt have any openings for nice views throughout the trail, but once we got to the lakes they were beautiful. The lakes were very clean, the lack of easy access to the lakes had kept them very clean, fresh, inhabited. After hiking to all three of the lakes, we headed back down. The hike itself was pretty fun but the lack of views, and scenery took away from the experience.

After we drove our exhausted bodys to Maligne Canyon and walked around taking in the incredible forces of nature. After running around excited and exhausting ourselves even more we headed off for the drive to Maligne lake. Once we got there I was surprised to see that most of the lake was still covered in ice and snow. It was quite beautiful, but we were really too tired to go and explore around too much, so after taking in the views we headed back to Jasper for some ice cream and Mocha before our drive back to Edmonton.