Day 373
Jasper
Don seemed happy with our company so all 3 of us set off together to Jasper. The route was even better, it’s hard to describe just how beautiful a road this is. Waterfalls and mountains all around, the river running beside us. We had 65 miles to go, and the time flew by, it was no chore to ride this road, rather a privilege. Tom spotted a bear ahead and yelled out a warning. A fully-grown male grizzly sauntered across the road in front of us then ambled along beside us just a few yards away in the woods. We kept an admiring, but wary, eye on the beautiful creature and slowly pulled away.
We stopped for lunch at a proper café, Sunwapta Falls, meaning turbulent water, complete with pannier bag eating ravens. Zips are no problem for them, fortunately they didn’t like the taste of my Allen keys, and our grubby cycle kit held no attraction either. We were soon back on the bikes heading for more waterfalls, this time the Athabasca Falls. Now after a year being out of sync of other tourists we were finally hitting the tourist hot spots with, well the tourists. The falls were packed. Despite this we spent a while exploring them and learning a bit about them. The power of the water erodes the rocks, creating a fine powder, the more water the more erosion, with me so far? More powder, or flour as they call it, turns the river a milky white, so in spring and summer the colour of the rivers changes from a stunning emerald green to milky white. We could clearly see a mix of both as the recent sun is slowly melting the winter snow. We were able to walk through gorges caused by the river until the rocks had forced it to change course. It was fascinating, the only thing missing was an ice-cream van!
Now our super-fit neighbours at the campsite had met another cyclist on the road, a young English guy called Tom. From their description of him, on a bike with red panniers we were confident we had spotted him at the falls. Grinning all 3 of us marched up and called out ‘Hi Tom’. He looked at us, bemused and slightly panicked, clearly we knew him but he couldn’t remember meeting us. We took pity and explained how we knew him. As he was heading to the same campground as us in Jasper, Whistlers, we hoped to meet up later.
We left the 93 and joined the quieter 93A. This took us close to the mountain named in honour of Edith Cavell, she was a nurse during the First World War. In 1915 she was convicted of committing treason by the Germans, despite pressure applied from many countries around the world she was shot for her crime of helping Allied airmen and Belgium Nationals escape to the UK. She had nursed both German and Allied airmen during the war. Of the 5 people convicted with her of this crime only two (including Edith) were executed, the others being imprisoned. This caused shock waves around the world. We had seen a memorial to her in New Zealand when on our honeymoon and here was a beautiful mountain now bearing her name.
At our campsite we met up again with Tom (3) and he joined us. We also met Daniel who we had camped with at Rampart Creek, and were all joined around the campfire by more fellow cyclists, Christen and Nick. We had quite a party!
The following morning everyone departed but for Tom and I. Don would be back, the others were continuing on their journey. We spent the day getting our laundry done, then replacing worn out kit. One new tent, a waterproof jacket each, new shoes for us both, it was exhausting work! Pockets to let we returned to the campsite and a few days’ rest.
