Jasper: Valley of the Five Lakes, Moose, & Medicine Lake (Day 8)

On our last full day in Jasper, we decided to tackle a hike that's only a 5 minute drive away from our hotel, the Valley of the Five Lakes hike.  This hike takes you to see an impressive five lakes of various hues of green, blue and turquoise. The hike was one of the most challenging that we've done, as there are quite significant uphill and downhill sections, many of which are rocky.  We brought the hiking carrier for R as we always do even though he refuses it most of the time (yes, he prefers to hike over being carried), and we popped him in there for a couple of sections of this challenging 5km hike, which took us just over 3 hours.

Valley of the Five Lakes

The hike was even more beautiful than I had expected, and the valley was surprisingly concentrated with birds, including many warbler and waterfowl species I only get to see in Ontario either during spring migration or during the winter months.  

Each lake had its own unique colours and character, and we enjoyed exploring each one.  For those wondering why all the lakes in this region have such different colours than your usual lake, it has to do with the rock flour in the lake.  This flour is washed down the sides of the mountains, and different amounts, plus different sunlight angles, and different elevations and angles of viewing, all effect which rays of light are absorbed and reflected.  This fascinating geological phenomenon can be viewed in any place in the world there are glacially-fed lakes; New Zealand and Pakistan are two other places (long time readers will recall the incredible blue of Lake Pukaki, one of the remote lakes we camped beside in New Zealand)

Valley of the Five Lakes

After this long hike, we had lunch at a picnic table in the parking lot, and then drove over to Maligne Lake Road again while R napped in the backseat.

When we were coming home from the boat cruise to Spirit Island, we had an incredible encounter that I haven't written about yet.  We saw a number of cars pulled over to the side of the road near a large parking lot for a trail, and decided to slow down and see if we could spot what the excitement was all about. 

Valley of the Five Lakes

I hopped out while J stayed with R in the car.  I saw a few folks standing or crouched very quietly with their cameras, so I tip-toed closer.  Across the other side of the parking lot was a moose!  I think my mouth fell open and remained that way for a few minutes as I watched it leisurely eat leaves off some shrubs.  I had never seen a moose before, despite all my backcountry camping in Algonquin. 

J had also never seen a moose, and it's been her dream for years to see one.  She talks about it all the time, any time we go somewhere that has even a remote possibility of seeing one.

So not only was I excited to see this moose, I was even more excited to see J's reaction.  I looked over towards our car and she rolled the window down.  I gestured wildly for her to come over, and she was soon out of the car with R in her arms, walking as quickly and quietly as she could.  Her reaction was absolute stunned disbelief, and the three of us stood there in wonder, along with everyone else who had similar child-like expressions of joy on their faces.  

Seeing wildlife, especially elusive wildlife, has such an interesting effect on people, more than even beautiful scenery does.  Lakes and forests and mountains are something that are always 'there', that we can theoretically access whenever we want, while creatures like mammals and birds are mostly un-chase-able, entirely dependent on their own whims and not ours. To stumble upon such creatures elicits this deep sense of wonder and reverence; it's as if we are being gifted something so precious, yet there is no gifter and no one to thank.

Can there be a more iconic Canadian photo?

Today, while driving along for R's nap, we again saw a crowd of cars pulled over to the side of the road, so we also carefully pulled over and scanned the scene.  Another moose!  This one we could initially see from the car, so we watched it as it slowly walked the opposite shoreline of a river down below the highway, munching on vegetation. I did eventually hop out for some photos, and while I was doing that, the moose went into the woods and then re-emerged and headed straight into the river!  A woman beside me gasped and her face lit up with that pure joy that you so rarely see in the face of an adult. Another woman in a car who was passing slowly by rolled down her window and asked what we were seeing. When she heard it was a moose, she flapped her hands and squealed - again, childlike joy.

A fascinating scene to be a part of on so many levels. Thank you, beautiful moose, for gifting us with your presence and eliciting so much joy.  As I was watching it in the river, J and R came over. Apparently he had woken up from his nap, observed us stopped on the road with other people out of the cars, and his quiet voice piped up from the back "I want to see". So interesting how he has already learned so much about the context of the world to put all those observations together and come to the conclusion that we were all seeing something "cool" and that he wanted in on it. 

The moose was "taking a bath" according to him, and he stared at it in quiet silence, the way he often does when he's processing something big.  I do not know what was going through his mind, nor what he will remember of this occasion, if anything at all.  Other wildlife we've seen in the past couple of days were a black bear nimbly lumbering on the side of the mountains, a huge male elk with large antlers so close to the car that my zoom lens couldn't get the whole thing in the frame, and a nest with a Bald Eagle and her two eaglets. 

Black Bear

Elk (Male)

Eagle in nest with 2 eaglets

After the moose excitement, we headed over to the shores of Medicine Lake. There is a viewpoint of the entire lake from above that's a popular stopping point for tour buses, but I had earmarked the shores of this lake the day before when we drove by and I noticed there was a short trail to the bottom with a very rocky shore. There could not be a more perfect lake for R.

Medicine Lake

Our sweet two-and-a-half year old has done an incredible number of hikes with us in the past week, taking each day in stride, up for most adventures. Of course he has had hard days, but we all do.  I felt that he had earned a treat of just spending a long while by the shores of a lake, throwing rocks, playing with sticks in the mud, eating a blueberry muffin (his favourite), and just generally "doing" nothing.  Truth be told, I needed that too. There has been a lot of movement on this trip - always hiking, going from one place to the next, stopping for so many different sceneries and points of interest.  

It is not in the hundreds of photos we took that we will remember this place; it is in the times we took to slow down and take it all in. To simply sit and just "be", breathe the mountain air, look out at the turquoise waters, and not do anything at all. 

These are the thoughts that ran through my head as I watched R dig in the muddy shores of Medicine Lake with a stick he had found, and as I threw the rocks in the lake that he carefully foraged and selected for me and J ("trow rocks too-geder").  Soon after these thoughts faded, I had no others. It was only the sounds of splashing, the smiles of R, the colours of green and blue and grey and chalky white, the sounds of Pine Siskins in the evergreens, and the cool mountain I breathed in and out. 

Medicine Lake