The view from...Jasper

So after a few days checking out Banff, we headed along the highway, through more incredible mountains and past the Colombia Icefields, to Jasper.

 

Talk about chalk and cheese. Where as Banff is a slick, modern town with a Louis Vuitton and Gap, Jasper is a low level, simple small town with very few chain stores or restaurants and some comedy retro accommodation.

 

The railway line runs down the opposite side of the high street - carrying a succession of huge industrial trains plus the occasional tourist carrier. A trail runs round the edge of the town which you can follow to find out more about its natural and industrial history. We got a little more natural info that we bargained for - some pretty fresh bear poo (or scat) on the trail near houses but far enough away from civilisation to freak us out a bit!

 

Like Banff this is no ski in, ski out town. The nearest ski resort is Marmot Basin, a few kilometres up a steep mountain road. This mountain offers 84 runs and, looking at the piste map, there's a serious amount of challenging black and double black terrain. You can't actually get to the base at the moment. It's shut as they build the longest high speed quad detachable chairlift in the Alberta Canadian rockies. But we made a couple of trips up the road anyway. Having checked the Parks Canada website for bear sightings in the area, this road seemed to be the place to go. But we saw nowt. 

 

Still there are loads of gorgeous lakes and hikes in the area, all teaming with wildlife of some sort or another. Would also highly recommend a visit to the stunning Angel Glacier and Cavell Glacier too if you're in the area. And we did find bears in one form - the giant pastry Bear Paws of the legendary Bear's Paw Bakery. Not as good as the real thing obviously but pretty tasty nonetheless.