Edith Cavell, Jasper

Our big lunch lasted us until we got to our campground for the night; Mt Kerskelin campground, another basic National Park campsite with no shower and just pit toilets. I was desperate for a wash due to missing a shower the day before, so had no choice but to plunge into the glacial stream. It felt so good to be clean! The ranger came by to check our tickets and Jimmy asked if there were any bears. "Oh yes!" she said cheerfully. "And we have a wolf around too".
Jimmy wanted a small dinner so we had one of the freeze-dried meals he'd been given weeks ago that he'd been carting amongst his clothes in his bag. It was an uneventful night in the tents - I just put my ear plugs in and forgot about being in a National Park full of wild animals.... In the morning we awoke to rain. This meant a lesiurely breakfast and 3 coffees while waiting for the rain to stop. We eventually packed our gear and hit the road, stopping at the Athabasca Falls just 4km down the road. We were ravenous! It had been 2 hours since breakfast by this point, but still felt funny to be so hungry after only 4km on the road.... The falls were cool, lots of water gushing.









We turned off the highway and headed up the Edith Cavell road, a 14km climb up a dead-end road into the mountains. There were sightings of a female grizzly bear with cubs, so I made sure my bear-bell was ringing as we cycled up! The clouds were looming rather ominously, but kept shifting and giving hope that we might get some good views of the mountains... We arrived at the hostel at 2pm to find checkin was not until 5pm! So we continued the 2km on up to the carpark and glacier walk. Which is when it started sleeting. We were both cold and Jimmy muttered about heading straight down the hill to Jasper (20km away). I really wanted to stay in the hostel, despite knowing it was another 'rustic' hostel with no hot showers. We were cold and hungry (a now familiar feeling) and let ourselves into the hostel kitchen and made some hot soup. Within minutes the sun was out again and the sky started to clear. By this stage we weren't in the mood to hike back up the road to visit the glacier, so just relaxed at the hostel. Gradually it filled with hikers and other holidaymakers; with the warm fire and cooking smells from dinners it was very cosy. I sat in a corner and drank wine offered by a german couple who spoke little english.
The next morning we flew down the newly asphalted smooth road back to the main highway. It was so cold we had to stop and put plastic bags over our hands. (I already had them on my feet).

It was a nice short down-hill ride into Jasper; our first town in days. Jimmy was really looking forward to going to McDonalds but unfortunately they didn't have one. I think Jasper prides itself on allowing few of the chain stores to set up shop.
We wandered into a pub on Sunday afternoon; where there was a local acoustic jamming session in full swing. It was nice to sit in a warm pub drinking chardonnay and listening to the men singing and playing. That evening we went to the movies and saw "Eat Pray Love"; it was surprisingly good. I was expecting american cringe; but the cinematography was fantastic.
Today is our 'day off' - spent exploring the cycle trails surrounding Jasper. A day of cycling without luggage is like a day off, really!

Tomorrow we start on Highway 16; our turning point as we are now halfway through and heading back West towards Vancouver. We've done about 1600km now.... I have a new bike seat - I reluctantly had to give up on my Brooks saddle in Banff - I had to concede defeat that if 10,000km of touring still hadn't 'broken it in' to a good comfort level then it probably just didn't suit me. I now have a saddle called "megasoft" and it seems to be working fine...