Jasper National Park

Medicine lake
Originally uploaded by raindog.

This is, without a doubt, the most amazingly beautiful place I've ever been to.

I switched my schedule around a week ago, so I have 4 nights here, instead of 2 as originally planned, and I am soooo thankful that I did, as I had fantastic weather the first day I was here and spent an incredible day driving up and down the Icefields Parkway. On my original schedule I would have been stuck in Winnipeg for a couple of days: Winnipeg is a fine town, but I'd already had two days there and I don't think you need much more than that to see the sights.

Jasper National Park is huge, so I rented a car and went to see Mt Edith Cavell, the Angel Glacier, Athabasca Falls, the Columbia Icefields - including a walk on the Athabasca Glacier, Maligne Canyon, Medicine lake and Maligne Lake. And along the way I saw ground squirrels / chipmunks (not sure which), sheep, some mad female deer who ran into the road right in front of my car, and quite a few male elk. .

As I was leaving my b&b last night to walk into Jasper I got about 500m down the road and passed a little wooded area behind some houses. I saw a female elk in there and went to get a photo - as I got closer I realised the small tree behind her were actually the antlers of a huge male elk who was lying down. The male elk are just coming into rutting season, so they are very, very dangerous at the moment.

It turns out the kids in the houses by these woods were all shut in doors waiting for the elk to go so they could go play in the park. After about 10 mins he eventually got up and went about 20m down the embankment and across to the other side of the highway, where there was another female.

This began about 20 mins of silliness with drivers pulling onto the side of the road, or even just stopping dead in the middle of the road, and getting far too close to the elk in an attempt to get photos. He put his head down and started little charges at a couple of people and a car.

He then crossed the road - straight towards me..which was a little frightening, and headed back up the bank to his original place in the woods, and I managed to get a couple of closer photos before he fixed me with a stern glare, which I took to mean "Don't push your luck sonny".

Magnificent animal - they harm more people than any other animal in the park, but I bet half the people asked for it by getting too close to them.