THURSDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2026

(Jasper, AB)

Quite a good night’s sleep, although I’m still falling asleep early, and waking up early.  Eventually got up, made coffee and went back to bed with it. Made a second cup, Andrew stayed in bed, but I went out on our balcony to sample the morning air. Eventually we decided we’d better get breakfast, so we walked three quarters of a mile into town to Harvest Food and Drink. This was a semi-upscale restaurant that also served classic breakfast. It was very good and hopefully set us up for the day, now that we’re firmly on our two-meals-a-day system of operations. We walked back through town, checking out potential options for tonight.

We got ready and headed over the Pyramind Bench (which is the hill immediately behind our hotel) towards the first of today’s lakes, Patricia Lake. It has a weird history from WWII, involving testing a boat made of ice and sawdust…I’ll leave you to find out about that one. We didn’t do much of a walk there, just to the shore to admire the reflections of the mountains in the lake.

Or next stop was Pyramid Lake, under the beautifully coloured Pyramid Mountain. Before we got there, a fox ran across the the road in front of us. Whilst technically a red fox, it was a Cross Fox, and it was very pretty. I didn’t get a photo, but it was similar to this one.

We walked from the shore across a bridge and onto Pyramid Island, which has a 600m loop trail around it. The scenery was beautiful, although the cloud was starting to descend and just clip the mountain tops.

Although this had been a pleasant amble , our main hike today was to be the Valley of the Five Lakes, called Lake 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in turn. This was a short drive out of town, back up the end of the Parkway. It is an area that was completed burned in the wildfires of 2024. (Side note: there is a lot of construction going on in town and while some may just be town expansion, it is likely that some is still rebuilding. One-third of all buildings in town were burned at that time). Our walked started by climbing up a bench of land, before descending to cross an area of wetland on a boardwalk.

From there it was up and over a steep hill, where we heard and saw a Hairy Woodpecker (at least that’s what I think it was, based on the beak length), and then gradually down the other side of the hill to reach the first of the lakes. 

From there we passed the small lake number two.

Onto lake three, which was separated from lake number four only by a narrow spit of land. There were, however, a pair of the Canadian Parks red chairs perched above the lake, so we made the most of the opportunity that presented itself, and had a sit down for a while. 

Then it was past lake four and onto lake 5, with great reflections and views on the mountains above. I’ll post a few photos so you can identify the mountains around us.

After that it was back up the hill, past a large pond that hadn’t earned a number, although I’m not sure why not, as it was a very pretty pond, and eventually back over the wetlands and towards the car park. I thought this hike was in a flat valley (!) but  it is reasonable to say that our legs were tired by the end.

We returned to our room, for tea and snacks, before showers and walking half a mile into town for dinner. Yes, other places are available, but they are further away..! It was also raining when we headed out, with a possibility of light snow overnight, so we’ll see what happens. As wet left the restaurant to come back to our room we passed a small herd of elk. I was thinking that we’ve seen very little in the way of wildlife up until now, and then a fox, a woodpecker and elk all come along at once.