Jasper to Edmonton

Day 7 (10 Sep) — Edmonton, city of oil

Jasper to Edmonton

We gave up on hiking the Skyline Trail, but at its trailhead is Maligne Lake, known for its scenery, so we decided to at least see that before heading to Edmonton, even though it was in the other direction. The weather was pleasantly sunny, and from viewpoints along the way we could see the majestic Canadian Rockies continuing forever. In Canada the speed limit outside cities is around 100 km/h, the roads are wide with nothing in the way, and it's really pleasant to drive.

Some cloud came in so the photo is dark, but this is Maligne Lake, said to be the most typical glacial lake around here. As you can see, there's already a lot of snow on the mountains behind. Winter comes early.

Is it too small to make out? Here too we found a cute squirrel.

This is the Skyline Trail trailhead. We didn't finish the Berg Lake Trail either; I want to come back someday!!

Leaving Maligne Lake, we headed for Edmonton. The mountainous Rockies had many peaks with jagged, saw-like ridges, but east of the range is the great plains. Edmonton is right in the middle of the plain, so it gets flatter and flatter as you approach. On the way we had lunch in a town called Edson.

We plunged into Edmonton. A city landscape for the first time in a while. We tried to go to a cheap motel we had found in advance, the Chateau Motel, but although we knew where it was, we took a wrong turn by a hair. We were on a freeway, so we had to keep driving toward Calgary for a while, and came back along a muddy Local Only road, which got the car dirty. Tonight's motel was an exceptional price, about 6,000 yen a night for two. For that, it even had a kitchen; comfortable!

The kitchen and the outside of the motel. Canadian motels almost all have free wireless internet, which is handy. I had brought a netbook, so we could look up maps of the next day's roads online.