Woke up rather late in Jasper today. Needed a wittle bit of sleep so got up around 10ish. Mosied on down to the hotel lobby and got some breakfast. Jasper seems to be inundated with Aussies! There were 2 in the restaurant of the hotel I am staying at, and also another 2 there this morning. I've spoke to a few people and the said yeh, I probably had a 50-50 chance of running into an Aussie working there around town. Damn Aussies!
Did the normal walk around town thing this morning... but it was probably about -15 degrees so I had to cover up a lot! It only got to a maximum of -12 today just after lunch time and, apparently it's going to get a lot worse tonight, going down to a maximum of -29 and tomorrow's high is expected to get up to -15! Crazy eh? Can't believe that there is even a town here to be honest, there's no wind, but I can't imagine anyone even building a town on a calm sunny day here, let alone in any sort of foul weather. Pretty incredible.
I went and did a little 3.5 hour guided tour with a tour company today. Went up to an area called Maligne Canyon/Valley. Because it's the off-season, business wasn't exactly booming for the tour company, and I was the only person on the entire tour! I had a chap named Bruce give me the guided tour and he was extremely knowledgeable about the areas we went into - at times he seemed a little too knowledgeable and automated with some of his chats, but by the second half of the tour we were talking about the damned french and the good times that his home city of Edmonton (My next stop) have to offer. Apparently now I learnt that the Mall there is like the biggest in the world or something like that so I have to go and see it - it's world famous. Sounds good to me! haha Anyhow the trip was freaking awesome! We saw several animals like elk , coyotes, Harlequin duck, and trout and stuff but to me the best parts were the natural surroundings. Massive mountains, huge extensive forests and ice blue half/mostly frozen rivers. Very awe inspiring. Bruce spoke about a lot of the mountain names and explorers most of which I have already forgotten, but the memories of the hills and valleys partially covered in ice and snow are still fresh in my mind.
The Jasper township itself is a small town in the middle of a National Park. Jasper pretty much prides itself on being natural and at the fore-front of conservation and preservation of pretty much all things. They have and are, enacting strict laws and bylaws to prevent all sorts of modernization so that the wildlife and parks can continue to flourish - very impressive to a kiwi who sees a lot of that sort of thing in New Zealand and I was very happy to see so many people to make sure that nothing is ruined in their area of the world. Jasper pretty much prides itself on being 'natural' and they seem to think they have 1-up on their slightly larger neighbors of Banff, whom I will be visiting in a few days. But really, Jasper is a lot like Queenstown, very natural but still a bit commercial, but definitely very nice. Very natural, and very nice indeed.
I've also done some reconnaissance today, and checked out where I can get lift passes and shuttles to and from the mountain for when I come back here in several days time. So I am pretty much good to go for some awesome skiing when I get back!
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