I managed to suffer through the first week back at work, and the girls did the same at school. On Friday January 10th we left the city right after school, and hit the road for Jasper. Work is really quiet for me at this time of year so it was not a problem to bail out and hour and a half early. My Mom came along with us for the weekend, and we rolled into Jasper around 8:00PM. We had a suite rented at the Jasper Inn for all of us. The girls had a restless night and were a little too crowded trying to share a bed. They kept everyone up for most of the night, and were more than a little crabby come morning. None the less we headed out of town and up to Maligne Canyon. The weather was very mild and pleasant on Friday evening as we drove out to the mountains, but it snowed heavily overnight and was still snowing heavily the next morning.
When we arrived at the Maligne River I was rather surprised to see the river open and flowing. I had expected it to be frozen over completely. I guess conditions here in the mountains have actually been a little milder than what we have experienced back in Edmonton in recent weeks.
The Maligne River is rather unusual to say the least. In some places it flows reasonably heavily while in other areas it is often dry. This is due to the fact that sections of the river flow through underground faults and caverns, only to emerge again further down the valley. I knew this to be the case further upstream at Medicine Lake, but was not aware that this was also the case in the canyon. Some sections, like near the temporary bridge, there was a considerable volume of water, while in other areas further upstream, the river bed was dry and completely filled with snow. Evenutally we got up into a section of the canyon where there were some small side streams and cascades flowing into the canyon and some small pools and currents of open water.
As we worked our way further up the canyon we began to come across some of the ice formations that the canyon is known for. These were really cool, and in a couple of locations I stopped to set up my big camera. The snow was coming down heavily, and I knew I would have to dry out my gear carefully when we returned back to the hotel. One formation was particularly interesting as water was cascading down the side of the canyon, creating a fantastic ice formation, and then forming a small pool, only to disappear into the ground, leaving the canyon further down completely dry. It was at this spot that we had our misadventure. As Margarit and the girls attempted to walk further up the canyon, they had to cross a patch of ice at the edge of this pool. It looked safe, as there were fresh tracks on the ice from other hikers that had walked in the same spot earlier this day. But, Margarit broke through, and was plunged into cold, icy water up to her waist. My Mom also got a little wet helping her out, and Helena got her feet wet as well. This put an end to our exploring for the day. We knew we had to turn back and return to the truck before anyone got frostbite or suffered any other ill effects from the cold. I had on a pair of wind pants over top of my jeans. I took these off and gave them to Margarit, so that she could mostly get out of her wet clothes. The girls headed back to the truck while I quickly finished up the photograph I was making before heading back to join them. At least we had a great day together and got to experience the ice walk, even if it got cut a little short.
We got back to the hotel in the latter part of the afternoon and everybody changed out of their wet clothes and warmed up. The three girls hit the hotel pool for a while in the afternoon and then later we went out for a nice family dinner to a local restaurant. By the time we got back to our suite after dinner everyone was pretty worn out. All the fresh air, the swimming, and the lack of sleep the night before had everyone pretty much done. We turned in early, with a re-organized sleeping arrangement and everyone got a good night's sleep. The next morning, after our breakfast buffet, we packed up for the drive back to Edmonton. We arrived back home in the early evening, tired but happy. We will try this again and see if we can't get a little further up the canyon next time.
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