Jasper Encore

Having spent most of my first day in Jasper at Tim Hortons using their WiFi, the goal for the day was to take in a few of Jasper’s sights. And they really are beautiful sights. To say that Jasper is incredibly picturesque doesn’t begin to cover it. Perhaps if I had a better camera I would be able to capture it better! The shots I could get with a drone would be incredible. Hmmmm …

I was fortunate enough to wake to another beautifully sunny day and made the short 5 km ride back into Jasper at around 9:30. I then proceeded to walk around town taking the obligatory and not-so-obligatory photos of the area.

My previous visit to Jasper was in 1998 when I was here for a fastball tournament. As locations go for a fastball tournament, this is a good one. At the time I remember fully appreciating how stunning of a locale it was. I was patrolling centre field at that time and I regularly took note of the beautiful backdrop (between pitches of course!).

With all the development that Jasper has seen since then, I decided to see if the ballpark was still around. It is. Very much. And it’s still stunning. And essentially the same as the last time I saw it. A few more buildings surround the area but the mountains still tower above them. And, not surprisingly, they’ve added an elk fence around the park. I say, “not surprisingly” because during one of the games in 1998, an elk actually walked through the opening of the fence in centre field causing a brief elk delay. The fence is also a good way to keep elk droppings off the field. I won’t lie, in 1998 that was a bit of an issue.

After my nostalgic visit to the park (and centre field) I wandered back to town and made my way to the Bear’s Paw Bakery – of which, for some reason, I DIDN’T take a picture. But I did run into Ian and Emily again. The bakery is somewhat famous as apparently it’s been featured on Oprah – that almost made me NOT want to go. But I went. Since it’s their scones have made them famous I decided I had to try one. I opted for the raspberry and white chocolate variety. It didn’t disappoint. Neither did the sticky bun I bought too. I mean, I was there, the sticky buns were there. How could I not? They also had Nanaimo bars but, since a friend of mine makes the best Nanaimo bars on the planet, I figured I was setting myself up for disappointment.

The rest of the day was spent aimlessly wandering around town before once again stopping at WiFi Central (aka. Tim Hortons). With the blog backlog is still lingering around, I wanted to get a little bit caught up. I also wanted to consult some maps to figure out what the next few days would bring. Both tasks proved successful, although there’s still a bit of a blog backlog.

After leaving Tim Hortons, I once again found myself wandering around town a bit more. I don’t know what it is (okay, it could be the scenery) but I really like Jasper. A lot. I don’t know if I’d like it in the winter but, in the summer, it really is one of my favourite places.

As late afternoon turned into early evening, I decided to return to Whistlers Campground and my not- entirely-official campsite. As I made my way to my tent I noticed that something was amiss. It turns out I only THOUGHT I was making my way to my tent. As I neared “my” campsite, it was clear that someone had encroached on my territory and my tent was not where I left it. I suddenly had flashbacks to my previous tenting misadventure in Stettler, AB. As I got closer to “my” site I was relieved to see that my tent had been moved to Ian and Emily’s site. Apparently, “my” site got assigned to someone else while I was away. Fortunately, Ian and Emily were there to save my tent.

As the evening wore on, the rest of the campground was filling up pretty solidly and my home for the night was in question until Ian and Emily again offered to share their site. In the end this wasn’t necessary as a site on the other side of theirs remained unclaimed … officially. Unofficially, it MAY have been claimed by me.

Today’s totals:
Distance travelled: 9.66 km
Ride time: 36:40
Average speed: 15.82 km/h
Maximum speed: 38.72 km/h