Elk, Bad Ass Bears and Hotel Fires

A sleepy day in Jasper. Only 4500 people live here, and nearly all of them were queued up at the bakery in town getting coffee and muffins, but elsewhere it was deserted. We joined the throng to buy lunch for our planned walk to Patricia Lake and Pyramid Lake, and then set off up the hill.

Didn't get far before we came across the first warning sign. Mandy tells me that her preps have already had their "B" week, but the sign would have been just perfect. 'Bad Ass Black Bear in the vicinity' it read. If that didn't convince you to turn back and have a second latte, you were presented with two suggestions - make a lot of noise, and carry bear spray. Hmmm! Well we obviously didn't have any of the latter, but I did have Mandy with me, so the former wasn't going to be a problem, and we pressed on resolutely.

We'd only gone 100 metres and found a ranger truck with its flashing lights on, and the ranger climbing out. Luckily (or not) it wasn't a bad ass black bear, but only a couple of animals that could have been elk (or were they wapiti?) grazing on the side of the road. They weren't fussed, and we weren't fussed, but the ranger seemed to be. I expected some kind of high tech solution, maybe an elk (or were they moose?) siren, or perhaps a tranquiliser dart. Nope. Out of the back of the truck he produced a bunch of flouro pink streamers attached to a stick, and proceeded to wave them in the direction of the elk (or were they caribou?). The elk looked at him languidly as if to say "Please! Is that the best you can do?", and wandered a little way up the track. After the ranger took off after them to show just how serious his streamers were, and the elk wandered a bit further off, everybody seemed to be happy again, and we trudged on.

Came across red squirrels, lots more wapiti (or were they elk?), and some purpley flowery things that I photographed so that Joy and Austin back home wouldn't think that we are complete neanderthals. I think that they were columbines, but only because they were the only purpley things listed on a sign we saw later.

A couple of hours later we emerged from the forest at Patricia Lake with it's stunning backdrop of the Rockies, and kept wandering along until we arrived at Pyramid Lake with it's resort, jetty and all manner of hire craft.

While sitting on a seat outside the resort eating the sandwiches from the bakery for lunch, I could hear this spitting noise coming from behind me and, being a curious character, I wandered over to find that the electrical wiring on the side of the resort building was on fire. Wandered into the office to report it -"I'll be with shortly" I was told. "Sorry to butt in, but your buildings on fire" I countered with. "Our building?" "Yep" "On fire?" "Yep" That got their attention. Urgent phone calls and walkie talkies later and two guys emerged with fire extinguishers to douse it.

The trouble, of course, with electrical fires is that even though you put out the flame, you haven't fixed the problem that caused the wires to combust, but eventually the insulation burned through and the circuit breaker tripped, so it all calmed down. They debated calling the fire department, and I has visions of them turning up and waving pink streamers to ward off the danger, but instead they called the manager, who called the boss, who did the sensible thing and called an electrician. Seemed that somebody had been re-wiring the hot tub that morning. Oh dear. His day is not turning out well.

We headed off back towards the town through the forest making encouraging bear like noises, but we never did get to see that bad ass brown bear. However lots of elk seemed attracted to us - they were everywhere. Walked the heritage trail along the railway line back to town, and ended up doing about 15km by the time we got back home.

As if bears, elk and fires weren't enough excitement for one day, we tried (again) to Skype my mother. It's very depressing when she has the volume muted so she can't hear you, and answers in audio mode so she can't see you. Eventually I had to call her on my mobile to step her through answering the skype call so it wouldn't cost me anything to talk to her. Anyway, we managed - eventually.