On Thursday, August 18, 2016, we woke up before the sun in order to get an early start into Jasper National Park. We wanted to visit Mount Edith Cavell and hike up to Angel Glacier. From all reports, the Angel Glacier hike is one of the most popular hikes in the park. If you want to find a parking spot at the trailhead, you have to arrive early. This bull elk seem quite indignant that we were disturbing him at such an early hour.
We were not the first hikers in the parking lot, but we were able to park our truck in such a way as to point it out the exit road, so that even if the parking lot became crowded, we would still be able to exit back down the mountain. By the time we got parked, the sun was just reaching Mount Edith Cavell. From the trailhead, you can only see one "wing" of the Angel Glacier.
The mountain was named in 1916 for Edith Cavell, an English nurse executed by the Germans during World War I for having helped Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium to the Netherlands, in violation of German military law. Angel Glacier is to the right in the photo below.
Angel Glacier was named as such because it has the appearance of an angel with out-swept wings. It was much larger when it was named in the 19th-century, but as with most glaciers worldwide, it is melting rapidly. It is not expected to maintain its distinctive appearance for much longer, and will eventually disappear from the face of Mount Edith Cavell.
The hike up to Cavell Meadows promised beautiful alpine meadows. But first, we had to work our way over and up the old terminal moraine deposited by larger glaciers eons ago.
Once we reached the height of the moraine, we looked back down the valley from whence we came.
There was still plenty more up to go. The trail went right along the transition line from moraine to forest. We stopped a couple times to see if we could catch a photo of the black marmots that preside over this rocky kingdom, but they always seemed to turn their backs to us as we got close. So, we left out the marmot butt shots and included this really cool photo of the transition zone.
As we hiked higher, we could look down on the former glacier valley. All that is left is a few snowy patches. If you stare too long, you can begin to see shapes in the snow patches like bears, camels, and bunnies.
We soon left the forest behind and started hiking through wildflower meadows. It was a little late in the year for the height of the color, but we still got to see a number of really pretty flowers.
The first viewpoint allowed us to look straight across to Angel Glacier and down onto Angel Lake.
After taking a break and enjoying the view, we took a few minutes to play in the snow.
We started hiking up to the third viewpoint, but once we realized we were just getting further and further away from the glacier, we decided to turn around and head back to the second viewpoint. As we worked our way back down, we stopped to admire more pretty flowers.
Having satisfied ourselves that we had plenty of photos of Mount Edith Cavell and Angel Glacier, we stopped to admire some of the surrounding peaks.
As we worked our way back down the terminal moraine, we stopped to watch the busy little pika shown in the photo below. Pikas are also known as "whistling hares" due to their high-pitched alarm call when diving into burrows. However, this guy was not alarmed by us at all. Since pikas do not hibernate, they spend time during the summer collecting and storing the food they will eat over the winter. There was no time to waste for this little fella, Winter is Coming!
When we finished our hike, we had to wade through a steady stream of tourists coming up to photograph Angel Glacier. The parking lot was over filled and tourist were parked all the way down the entrance road. Luckily, no one parked us in, so we had a straight shot out of the mess. Glad we got up early! Since we did get such an early start, we still had time for one more adventure.
Five Lakes here we come!
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