This morning our plan was to snap up a first come, first serve camp site at the nearby Wapati Campground. Yesterday the ranger at Whistlers Campground said that arriving at 11 we might get a parking lot site with electric. Since we didn’t have any other options near Jasper we decided to try. We showed up at Wapati at 1030 to see what our chances were. The ranger said he wasn’t sure if the campsites would support a 40’ motorhome. We drove in to check them out and reported back to the ranger that sites 18-26 looked good to us and 18 would be the longest. The ranger put our name down and said we could come back after 11 to claim the site. We did as directed an by 1130 we were setup in our new parking lot site with 30AMP. Later this afternoon two other rigs arrived that were even longer than us so obviously we weren’t the only ones.
Donna had bought steaks a few days ago for my birthday so we decided to cook these on our $20 Walmart gas grill for lunch. The steaks were good and after lunch we headed out for the Maligne Road and lake. This road starts a little East of Jasper and goes about 40 miles South. The drive would have been spectacular but……today there is so much smoke in the air that you can barely see the nearby mountains. The drive goes by Medicine Lake where we let Maverick have a nice swim in the clear waters. The road ends at Maligne Lake where there is a nice lodge where you can take a boat tour, rent canoes and kayaks, and swim. We walked a little ways along the shore and it is a really beautiful lake. On the way back we stopped at a picnic area where the Maligne River runs. We checked out the Skytram attraction and if the visibility had been decent we probably would have taken this tram to the top of the mountain. On a clear day the views would be great and there is a restaurant at the top for a snack. Today the visibility makes taking the Skytram a poor proposition.