Photo Essay: Jasper and Talbot Lakes

You know when you visit a place for the first time and it just makes your heart sing? 

Driving north along the Yellowhead Highway in Jasper National Park, I found one of those places; Jasper and Talbot Lakes. This was one of those great surprise destinations, simply stumbled upon along the way to something else.

Our original plans had us setting out on an adventure into the north portion of the park to look for the sand dunes. As we got closer, we spotted two things that piqued our interest even more; a climbable hill looking out over the entire area and what looked like about a dozen or so people walking on water. It turns out that Jasper Lake is really the Athabasca River, just extra wide and acting as a filter for all the sediment flowing through it. This causes the very shallow sandbars we saw people walking on.

Wading through the waters of Jasper Lake was so relaxing, even with the cold temperatures (it is glacial water after all) it was wonderful to walk on that soft sand with the clear water swirling around my ankles. Making our way up the sand dunes to the hill overlooking the area was a fun mini-adventure of route finding. At the top, the reward includes 360 degree views of the surrounding peaks and lakes.