Erin & Caelan’s Awesome Day Off: Part 3
We were headed home after our short trips to Maligne Lake and Hinton. Initially we planned on just going back home in the evening, but with a couple hours left of sunlight, we decided to take full advantage of our rental car and keep on adventuring.
We headed back down Maligne Lake Road and made a couple of stops we hadn’t had time for that morning. As soon as we started down the road, we were so glad we hadn’t just gone home, because sitting in a meadow right beside the road there was a grizzly bear and two cubs! 
Mama grizz digging in the dirt:
Grizzly mama, looking a bit scary. You can really see the hump of muscle between the shoulders that distinguishes a grizzly from a black bear. This photo was taken by Erin:
The cubs:
This photo was also taken by Erin:
After a while, the grizzlies eventually wandered further away:
Wait for me!
A little further down the road, we stopped off at Maligne Canyon. I’d been here before, but during the daytime, when it’s full of crowds. It was a totally different experience at night: the parking lot had just two other cars when we arrived, both of which parties we passed leaving on our way in. We had the canyon to ourselves!
Maligne Canyon looked beautiful at dusk. With all of the tourists busy having supper, we really enjoyed sightseeing at sunset.
Bridge over the canyon:
Water flowing through the canyon: 
The forest above the canyon. 
About a kilometer from the canyon, we stopped off at an overlook point. Again, this is a place I’ve been during the day, and it’s usually packed with busloads of tourists. And yet again, we had the entire place to ourselves.
Views from the overlook. Pyramid Mountain:
Those lights we see are the town of Jasper, tucked in between the mountains:
Finally, out of sunlight and energy, we headed back to town. We returned our beautiful rental car and said a sad goodbye. It served us well on our day of freedom, lakes, mountains, spontaneity, canyons, bears, and adventure.
THE WANDERING YEARS 