An adventure filled day at Jasper

A 5K run in Jasper kick-started my day. After an egg and bread toast, fruits breakfast in our kitchenette it was a later start to our day. We rented mountain bikes 🚴 from the bike shop in town and set off on what seemed like an introductory session to mountain biking with the bumpy, rocky and often steep but stunning bike trails meandering through the meadows, along the Athabasca river surrounded by the towering peaks above. A well-deserved refreshing lunch at Freshii with burritos, Mediterranean bowls and smoothie was squeezed in between the biking and the river rafting adventure that followed. The 1 km walk through town to get to the Jasper Rafting Adventures gave us a nice sneak peak into this town that seemed to be growing on us. The half hour bus 🚌 ride to the rafting place was the perfect napping opportunity. After safety instructions and changing into the wet suit, boots, life jackets we were all geared up to get on our raft with our guide from the small town of PEI, Joe. Every big rapid that we rode brought flashbacks of my epic scary fall from the raft in Costa Rica, the saving grace for my PTSD was this was a level-2 river rafting and Reeva had made sure none of us forgot that by repeating the “level-2” term! Despite this being the first summer, Joe had been on this job while on break in his University where he was studying Climate Science, he was very knowledgeable and passionate about the mountains, the wilderness and rafting. His natural easy going approach combined with the beautiful rafting on the Athabasca river gazing at the mountains around us ensured all 8 of us had a great time. The really cool and fun fact was that it takes 16-18 hours for the water to come down to the river from its source, the Athabasca glacier- exactly the amount of time that had lapsed since we were there! So basically we were on the same piece of water in its 2 different states of matter in its life cycle! Back in town, Pari, Kahan and Kairav enjoyed their private dinner at the vegetarian friendly Kimchi restaurant which they kept raving about after. And the remaining 5 of us had an okay Indian dinner at the Haldi restaurant where we got a chance to chat with Miteshbhai Shah and family from Chicago. We wandered around in town enjoying icecream from Wafflato and checking out the souvenir shops. Parishi had insisted we all check out the steam room and the jacuzzi back at the hotel and so that’s how we wrapped up an adventurous day in Jasper National Park.