Jasper National Park and Miette Hot Springs

Back on the Yellowhead Highway

Jasper and Miette Hot Springs

We entered the park very shortly after we left Wildhorse Lake.  We opted to go to the first campground in the park, since we had no idea what to expect.  It was called Pocahontas, and the campsites were wooded, and far apart, and secluded.  In fact, we overheard two German women at the part entrance asking either to move or have the next campers put by them They were afraid of bears!  They have these bear traps by the park entrances as a reminder of the danger in the area.

We have subsequently read that these are ineffective, because the bears figure out how to get back to where they came from.

We opted to go to the Miette (MY-ette) Hot Springs to take a look around.  The road out was breathtaking as we began to see the formation of the mountains in this area – sedimentary rocks from an old seabed that have been thrust upward by the meeting of the two tectonic plates.  They are limestone and quite unstable.  I don’t know how most of them are still standing.

The hot springs were first popular to travel to on horseback and or by foot in 1910 and became a popular place for the leisure crowd.  I don’t know how they got there because the road is winding and steep. The Indians first look trappers from the Hudson Bay Company to show them these springs.

We stopped and had our lunch by the Miette River.  It was clear and rippling over rounded rocks.
















We were disappointed in the current hot springs – it looks like a

municipal pool.

What is looked like originally

 However, the walk down to the original pool site was lovely, and we saw the source of the water.  

The structure they had here was huge.  But it was built in an unstable canyon and they could not expand it, plus it was made of crumbly limestone, so they closed this area and piped the water to more usable pools.   The original is a beautiful setting in a canyon.  The new pools sit on an open hill.

Source of the hot springs