Hinton, Alberta, CanadaHinton
No to the Piere Grey’s Lake PP for us
We are heading further south and
surrounded by forest and fall-colored shrubs the air is not totally clear and
the mountains are only visible in the outlines. Then we arrive at the Pierre
Gray Lake PP:
- born in 1846 he was a metis fur trader. His trading posts are at the lakes which are today named after him. He and his wife died in the Flu epidemic in 1918
we were looking forward to this PP as
it sounded great with electric hookups and five lakes, reality is that first of
all it was booked out and all the sites were in the forest and not private at
all. There is a day use area which we decided was a joke, besides us being the
only car there it is a super tiny spot with a dock, no view, you can’t swim in
the lake – and the other spot near the boat ramp was also not that great – I
guess we are not into walking in the forest and fishing so this is clearly not
a park for us. And so we are back on the road again – and we are so glad that
we don’t pre-book!!!
Smoke over the lake at William Switzer
PP
As we continue south it looks like
smoke is in the air and then we come to the William A Switzer PP – ok this is
clearly not a PP designed by us: we drove nearly 5 km of gravel road through
the park until we came to the day use area – no it was not a direct road and
not one of the campsites is on the lake!!!!! I mean really who designs the
parks here. At least here the day use is a bit bigger but the parking lot is
not very big (especially when you think that the campers themselves come by car
to the day use). We are on Gregg Lake and you can see the smoke in the air, we
got the perfect parking spot, so Mandy can look out and enjoy too – except when
it got so hot she stayed inside and was lying on the floor like everything else
is too much work.
Gine went out with the paddleboard
enjoying the sunshine and checking out some islands in the smoky scenery and
Paul was enjoying people watching and sitting in the sun.
We also decided it is way to hot for a
hike and do exploring – what we need when it is 30 C is relax time at the lake
More smoke in Hinton
- We are here in the Gateway to the Rockies: you are only 15 Min from the NP
We decided that we will stay tonight
in Hinton and then tomorrow venture towards Jasper. The closer we came to
Hinton the worse it got with the smoke – we could actually smell it in the air.
Once we were on Walmart Parking lot we decided we will stay here, and then we
also have some internet access. Perfect. As we parked here, we had some ashes
coming down on the truck and the sun was really getting weirdly red…
Wildfire near Jasper:
Creepy red sun on Walmart’s parking lot
tonight – after “sleeping in” we decided to charge our laptops in the Visitor
center and also have there breakfast – as our converter doesn’t want to charge
them. There we also heard that the smoke is better today, and that one
campground and the RV overflow in Jasper is closed because of the fire. Yes the
fire is 16 km north of Jasper and it brought last night the smoke to Hinton.
Some last minute shopping and then we
are ready to head out in the sunshine towards Jasper
2025-05-22