Jasper Tramway

Jasper, taken from Whistlers Mountain

So today was the coldest day so far. I think it’s 4 degrees outside right now, but it was colder at 10am when we walked down to the bus station. We wanted to go on the Tramway before it closes next week. It is just a short ride to the base of the tramway, and we got on straight away. It was pretty cloudy but it did clear up a little bit once we reached the summit of Whistlers Mountain (not Whistler which is in BC). The guide sounded like a character out of Napoleon Dynamite so I don’t remember much of what she said. At the top there is a restaurant and you can walk all the way around and even go along a trial that would take you right to the summit. We just walked around and took some photos. There was plenty of snow up there too, and I couldn’t believe how light and soft it was… it was lighter than flour. I think they call that kind of snow ‘powder’ up here. And even little chunks of it felt like Styrofoam. I had lots of fun sliding around in it cos it was so soft. It started to snow up there too, which was exciting except before too long we got snowed in, and we had to wait around half an hour before we could go back down.


When we did finally start our descent, the tram suddenly stopped about a quarter of the way down and bounced for a bit. It’s scary as it is normally, then to have the thing stop abruptly on you… the guide didn’t help things either by saying “That’s no supposed to happen”. The other people were making jokes about it saying “You’ve gotta go somehow” and “Do we get a discount? Maybe it’s more expensive for this one, it’s the special adventure fare” and “We’ll have to offload someone.” Meanwhile, Beth and I were huddled in the corner, crapping our pants… It started back up again, and then… It happened again! Only with even more bounce and more abruptly! We finally made it to the bottom and found out that it does sometimes stop when it’s snowing or raining heavily. But that doesn’t change how we feel about the Jasper Tramway… We will never go on it again.