Ro Wells Travel

I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post that I was spending summer at Sunwapta Falls Rocky Mountain Lodge. For those of you who missed that post, or who don’t know where Sunwapta Falls is, it’s in the arse end of nowhere, about 50km south of Jasper, Alberta. And it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever had the pleasure to work. The lodge is right in the middle of Jasper National Park. There are mountains surrounding you on all sides, you can see a glacier from the parking lot and the waterfalls themselves are a 5 minute walk down the road. When I say it’s in the arse end of nowhere, I really mean it. There is no cell service and the Wi-Fi is sketchy at best. I loved it. One of the best bits was that we were surrounded by wildlife. We had a resident black bear (unofficially named Bazza) for the first few months of the season who would casually wander across property every couple of weeks. We had pine martens invade. We had a lost marmot take shelter outside the manager’s room. And we had a moose come and chill in the backyard. We also had a whole host of ravens who made it their personal mission to try and steal something from every tourist who left a bag unattended.

Given that we were in the middle of a national park, there were no shortage of hikes to get our teeth into. I tended to stick to the short and sweet ones but they were no less spectacular for that. Two of my favourites were Panther Falls and Stanley Falls. Panther Falls is a waterfall that really takes your breath away. It’s not the biggest or the most powerful I’ve seen but there’s something about the way it runs over the bluff edge that awed me. Stanley Falls is a series of seven waterfalls, each as beautiful as the next. It’s a beautiful walk through the forest the whole way and is understated in its beauty. The staff manager at the lodge was brilliant in getting us out and about on various excursions. (As without your own vehicle, you literally couldn’t leave property.) To name but a few, we went on a river safari where we saw a bear. We went white water rafting (SO MUCH FUN). We hiked the Athabasca Glacier. Yes, an actual glacier, and definitely one of the highlights of my time at Sunwapta. We went to the Miette Hot Springs. And we had barbecues at beautiful locations.

I’ve said time and time again that it is the people that make a place special and working at Sunwapta is the perfect example of that. (There were also two resident dogs who, if you know me, made the whole experience infinitely better.) If you went there looking to spend all your time on social media, watching [insert streaming platform of your choice] or wanting to constantly be in touch with friends and family then you would hate it. Instead, it forces you to be present where you are. It made me get back into reading – something I’ve been trying to do for years. It gave me the opportunity to play a ridiculous amount of card games (I never knew how intense Uno could get) and to learn new ones. I got to sit by the river and have a fire with a few drinks and good friends. But none of that would be possible without the people there. One of my best friends that I made there put it like this: “You know in most companies there’s that one personality hire? Well here everyone is a personality hire.” And she nailed it. We were all outgoing, sociable people who wanted to make the most of our time there, and who wanted to spend that time with each other. I got to work with a brilliant bunch of people and made some incredible friends there who I know I will be friends with for the rest of my life. (Suckers! You’re stuck with me now!)