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Further up the Maligne Valley is Medicine Lake. It looks like a normal lake in the spring and summer when it is full from the winter snow melt, but in the fall the lake drains. Here is the information from the Jasper website.
The Maligne River pours into the lake from the south and
drains out through sinkholes in the bottom. The water then streams through a
cave system formed in the slightly soluble limestone rock, surfacing again in
the area of Maligne Canyon 16 kilometers downstream. This is one of the largest
known sinking rivers in the Western Hemisphere and may be the largest
inaccessible cave system anywhere in the world! Summer melt water coming
into the lake exceeds the capacity of the sinkholes to drain it. Decreased
melt water in the late summer and fall means that the lake's sinkholes can drain
the lake faster then the Maligne River can fill it. This creates the
disappearing lake phenomena. Aboriginal peoples called the lake Medicine because
of its seemingly magical powers.
At the end of the road in the Maligne Valley is Lake Maligne. It is the largest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies. One of the most popular pictures in the Canadian Rockies is the image of Spirit Island in the middle of Maligne Lake out of view from our overlook.
Our next stop was at Mt. Edith Cavell and Glaciers. Mt. Edith Cavell is named after a British nurse executed during World War I for her part in helping Allied prisoners escape occupied Brussels.
On part of the mountain and below the peak is Angel Glacier. It has a large flat section with a big shear wall that is slowly breaking and melting into a lake.
This is the main part of angel glacier, it got its name since the glacier looks like it has a main body and then 2 large wings. The body part is at a pretty great angle on the face of the cliff, makes you wonder how it holds on.
Here we are at the lake formed by the melting glacier. The wall of the glaciers is probably 250 yards away and 50-60 feet tall.
Of course I could not be happy with just looking at the glacier from a distance, so I had to hike up and get under the overhang part of it. A few months after this, I heard on the news that some tourist were trapped and injured when they did the same thing at another glacier somewhere else and it collapsed.
Here you can see how sheer the Angel Glacier is hanging onto the cliff. I am standing normally just down the hill from Lori, it is that steep.
The scene from the glacier valley is very pretty with another aqua blue lake below call Cavell Lake.
This is Cavell Lake from the above image through the trees, the water colors are gorgeous especially in contrast with the trees.
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