MacsTravel Blog

Wow.

Banff and Jasper National Parks are linked by the incredible Icefields Parkway, which runs for over 230km through the parks from Lake Louise. It is an absolutely spectacular drive, with lots of spots to pull over and explore, ranging from roadside lookouts to multi-hour hikes.

We were heading to Jasper for three nights of camping and Glenn and Jo had offered to accompany us to about the halfway point of the drive so they could show us some must-see spots, and take us on one of their favourite hikes on the parkway, the Parker Ridge hike. We were also joined in our car by an App Robin had discovered and downloaded called Guidealong. It is linked to your phone’s GPS and doesn’t require cell service to operate. It was excellent: highly recommended.

It becomes obvious very quickly why this is the “Icefields” Parkway. All along the route you see glaciers hanging into the valleys, and catch glimpses of the Icefields that cover huge areas of the mountain ranges. After a quick stop to look at Crowfoot Glacier, we stopped to take the short (and extremely popular) trek in to look at Peyto Lake, with its iconic wolf-head shaped bay and glacial blue waters.

Banff and Jasper are both incredibly popular places to visit. Banff, which has a little more than 9000 permanent residents has around 4.5 million tourists every year, Jasper, with roughly 4000 residents gets about 2.5 million visitors. More than two thirds of these visitors come from outside Canada. We had been to Banff in December 2022 so we gave the town a pass on this trip, deciding to focus our attention on Jasper.

The next stop on our drive was the Parker Ridge hike. This starts with a relatively steep climb up the ridge before spilling out above the tree line into the Alpine, and making a short descent to an a breathtaking view of the Saskatchewan glacier. While there were other visitors on the hike there was no sense of the large crowds we saw at Peyto.

These are the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan River, which descends through Alberta and Saskatchewan, joining with the Saskatchewan River, and making its way through the Prairies to Lake Winnipeg, eventually reaching Hudson’s Bay. I found visiting the birth places of iconic and critically important rivers like the Athabasca (which ends up in the Arctic Ocean) and Saskatchewan to be almost a spiritual experience.

After a picnic overlooking the glacier (thanks Jo!) we took a side hike further up the ridge, and were rewarded with more spectacular scenery. All told we spent about 2 1/2 hours on this detour.

At this point, Glenn, Jo and Leo headed back to Canmore. We are looking forward to seeing them (minus Leo) at Queen’s in October at the 35th anniversary of our graduation. Must remember to bring Glenn his 39 year old jacket. But that’s another story.

We struck off for the Icefield Centre and a quick visit to see the dramatically retreating Athabasca Glacier and the Columbia Icefield. The site was crowded as might be expected. We walked the long glacial trail with signs indicating where the glacier had reached at various points over the last 50-100 years. I think we had the same feeling of loss that we felt looking at receding glaciers on the South Island of New Zealand last March. The Columbia Icefield is massive at over 300 square kilometres and hundreds of metres deep in places. The 30+ degree temperatures we had all week in Jasper certainly spoke to the critically tenuous nature of its survival.

After another hour and a half we arrived at Wabaso campground, about 20 minutes onside the town of Jasper, and put up our tent. The campsite was nestled alongside the sage green Athabasca river, and we certainly enjoyed having access to the riverside trails which ran alongside it.

The next morning was coffee, river walking, more coffee, and a visit to Athabasca Falls, about 20 minutes upstream from our site. Situated close to the parkway this stop was very crowded. The falls and the deep and narrow canyons carved by the water were breathtaking.

Robin had booked a Jasper “Foodie Tour” as a way of getting to know the town. We’ve done this in other cities and find it a great way to meet some other travellers, get some local knowledge and find out a bit more about the local food scene. Hillary from Jasper Food Tours was a friendly and knowledgeable guide and we met a number of interesting folks, including a serial traveller from Luxembourg who had arrived in Jasper on the famous Rocky Mountaineer train from Vancouver, and a French-American couple in their 70s from Massachusetts who had been living in an RV for six months and were meandering home from Alaska.

All told, four restaurants, four drinks and four small plates.

After walking off the food tour for a couple of hours we got in the car and headed off to explore the hour long drive down to Maligne Canyon, Medicine Lake, and Maligne Lake, an apparent “hot spot” for wildlife. The road was very quiet as were the stops and short walks at each location. Jasper is “North”, and so sunset didn’t really get underway until 9:30, giving us lots of time to explore and to keep our eyes peeled for animals. We did spot a number of male and female elk, and were part of a “bear-jam” on highway 16 enroute back to our campsite.

Maligne Caynon was a quick stop but really worth it. The Maligne river has carved deep and spectacular crevices through this region and there are a number of impressive views from the bridges that cross the canyon.

Medicine Lake was very impressive. It is what’s known as a “disappearing lake”: spring runoff fills it up but in the fall and winter it drains into an underground river system and completely dries up! You can also see the devastating effects of the 2015 wildfire here.

Maligne Lake is another beauty, particularly as the sun begins to drop in the evening.

Back at the campsite, the sunset was just finishing around 10:30 pm.

The next day we woke up ready to take on the Whistlers Summit hike. We cheated a bit and shaved 6 hours off the hike by riding the gondola up to the ridge where a 2km hike to the summit waited. There were a lot of people taking the gondola up, many of them very unprepared for the conditions and the challenge of hiking at altitude. To complicate matters, wildfire smoke from BC was blanketing the valley and probably contributed to the shortness of breath we felt frequently on this hike. We avoided the main trail and took a number of marked side trails which increased the hiking distance significantly but also improved the views and got us away from the crowds.

Even with the decreased visibility the views were terrific. Robin played around with some of the black and white and sepia settings on her phone: the effects were really cool!

We stopped for lunch near the summit and then headed off along a long ridge walk which connected to their trail systems spotting some ground squirrel and marmots as we walked. As we had so many other times during our time in Jasper, we made note of trails we would explore on our next visit.

We spent some time later afternoon in Jasper exploring the town and having a bite to eat at the Jasper Brewing Company.

Jasper was pleasantly busy, not slammed in the way that Banff is. We loved it, and we will certainly be back.

Tomorrow we head back down the Icefields Parkway, stop in Lake Louise to visit Morraine Lake, before heading off to Golden BC for two nights in a B&B.