One day on the Icefields Parkway – The Canadian Rockies
October 18, 2022
One day on the Icefields Parkway takes us from Canmore to Jasper. It’s our last full day in The Canadian Rockies before we start our 2-day Road Trip back to Vancouver.
The Icefields Parkway is a 144 mile long road that starts just north of Lake Louise and takes you into Jasper National Park. It takes about 3 hours to drive, but what would be the fun in driving straight there? In true “stopaholic” style, we planned many stops en-route. We started early and we didn’t arrive in Jasper until after 6pm…an all day experience. And one definitely not to be missed.
Crowfoot Glacier Viewpoint
A mere pull-over for the view and the first sighting of a glacier on the Icefields parkway.
Bow Lake
There’s a lovely short walk to the lake edge where the scenery of the mountains, lake and glacier are fantastic. There’s also an amazing little coffee shop and gift shop serving great coffee, great tea (bonus, we’re tea lovers) and some very tempting pastries. Hello hot sausage rolls and fresh pretzels.
Peyto Lake
A 15 minute walk to the viewing platform. Wow! What a view. While we were there it was absolutely pouring down so imagine the view on a clear day…
Mistaya Canyon
Another short walk of 10 minutes and we arrived at a bridge overlooking the canyon. This was one of my personal favourites. Water gushing through the carved out rocks at such a force it made you feel dizzy if you stood too close. Brilliant.
The big bend and Panther Falls
This is just a pull-off from the road. The view looks back on “The big Bend”, exactly as it says on the label, a huge sweeping bend in the road that takes a full 180. It’s Fascinating to look back and see the valley just driven. In the other direction the Panther Falls.
Columbia Icefield - Athabasca Glacier
This is one of the highlights of driving the Icefields Parkway and was definitely a must-visit for us. Our friends and travel companions, Jules and Gary came here for their honeymoon 25 years ago and were very interested to see how far the glacier had receded since their last visit. It really highlights the effects of global warming to see the markers showing where the glacier used to be…and not that long ago.
There are a few additions since their first visit 25 years ago. You can now take a bus onto the glacier and walk on it (it slightly ruins the view to see a bus on the glacier in my opinion) and with that ticket comes a walk on the glass floored skywalk. The Skywalk, although not for those with a fear of heights, definitely appeals. Book ahead, they come as a package. Again we did not, must research more.
For us, just walking to and seeing the glacier was amazing and slightly chilly, more layers, a hat and gloves would have been a good idea…brr.
Sunwapta Falls
This section of the drive along the Icefields parkway was one of my favourites. There are amazing views as always, but one of my favourites were the Endless Chain mountains (above)…the perfect name and worthy of a stop for photos in both directions.
Athabasca Falls
I think the photo says it all. The blast of noise, the intense spray from such a powerful waterfall, amazing. The path takes you to several viewing points of the main event and we also were able to walk down to the lower river in between some perfectly layered rocks.
A perfect finish to our day...the spontaneous stop.
On our final approach to Jasper we noticed a few cars pulled-over at the side of the road. There’s always a good reason for more than one car to be randomly pulled-over. In this case it was the viewing of a spectacular stag elk. Shortly after, more cars and an equally amazing view of another stag with some females in the river. What a lovely way to end our Icefields Parkway day trip.
WOW! spectacular, the colour of Peyto Lake is amazing x
Love the Elk! And the falls are spectacular too