Travel : Jasper to Banff, Alberta

Recently, I went on a road trip across some of Canada.  Most of it isn't of huge interest to anyone but my friends and family, and they've seen the pictures.  And if you really want a great in-depth road trip report seeing Canada from away from the everywhere brands, checkout the Retro Roadtrip by Reb Stevenson.

But I did want to recommend two things I did, as things people might want to do one day.  Things that aren't IN Victoria, for sure, but I am, so I'll muse about them.

The first is the Icefields Parkway, which runs through the Rockies from Jasper to Banff. We spent the day driving up to just beyond Jasper, to a small motel cabin at Miette Hot Springs.  This was a full days drive, but worth it.  First the Yellowhead Pass has Mount Robson in the middle of it.  Mount Robson is the highest point in the Canadian Rockies, but also isolated from the rest of the range in such a way that you get a impression of one HUGE chunk of rock, covered in snow, and holding onto it's own clouds around the top.  Gorgeous.

Mount Robson

Miette Hot Springs is a naturally hot spring up, now turned into a simple spa.  The water is cooled to 104 Fahrenheit (about 40 Celsius), making it perfect to relax and float in.  I'm sure there's some minerals and other stuff in their that has some useful effects, but it just felt nice to relax in.  Tip : the pools to one side aren't heated.  That's why no-one is sitting in them.  Brrr.  You can sluice off in the outflow and not pay the small fee to get into the pool (which look like an outdoor lido), but the pool seemed more... civilized.  The resort also has a good cafe for a plate of bacon and pancakes.  Perfect fuel for the 350km drive south.

Jasper seems to be the centre for outdoor pursuits in this area.  I didn't see much of the town, but we did grab some food in the Jasper Brew Pub. I'd not recommend you do the same.  It was average, and the service was sloppy and slow. However, our first Elk siting was here, it was just moseying through the edge of town.  No harm to no-one.

Just outside Jasper is the gates to the park proper.  They'll charge $20 for the car for the day in the National Park, but it's worth it.  You start out following the course of the Athabasca (here flowing North) along a wide valley, slowing climbing up into the Rockies.  The valley narrows, the mountains seem to get taller, and more vertical, and the temperature noticeably drops. Eventually, you'll come to the Columbia Ice Fields, and the Glacier source of the Athabasca river.  Sheets and sheets of ice and snow stretch up the mountain sides.  We were there in May, and missed the snow falls by about 2 hours.

Iced Lakes, Icefields Parkway

As you get over the watershed, you start to drop slowly into the North Sasketchwan river source.  Here the road sweeps down into a valley where at points all you can see is the sheer sides of the mountains ahead.  The scale of the mountains was beyond my experience at this point.  Everything was BIG.  The sheets of snow we could see with huge crevasses.  Every mountain had it's differences.  We crossed the North Sasketchwan, and then cross into the Bow River Valley.  Here the scenery changes, with another wider river valley, litter with lakes, some a milky chalky white, others an intense blue-green.  The changes are from the mineral porridge that is scoured of the mountains.

Waterfowl Lakes

 As the valley widens, the road does as well, and the single lane each way becomes a dual lane highway again.  Less extreme climbs and twists, but the mountains still make up the view either side.  To help the local wildlife, bridges wide enough to have trees and bushes on cross the highway, so animals can wander unharmed by speeding trucks.

Lake Louise

Just north of Banff is the turn off for Lake Louise.  The road climbs back into the mountains (and here we were rewarded with a close up view of a Porcupine) for a mile or two, before we parking us up next to the Fairmont at Lake Louise.  The lake is a glacier lake, fed by three or four glacier fields in the mountains above.  It was still partly iced up, which is the norm for May. My southern BC living doesn't deal with the idea of iced lakes in late May. But the scenery is excellent.

We then dropped into Banff, leaving the bigger peaks behind, but still mountains on all side. Banff reminded me of Whistler's Ski Village, but with less ski bums and more mountaineers and mountain bikers (maybe that was a function of the time of year).  Plus I did get to see a bear and her year old cubs just loitering in the picnic area outside of town. If you do stay in Banff, Irwin's Mountain Lodge was a good standard hotel for a fair price.

We took our time on the drive, but we were heading East relatively quickly, so didn't spend too much time sight seeing.  There was a east a half dozen more places we could have stopped for a look around next to the roadside, or spent a while longer on the ice fields, at an interpretive centre, or walking down to a falls. But a very memorable drive.  I'd take it again.

Website : http://www.icefieldsparkway.ca/