Thursday morning we were up early to pack, check out and grab a coffee before hitting the road to Banff along the Icelands Parkway. It was a beautiful morning and the smoke haze had finally cleared.
The drive is about 350km, north to south through the middle of the Rockies. It’s rated amongst the best scenic drives in the world so we were very excited. Maybe a little too excited because about 15 min in we remembered that we hadn’t filled up with fuel. We had no idea if there were and fuel stations along the road so back to Jasper we went to fill up.
Once back on the road Bel set up an app she bought that was a mobile tour guide for the drive. It uses your GPS location to trigger commentary and tell you locations to stop. Very useful.
First stop was a lookout. Beautiful views of the Athabasca Pass and surrounding ranges.
Next we stopped at Athabasca Falls. Very pretty. You were able to get really close to the falls from a number of vantage points and get a real sense of the power of the waterfall. We walked around the various paths down to the lake below for about half an hour before hitting the road again.
Back on the road the scenery was constant and beautiful. Tall mountain ranges, rivers and lakes. There were many stopping points along the way so we had to be selective. Our next stop was a lookout where we could possibly see mountain goats. Very pretty but no goats.
Next was Sunwapta falls. Pretty but not as good as Athabasca.
At about 150km along we were apporoaching Tangle Falls and we came across a car that had caught fire. A big rig with a caravan still attached. So sad for the owners. It looked like he had jackknifed, but not sure how that started the fire.
Not far from the falls we reached the Columbia Ice Fields, the main attraction on the route. The icefield centre was packed but we were able to squeeze passed all the RVs and get a parking spot. We walked up and booked out tours and then enjoyed the view while we waited.
You could see buses out on the glacier which was where we were heading first. We were buses out on normal buses at first and the changed over to special purpose buses at the base of the glacier – apparently costing $1m each. Large wheels and very very low range.
We were then driven on to Athabasca glacier. Once out on the glacier we were allowed to walk in a marked area to ensure we didn’t fall in any crevasses. There were small streams running down its face so we were able to bottle some glacier water to drink. It supposed to make you look years younger, better get a couple.
It was an great experience seeing the glacier close up. While there it was quite cold a the wind came up. By the time we got back to the road a storm had hit. It had gone from sunny to storm in 5 min without any visible warning. We were heading to the second part of our tour, the skywalk over the canyon but had to be turned back due to lightning being in the area. They said that we could wait out the storm and go later, we were unsure what to do until we got back to the centre – a fire alarm had gone off and it was being evacuated! Decision made – we decided we could give the tickets to Damo, so headed to the car and hit the road.
From the icefield centre we continued along the parkway climbing up to the highest point of the drive. The weather had closed in and it was getting late so we didn’t stop a lot, just at a couple of lookouts.
When we reached Peyto Lake we decided that we would take the risk on the weather and walk up. It is at the highest point on the parkway and supposed to be a spectacular blue on a good day. We walked up the path and the further we went the wetter it got..
The lake was still a very pretty blue but would be amazing on a better day. We decided we would come back from Banff when the weather improved.
20 minutes further up the road and we came to the end of the parkway. We had skipped a couple more lakes due to the weather and knew we could see them later. It had been an amazing drive, such beautiful scenery and an experience we will never forget. Next stop was Banff, we were only 45 minutes away from Damo!