In July we took a "5-day weekend" trip to Alberta to visit our friends Janice and Peter and to meet their pandemic-baby Ollie. We kicked-off the vacation with a couple day road trip through Banff and Jasper National Parks. These parks are globally known for their amazing rocky mountain scenery, glacial lakes and wildlife. After visiting the parks with just Janice, we planned to head back to Edmonton for a couple days to round out the trip and visit with Peter and Ollie.
Janice picked us up at the Edmonton airport (there is now one direct flight per day between Atlanta and Edmonton) and we trekked southwest towards the mountains. Since they were a few hours away, and we hadn't eaten lunch, we stopped by Blindman's Brewing in Lacombe for some tacos and beer. The tacos and beer were both pretty good. The real fun was the "family sized order of chips and salsa" which was essentially the staff handing us an unopened bag of grocery store tortilla chips and the wateriest salsa you can imagine... well, we're not in Mexico so you get what you get.
After lunch we briefly stopped by the world's largest fishing lure (also in Lacombe) before setting back off towards the mountains, driving past beautiful yellow fields of rapeseed (used to make canola oil).
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| Every great vacation begins with a "flight." |
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| I think we were the ones that got away. |
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| We drove past many huge fields of brilliantly yellow rapeseed. |
After passing through a couple more small towns, and stopping for the obligatory Tim Horton's coffee and Timbits, we arrived at our first (but definitely not last) waterfall of the trip: Crescent Falls. This two tier waterfall had a short trail through the woods connecting it to the parking lot. They recently added new infrastructure that let you walk down towards the bottom of the lower falls. Overall a really nice location to stop for a stroll.
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| Crescent Falls just outside Banff National Park |
We continued west, entering Banff National Park, with a brief stop for views at Abraham Lake. Our hotel, The Crossing Resort, was not too far down the road. It was a pretty basic vacation motel, with rooms surrounding a building with a restaurant and store. The best part was the amazing mountain views, the worst part was the room was very hot since it was a heat wave and there's no AC. After a very short hike to check out some views in the area, we had a simple dinner outside the pub and went to bed.
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| Great views of Abraham Lake. |
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| Pretty sweet view from our hotel room! |
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| David crossing a narrow bridge on a short hike near our hotel. Watch out for mosquitos! |
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| A beer at dinner at our motel. |
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| View from dinner. Not bad at all! |
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| Just hanging out with the elk statue. |
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| Sunset from our motel. |
The next day, we woke up relatively early to head down to Lake Louise, perhaps the most well-known site in Banff national park. We thought we might beat the crowds, but that was not the case. The parking lot (which is a paid lot) was already full, with cars circling to park. We drove back toward a shuttle bus stop, but the shuttle spots were all reserved for the day. We tried the parking lot one more time, and luckily found a spot. This area is very popular and I'm not sure how they'll manage the crowds in the future, even having a shuttle system and paid parking (more than $20 to park) didn't deter the crowds. And yes, we realize we were part of the problem. 🙃 We had a fairly quick stop here. Lake Louise is known for the Fairmont Chateau, a huge and very expensive hotel on one side of the lake. We enjoyed the views, but thought several of the other lakes we'd see on this trip were more impressive.
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| Great views driving south in the morning. |
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| A nice morning view of Bow Lake on our way to Lake Louise. |
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| A wildlife crossing bridge. |
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| Crowds at Lake Louise. |
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| The main view of Lake Louise. |
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| Janice and Paul at Lake Louise. |
Leaving Lake Louise, we made a quick detour to the west. It's only a 14 minute drive from Lake Louise to the lower spiral tunnels viewpoint, which is in Yoho National Park in British Columbia. The viewpoint itself is nothing special, this was more a stop for David to briefly visit a new province and for us to technically visit another national park. From there we drove back up to Bow Lake, and stopped to walk around and take in the views. We saw a bunch of tadpoles in a little pond, and sat for a bit for a drink at the small café next to the lake.
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| Info about the huge spiral train tunnel in Yoho National Park. |
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| View of the crow's foot glacier. |
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| The clear waters of Bow Lake. |
Our next stop was the Peyto Lake viewpoint. This was the most impressive view of the entire trip. Peyto Lake was brilliantly turquoise in the sunlight, and is ringed with forested mountains with glaciers and waterfalls. From the viewpoint the lake is shaped like a wolf. Make sure Peyto Lake is on your itinerary if you visit Banff.
Continuing north, we drove through the "Big Bend" area, where the road makes a huge switchback up to a higher elevation. Here was the first time we saw evidence of nearby fires. The whole Big Bend area was quite smoky. This wouldn't be the last smoke we encountered - more on that later.
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| Peyto Lake is breathtaking. |
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| See, proof we were there. |
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| The glacier that feeds Peyto Lake. |
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| Smoky view of a waterfall from Big Bend. |
We next drove north, passing into Jasper National Park, our third national park of the trip. Our first stop was the popular Columbia ice field. This is a big viewpoint and visitor center with views of the Athabasca Glacier. There's a huge parking lot and it was quite crowded, as this is the main visitor site in Jasper. We had a late lunch in the restaurant, and then headed across the street to the glacier trail. This trail is quite unique, as it goes across glacial till and rocks, with signs indicating how the glacier has retreated over the last 160 years. It was pretty chilly here with the cool air coming down from the glacier - the coldest weather on the trip. The valley was also smoky, from the same fires that made the Big Bend area smoky. We hiked up the trail to get views, and Paul continued onto the glacier itself (on a somewhat suspect trail) while David and Janice explored the lake at the base of the glacier.
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| View from the visitor's center. |
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| The glacier extended all the way back to the current visitor center location in 1844. |
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| Paul's birth year glacier extent. |
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| The trail was really cool, with no plants. |
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| Scraping on the rocks from glaciers. Looney for scale. |
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| Getting close to the glacier. you can see the people on it. |
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| This little ladder is the way to get onto the glacier. Yikes! |
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| Paul on a glacier! |
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| It was really cool experience walking on the glacier. |
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| Paul coming back down the very unstable path to the glacier. |
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| Hi from the base of the glacier! |
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| David and Janice walking on the trail. |
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| Jumping across the water! |
Continuing our drive north towards the town of Jasper (and on to our hotel for the evening), the next few stops were to look at waterfalls. First was Sunwapta Falls. Here the Sunwapta River plows through rock then broadens out before running into the Athabasca River. The second falls, the Athabasca Falls, narrows to only a couple meters and carves out a canyon with fast flowing water before broadening again to a wide valley river. Both are very impressive and you can see how hard erosion is at work! Both are very close to the main road and worth a quick stop. Athabasca Falls is the more interesting one, as it also has a narrow canyon you can follow down to the river, and a viewing deck that is right in the spray if you don't mind getting wet.
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| Sunwapta Falls. |
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| Closer view. The water is running very fast. |
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| Hi! |
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| The view downstream, where the river spreads back out with the mountains in the background. |
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| Athabasca Falls - you can see how wide the river is flowing into this waterfall. |
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| Steps leading through an old channel of the river carved by flowing water. |
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| Paul for scale. |
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| David is getting wet...not a fan. |
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| So much water. |
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| Remember that wide river? It gets funneled into this liiiiiiitle waterfall before broadening out again on the other side. So much pressure! So much erosion! Geology rocks 😅 |
Continuing on towards the town of Jasper, we stopped along the side of the road to see some elk crossing the street. We've seen a lot of elk in Colorado, but they're always a beautiful sight, especially when they have the big antlers.
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| Hello, Mr. Elk! |
Next we passed through the town of Jasper, stopping at a grocery store to get some food to take to our hotel. Unfortunately, just a few days later a wildfire would move in that closed the entire national park and burned down about 30% of the town of Jasper. It's a stark reminder of the power of wildfires, and also the impacts of droughts partially driven by climate change.
Leaving the town, as we drove near a cliff we saw a group of mountain goats. We pulled over and they came very close to our car. It was cool to see them climbing on the steep rocks, including the little kids who were very camouflaged with their white and gray coats. After watching the goats for a bit, we continued on to our hotel. We had a nice room that was more like a suite with a bedroom, but again it was very hot due to temperatures in the 90s and no AC. Running some fans in the windows cooled things down once it was dark.
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| The town of Jasper. |
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| A goat family! |
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| This one came very close to our car. |
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| Little baby goats on the cliff. |
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| Our hotel. |
The next day was our final day in the national park. We started with a quick stop at Punchbowl falls, because it was only about a mile from our hotel. There's not really a good viewpoint, but it was fine for a quick stop in the morning, and it was nice because there was nobody else there.
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| Punchbowl Falls |
We continued on to the Maligne Valley, and did a hike alongside the canyon and across a few bridges. This area has some nice views into a narrow canyon, and despite some elevation change is a pretty easy hike because the trail is paved. Definitely worth a stop.
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| View of the canyon walls. |
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| The river going through the canyon. |
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| Some balancing rocks in a narrow part of the canyon. |
On the drive to the next stop we saw a grizzly bear in the woods next to the road. It was gone after a few moments, but that wouldn't be the end of it... more on that later! We continued to Medicine Lake, and enjoyed the scenic views. We saw a few critters here, including some marmots (one of which was screaming) and a bald eagle next. After leaving, back to the grizzly bear - we saw one, likely the one we had seen earlier, walking alongside the road and crossing a river. We had some great views as it was relatively close to the car. Really amazing to see such a magnificent animal up close, from the relative safety of a car.
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| There's a grizzly bear! |
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| View of the lake. |
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| The water was very clear. |
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| A marmot. They were very well camouflaged. |
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| We saw the bear again, this time a bit closer. |
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| Grizzly crossing the river. |
We made a brief stop at a cold sulphur spring, which was essentially a small stream emerging from rocks where it picked up a lot of sulphur, and thus smelled like eggs. We then made a stop at Lake Jasper, where we waded far into the cold shallow water. This was pretty fun and should be on your list when you visit the park. Finally we stopped at "Jasper House" only to find that the house (an old trading post) is long gone, but it was still a nice little hike.
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| The sulphur-tinged waters coming out of the rock. |
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| David and Janice in Lake Jasper. |
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| It stays shallow for a very long distance - you can wade very far into the lake. |
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| Hanging out in Lake Jasper. |
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| Short hike to Jasper "House" |
That wrapped up our time in the national parks. On the way back to Edmonton we stopped at Folding Mountain Brewing for lunch. As we got closer to Edmonton there was a lot of wildfire smoke, causing really bad air quality. We had a low key evening, getting some pizza for dinner and hanging out with Janice and Peter.
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| Lunch time. |
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| Paul with a drink for hydration, energy, and fun. |
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| Pizza for dinner! |
In our next post, we'll spend a day... plus a surprise bonus day... in Edmonton.
