Lake Louise, Banff and the Icefield Hwy to Jasper [aka The Canadian Rockies 🏔] – Part 2

Driving along highway 🇨🇦 93 to the Columbia Icefields was incredible. We have the most perfect weather and I took so many photos! It truly is the most amazing place. At every turn in the road there is another amazing view, incredible lake or glacier.

The visitor centre is a huge place, with hundreds of people booking/checking in to go on glacier tours overland, by air, on the ice-truck or on the skywalk. We just had our lunch, took in the amazing vistas and left them all to it. So many people come on days trips up here – I am so glad we are doing this at our own place.

The next place we stopped (just 7km along the road!) was Tangle Creek Falls. This photo doesn’t do them any justice!! They were spectacular and extra pretty with the snow. We didn’t scramble up the rocky-face, as I had already fallen over once and wasn’t going to risk twice! We had been recommended to get crampons (but we thought we wouldn’t need them!). They must be just amazing when ‘the melt’ starts. Colin of course wants to look for gold in every river we stop at and this one was no different 😂

Sunwapta Falls is next on our ‘must stop at’ list and they didn’t disappoint. Such a calm looking river at the end of summer and then after a short walk you come across these amazing falls that are wild and force themselves through a rocky gorge. There was a lot of ice here on the ground, and there were a few lunatics who climbed over the fence for a better photo 😲. There was no room for error doing this, one wrong step and it’s ‘final curtain’ for you!! Absolute madness!!

About 20 minutes along the road we came across Athabasca Falls. People have died here! The are so gorgeous and flow into the river so calmly after their perilously journey through the limestone rocks. We watched this one for quite a while, as it had no ground ice so we were quite comfortable walking around.

It was getting late in the afternoon when we were here, and it says that the water flow is less at the end of the day, and of course we are at the end of ‘the melt’ season. Again there were mad people who risked their lives to takes pictures where fences were, to stand on canter-levered pieces of rock [that could fall at any minute!!!]. I mean I am all about a great photo, but I want to be able to share it with you, so rest assured that I will not be taking any risks – I want to be sure to finish this trip!!

So six hours after we started we made it to Jasper. We stayed in this olde-world style accommodation that was from last century – literally! It was clean and comfortable, but it can only be said it was a style all of its own! [It wasn’t bad, but just so old school – I mean, they had patchy internet]. We had dinner in the pub downstairs and walked along the road to take some photos of the sun setting – it was just so beautiful.

The snowy mountains soaked up the sun and just shone in the cloudy sky. I loved that the train slowly rumbled through. The absolute beauty of the sky shining on these huge mountains was just so incredible and as the sun slipped from the sky we were just amazed at the colours nature threw at us. 💖

The next morning we decided that as the weather was so extraordinary, we would do the Five Lakes Hike before heading on over to Edmonton. This was the most gob-smacking beautiful hike, and the lakes were just incredible. Every one had it’s own specialness, and I just loved being here. I will let the next few photos ‘do the talking’ …………

So as you can see they were just fantastic. It was quite warm and the crisp clear skies gave us beautiful mountains, the clear waters gave us amazing reflections. Every lake was gorgeous. We didn’t see any bears, which was just fine by me as we didn’t have any bear spray. We did see squirrels and chipmunks all busily gathering their nuts for winter 🐿

So that is us in The Rockies – they were incredible. We have a few days in Edmonton, so will be back in touch soon xox