When we finally reached the end of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, we were only halfway down the length of BC, so some significant driving south still lay ahead of us.
Shortly after departing Dawson Creek, we passed into Alberta and Mountain Daylight Time, losing another hour. We spent that day and most of the next driving, overnighting in the municipal campground in the town of Grande Cache. The next afternoon, we arrived at Jaspar, Alberta, the main town inside Canada’s Jaspar National Park, beginning an extended visit to the Canadian Rockies.
Back in 1988, after our first son Tory was born, but before Jeannette went back to work at Xerox following maternity leave, the three of us traveled to Seattle for a circle tour up through Washington, British Columbia, Alberta, and Montana. We’d found the Canadian Rockies amazing and had always wanted to return. Thirty-three years later, we were finally doing that.
We camped at Whistler’s Campground in Jaspar National Park, a huge RV campground with over 700 sites, reopened after a year’s closure for modernization. Jaspar is the northern terminus for an amazing road called the Icefields Parkway, so named for the many glaciers clinging to the surrounding mountains when the road was constructed in the 1930s. The road extends more than 150 miles down to its terminus, Lake Louise, in Banff National Park.
The mountains beside the Icefields Parkway are stunning. Long ago, sedimentary rock formed beneath an inland sea. When the mountains began rising about 100 million years ago, it appears the sedimentary slabs broke apart and tilted up to striking angles. It looks like you could slide straight down the sides for thousands of feet.
Up close, the layers of the sedimentary rock are quite visible, and some are amazingly thin.
On our first full day in the park, we traveled down the Icefields Parkway for about an hour, visiting two beautiful waterfall areas: Athabasca Falls and Sunwapta Falls.
The Athabasca River flows down the same valley as the Icefields Parkway, and Athabasca Falls has significant waterflow, even at the end of summer. There are several cascades through narrow canyons before the flow widens to river size again.
Sunwapta Falls is also quite beautiful, with cascades falling into a narrow canyon which makes a 90 degree turn as it continues downhill.
Later that afternoon, we drove up a side canyon from the Parkway and hiked the Path of the Glacier Trail. It goes to a bright blue lake beneath Mount Edith Cavell and two different glaciers - Cavell Glacier right above Cavell Lake, and Angel Glacier high above, noted for its wing-like shape.
The next day, we drove up another side canyon and took a loop hike through Maligne Canyon. Proceeding up the trail, the canyon walls rose higher and higher above the creek, becoming a true slot canyon. A slot canyon is defined as a canyon where the wall height exceeds 10 times the width at the bottom.
Along the way, we could see underground springs emptying significant amounts of water into the sides of the canyon. It turns out those springs originate in Medicine Lake more than 10 miles upstream. The lake’s waters leak out the bottom and flow through underground tunnels to reach Maligne Canyon in only 12 hours.
We took a different hiking route back down to our car, affording us beautiful views of the Athabasca Valley in the distance.
We continued driving up the side canyon, stopping first at Medicine Lake (the leaky one) where the mountain side walls tilt almost vertically.
Then it was on to Maligne Lake. We arrived too late to take one of the tour boats offering rides the length of the lake.
Instead, we walked the shoreline and had our first encounter with Red Chairs, a Parks Canada project that, in the last five years, has placed hundreds of red Adirondack chairs at picturesque locations throughout the national park system – the Canadian version of a “Kodak photo moment.” We had a seat and enjoyed the view.
The following day, we drove south of the campground on the Icefields Parkway and hiked the Valley of the Five Lakes trail which, as the name implies, goes through a raised valley where five lakes flow into each other along the valley floor. They each have slightly different colors and shapes, and are creatively named Lake One, Lake Two, Lake Three, Lake Four, and Lake Five. At Lake Three, we found another set of Red Chairs - surprise! We stopped to enjoy the view for a while.
Later that afternoon, we visited small but picturesque Pyramid Island, reachable by a footbridge across Pyramid Lake, a popular boating destination near Jasper.
On our drive back toward Jaspar, we came on a bull elk dining by the side of the road.
That put us in mind of our own culinary needs. All summer, we’d been cooking and eating in the RV much of the time, and Jasper is a bit of a foodie town, so we had great meals out at local restaurants for three evenings in a row!
It was time to head south, and we drove down the length of the Icefields Parkway, marveling at the views – as good or better than we’d remembered from our 1988 trip. Halfway down the Parkway we stopped at the Icefields Visitor Center which sits opposite the beautiful Athabasca Glacier.
It and several other glaciers come down from the Columbia Icefield, the largest in the Rocky Mountains – almost 130 square miles and over 1,000 feet thick. The Icefield receives upwards of 300 inches of snow annually.
If you look carefully at the photo below, you can see some buses sitting up on the glacier. From the visitor center, a vendor offers bus rides onto the surface.
We’d actually done this with Tory back in 1988, but since we had recently done several glacier hikes in Alaska, a bus ride on the glacier held little appeal. We passed.
We did stay at the visitors center for a while to eat lunch and enjoy the views.
Continuing south on the Icefields Parkway, we passed an area called the "Weeping Wall" due to the many cascades flowing down...
...and saw other beautiful glaciers nestled in valleys formed by the mountains.
Although the Icefields Parkway ends near Lake Louise, we continued about 30 miles further east on the Trans-Canadian Highway to the town of Banff. Another major tourist town, for sure, and larger than Jasper. We thought this was likely due to its year-round appeal, skiing in the winter, vacationers in the summer, and proximity to Calgary, just under an hour’s drive to the east.
We arrived late in the afternoon and stayed in a very large Banff National Park campground called Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court just outside of town.
The next day, we drove just outside of Banff NP to Kootenay National Park. Several Canadian national parks - Jasper, Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, and others in the immediate area - make up the Canadian Rockies World Heritage Area.
In Kootenay, just back over the British Columbia border, we hiked up Marble Canyon, a narrow slot canyon created by a fast-flowing stream. There are several waterfalls, and seven different footbridges that cross over the canyon. The stream color and rock colors were particularly beautiful.
As you might imagine, we were delighted to find another set of Red Chairs!
Later in the day, we hiked around Johnson Lake, close to Banff and a popular spot for stand-up paddleboarders.
The next day, we drove up to the Lake Louise area. Lake Louise is a big tourist attraction with a sprawling turn of the century hotel - the Chateau Lake Louise - so parking in the area is very limited. Parks Canada has established a large area right off the Trans-Canadian Highway where you can park and then take a free shuttlebus to the lake. We decided to take advantage of this service.
Lake Louise was another place we’d visited with Tory in 1988. This time, we hiked the length of the lake and about a mile up the valley beyond. The lake has a beautiful blue hue from suspended glacial flour flowing down from the glaciers above the end of the valley.
Turning back to look the other way, we could see the Chateau Lake Louise at the end of the lake.
As we hiked back, we saw a cute little Pika scuttering among the rocks by the side of the trail. It's just a bit larger than a mouse.
After we completed our Lake Louise hiking, we took a free shuttle bus for the 15-minute ride to nearby Moraine Lake, another glacier-carved lake whose waters are a deep green. The color difference between these two lakes was unexpected since both lakes are formed from glacial melt.
We climbed up the aptly named "Rockpile" for a view of the lake.
This view of the lake is quite famous, so much so that for a while was on the reverse side of the Canadian $20 bill.
Moraine Lake sits in the "Valley of the Ten Peaks." We think we were able to count all 10, as long as we started at the side.
After climbing down from the Rockpile, we hiked along the shoreline for more views.
We returned to the shuttle bus stop and rode back to our car, tired but happy with the day’s hikes.
The next day, we left the mountains temporarily to visit a couple other spots we’d seen on the 1988 road trip.
Much of Alberta east of Banff is flat farmland.
The farmland gives way to badlands near the town of Drumheller. While staying there, we visited the Royal Tyrell Museum, a world class paleontology museum specializing in dinosaur and other fossils from the area, including the T-Rex predecessor Albertosaurus. We spent 3½ hours going through the museum’s many displays and interactive exhibits.
Afterward, we hiked a trail by the museum through prime Badlands geology – eroded hillsides with sandy soil that cements clusters of small and large rock. Each year, rains in the area wash away some of the hillsides to reveal new fossils.
Driving around Drumheller, you can tell that dinosaurs are the town's claim to fame!
Next we moved on to the town of Fort MacLeod (site of the first Royal Canadian Mounted Police post, although we were not to find either Dudley Do-Right or Nell in town). Our primary goal in Fort MacLeod to visit another World Heritage site: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Supposedly named after a Blackfoot hunter who got a little too close to the action, the Alberta provincial park showcases a buffalo jump that was used by the local First Peoples for at least 5,000 years.
There is a great museum built underground into the cliff face.
Starting at the top, there is a walkway along the edge of the cliff with interpretive signs, providing a sense of the terrain where the buffalo were stampeded.
Once back inside the museum, exhibits on the fifth level described the preparation for the hunt. The next level down focused on how the hunt was conducted (herding the buffalo into a tight group and then stampeding them over edge).
Lower levels exhibited how all parts of the buffalo were used: for food that could be stored throughout the winter, shelter, clothing, and weapons.
There was even a section of the museum that talked about the demise of buffalo jumps after the Blackfoot obtained horses and guns, which made hunting easier with fewer people.
Finally, it was time to return to the Canadian Rockies with a visit to Waterton Lakes National Park, which we’d visited in 2019 in conjunction with our first visit to Glacier National Park in Montana. The Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, encompassing both parks, was established in 1932.
Near the site commemorating the Peace Park, we found another set of – surprise - Red Chairs.
We set out to explore new sections (for us) of Waterton Park, driving up a side canyon towards a feature called Red Rock Canyon.
All these rocks are very old. The red color is from iron in the rocks combining with oxygen when they formed. Interestingly, there are green formations interspersed that also have iron - it's just that when these were formed the levels of oxygen in the atmosphere was very low. Red and green hues can be seen throughout Waterton Lakes NP. Dating the red rocks has helped scientists estimate when oxygen was present in earth's atmosphere and water.
We also hiked to nearby Blakiston Falls, a popular hike with viewing platforms.
Both Red Rock Canyon and Blakiston Falls are in an area of the park that was severely burned in 2017. A wildfire that destroyed almost 40% of the trees and vegetation in the park, and even sterilized the soil.
Four years later, it’s heartening to see how nature is slowly recovering.
The next day, we drove up another side canyon and hiked along the shore of Cameron Lake. The trail took us almost to the U.S. border.
However, signs warning of grizzly bear activity stopped us about a kilometer away.
As we hiked, we could see how trees right by the lakeside had managed to survive the wildfires, while trees further up the hillside had been destroyed.
On our hike back to the parking area, we did a side loop that took us past tiny-but-pretty Akamina Lake with crystal clear waters.
Later that afternoon, we visited the iconic and very gingerbread-y Prince of Wales hotel which sits up on a hill and has a great view of Waterton Lake.
In the afternoon we took a cruise on Waterton Lake (something we’d also done in 2019). In normal years, the cruise goes down the whole length of the lake to an outpost in Glacier National Park in Montana.
This time, because of COVID, we could only go just past the border into the U.S. then had to turn around. The border is marked by a 30-foot-wide clear cut in the forest on the mountainsides on either side of the lake.
Leaving Waterton, we headed east and then south to cross the border into Montana. While we’d been in the Canadian Rockies, we’d had conversations with Canadians who were a bit miffed by the fact that the border had been re-opened to Americans on August 8, but Canadians were still not allowed to drive across the border into the U.S. Consequently, when we arrived at the border there was no line at the checkpoint, and we were cleared to cross in less than five minutes without being asked our vaccination status or proof of a negative Covid test result.
It was September 15, and we needed to be in Albuquerque by October 1st for the Balloon Fiesta. Crossing the border set the stage for a series of alternating dash-south drives and multi-day sightseeing visits for the next couple of weeks. You’ll be able to read about that time in our next blog post!
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