Columbia Ice Field Parkway — Banff to Lake Louise to Jasper

Duncan Wilson
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

Our first long drive meant leaving Banff at 8am to try and a) spot wildlife by the side of the road and b) get to Lake Louise before the crowds. Unfortunately we didn’t see any bears on the drive up.

Lake Louise was quite spectacular but was already full of coach loads of tourists and the smoke from all the local forest fires meant the sky was not very clear and everywhere looked a little hazy. This would continue for the rest of the trip to Jasper.

The highlight of the drive was going onto the Athabasca Glacier. We drove in some massive Ice Explorers that could drive up and down impossibly steep slopes! We started on the terminal morain before heading onto the tongue of the Glacier. It was so cold! We filled our water bottles with water flowing on the Glacier but it tasted smokey. Dad said it tasted like a very weak single malt whisky. We think that was due to the forest fires.

We also stopped at a scary glass bridge and the lovely Athabasca Falls on the way to Jasper.

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