We spent most of Sunday driving along the Icefield Parkway, one of the most beautiful scenic drives in the world. We only stopped for a few of the very best viewpoints, but I could have easily spent a couple of days hiking and exploring just off the road. In French, it’s the Promenade des Glaciers, which I think is fancier and more appropriate for the scenery one sees traveling on it!
The parkway is 230 km long, and was completed in 1940 to connect Jasper and Banff National Parks. It winds past turquoise lakes, waterfalls and countless glaciers. It follows the route many early Canadian explorers took as they mapped and charted the amazing Canadian wilderness.
I’d bought an amazing $5 audio guide for my iPhone that triggers off of GPS points and doesn’t use data since there is not cell reception on the parkway (The Gypsy guide) and we enjoyed listening to it, learning about the names of the mountain peaks, who named them, and who were the first explorers to summit them.
Some of the highlights included the gushing Athabasca Falls, Bow Lake and Peyto Lake which are the color of my very own Louise. I’d traveled the parkway a few times before and this was the first time I did the “Columbia Icefields Experience” which gave me the chance to ride in a gigantic snow coach bus (designed to drive a 36 degree grade!!!!!) across the moraine (that’s the rock debris at the edges of a glacier) and onto the glacier. We got to spend about half an hour walking on the glacier ice and filled up a couple of water bottles with glacier water. It was crowded with people, but still a fun experience. I, of course, had to take a photo of my chaco-clad toes on the glacier ice!
The environmentalist in me isn’t completely sure what kind of impact this experience has on an already receding glacier, but at the rate they are melting (most in the region have less than 80 years left), I’m not sure if letting people walk on them hurts them anymore than the global warming that is overtaking our planet.
We got to the campground and set up camp quickly (it’s so nice with a teardrop and an easy to put up REI tent!) and made it to Lake Louise and my very favorite, Moraine Lake, right in time for the magical late afternoon sunlight.
Teardrops & Ales 