I have driven along the Amalfi in Italy Coastline, I have driven the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, I have driven through the monasteries of Meteora in Greece, I have driven through Arthurs Pass in New Zealand and I have driven through the ancient hills of Kapadokya in Turkey… but I don’t think I have ever been on a more scenic drive than the one we did today from Banff to Jasper along the Columbia Icefields Parkway in Alberta, Canada.
From the moment we set out I knew the 243km drive which should take around three hours was going to take all day, if we got to Jasper before nightfall it would be a bloody miracle because there are so many lookouts, overlooking so many lakes, waterfalls and rivers and mountains and glaciers that I knew we would be stopping every five minutes as a new vista unfolded in front of us… so I am just going to dump a tonne of pictures on here. Sorry these are all from my iPhone so the ‘good’ pictures are actually still in the camera! Squee! 😛 I have filled one 8GB compact flash card already, might have to slow down a bit…
So not long after we set off and got north of the Lake Louise turn off and hit the Icefields Parkway proper we set a turn off and it is beside Hector Lake, I mean barely 10 minutes into the trip. Hector Lake:
Bit further on we pulled over again for a bit of a looksee just because there were other people pulled over on a space on the side of the road and found ourselves looking at Mt Patterson and then Lake Howse…
Little further up the road, but before we hit the Icefields Centre we came past the Saskatchewan Crossing, the Saskatchewan River and the Saskatchewan Glacier – I just wrote that because I like to say Saskatchewan so much! 😀
So much beautiful scenery, I am amazed at how the reflections on the lakes looked, even on just my iPhone happy snaps, and the scenery just kept on getting more and more impressive! Such huge majestic mountains, fabulous green/blue lakes and the weather… well we thought we were going to get 19 degrees and raining all day but instead there was alternately sunny and cloudy and plenty of patches of blue to bring out some colour in our photos. So lucky yet again – this is turning into the More Arse than Class Tour of Canada as far as the weather is concerned.
When we were in Banff and went up the Gondola we had purchased tickets to also go out for a Glacier Adventure at the Icefield Centre which is roughly half the way up the Parkway (it was a buy both attractions thing and get a discount). So when we arrived at the Parkway we lined up to go out onto the glacier. Now the closest I have ever gotten to walking near/on glaciers was the Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers in New Zealand, and not diminish the wonderful experiences I had there, but nothing compares to the amazing couple of hours we spend out on the Columbia Icefield driving out ONTO the absolutely enormous Asthabasca Glacier.
We were first loaded into a regular coach and ferried out into the turnaround point where they put us onto a $1.3 million dollar 6WD ice explorer bus. Apparently there are 23 of these ice explorers in the world and 22 of them operate on the Columbia Icefields (the other one is owned by the USA government and is in Antarctica being put to use by scientists). All loaded onto the ice explorer and we find out our driver is a larrikin from Coffs Harbour named Rowan and he keeps everyone entertained in true brash Aussie fashion for the duration, largely making jokes at his own expense and clowning around. To get down to the glacier we go down the 2nd steepest hill in North America – a 32 degree incline! Fark, talk about sphincter tightening fun, but the vehicle is equipped with transmission locks and 6WD so no chance of running off down the hill at full tilt. We get a guided tour with lots of information about glaciers, about this one in particular, the history and all sorts of local trivia about the vegetation, the environment, the first pioneers etc. And after a short drive full being stuffed full of information we get to this:
Unbelievably beautiful. Here we are walking around, well driving around in a 30 tonne truck on over 1000 feet of slow moving ice! The clouds gave way a bit and we got to see the place in full splendour and while we were out there, we were the only bus load wandering about (as we were leaving, three ice explorer buses were headed up at the same time… too many people by half I think).
These photos are of the Asthabasca and Andromeda Glaciers which are the largest in the Columbia Icefields Park, off to the right was the Snowdome Galcier which has the distinction of feeding water down into three water ways… that eventually lead to the Arctic, the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. The only mountain/glacier in the world that distributes water to three separate oceans, which sounds trivial but is totally cool when you think about it.
I took so many photos here, I am sure that there will be at least one good one! After we tramped on the glacier for about half an hour, felt how cold the water was, slipped and slid around a bit on the large flat expanse made for the ice explorer buses, it was back to the Icefield Centre for a spot of lunch before we kept going. First stop as we head off towards Jasper again was past the Never Ending Chain, which is an unbroken mountain range of just on 27km long – the longest on the continent apparently (Rowan from Coffs Harbour did his job well, what with me remembering all this info he fed us).
After that we had to get a bit more disciplined with our stops. We stopped at Tangle Creek and on other place before stopping for a good wander around at the Asthabasca Falls area. It was just off the side of the road and we weren’t expecting much but had a wander around and saw the most amazing glacial waterfalls, complete with abandoned routes where the water had gone, but now was carving a different path through the mountain pass.
Aunty Mary really loved the waterfalls and that last photo is one she snapped on her iPhone which she wanted me to include. All up a huge day and I think you could drive through there every day for a week and now see every scenic lookout and stop.
We have now arrived at our destination (Thank you, Sondra!) which is the Patricia Lakes Bungalows in Jasper where we have three nights to go check out Jasper National Park and, if we are feeling very adventurous because the weather is supposed to turn cold and wet and it’s already cold, maybe… big maybe, go for some white water rafting (not sure my back will cope but I am sick of letting it control my life!) All up an absolutely amazing day full of impossibly beautiful vistas and more gorgeous scenery than you could process in a month of Sundays! Only wee let down today is that there was a shocking lack of wildlife out and about, for what turned out to be a rather warm and balmy day… only one herd of bighorn sheep and one teeny tiny chipmunk who was not amenable to having his photo taken 😉
