Canada - days 44 and 45 - Icefields Parkway

Marble Canyon. Unfortunately no photo can do it justice. It's a very deep slot canyon, so narrow you could almost step across it, but so full of spring meltwater it was very atmospheric 

Day 44 Wednesday Mosquito Creek

Having decided to try to see Lake Louise the alarm was set again, we were out and had driven the 45 minutes before 08.00. They've got it down to a fine art, rangers direct you up here, down there and suddenly you find you are heading out of town and the carpark was full!

Paint Pots. Very scenic coloured mud pools along a creek

Oh well, plan B. Marble Canyon which was beautiful, particularly before all the crowds who were beginning to arrive as we left. Second stop was the Paint Pots, a very red lake and then a small green one. 

Pretty colours

We returned to Lake Louise via the old road which was much more scenic than the main road with little pull offs. 

We stopped at some lovely scenic pull offs. This one ran alongside the trans Canada railway and there happened to be a train going by. It took 2 and a half minutes to go by it was so long. We were told they are up to a mile long

We were going to the visitor centre to confirm whether any of the trails further north on the Icefields parkway had opened or whether they were still closed by snow and to have a chat about our afternoon going to visit Emerald Lake. The Ranger had a good chat and we were just about to set off when he called us back as there had been an accident on the road to Emerald Lake which would likely be closed till 18.00. Hmm, that puts a stop on that then. 

Our revised plan after the closure of the Trans Canada highway due to an accident was a hike along the side of Bow Lake on the Icefields Parkway. It's a long path up the mountain in the distance to a glacier viewpoint. We weren't going that far, but headed up through the trees in the distance

Right, look at the Icefields parkway up to Mosquito Creek, where we are staying and maybe go on to Bow Lake, just beyond it, one of the prime stopping places with a sensible little hike.

This is what we did, walked a long way around Bow Lake before returning for a can of pop as we were hot by now and it was too early to check in to the hostel.

This was our furthest point up the riverbed. We decided not to go any further, it's fairly unchanging along that gravel

While sipping our drink in the afternoon sun we could see this huge corniche high up on the mountain in the distance. You can't tell the scale here but the snow must be hanging out at least 4m. How easy it would be to walk on that from above without realising before falling right through. When that goes it'll cause some avalanche

We had been very unsure about this hostel, but choices were limited, so a cabin with two family rooms sharing a kitchen, and sharing the pit toilets with the rest of the hostel. No running water, no shower, no WiFi, limited electric and purified water for cooking and drinking! Actually there is WiFi, water for drinking seems ok, and there is a propane fridge. We were still early but we wandered around and met a German couple who had stayed here 16 years ago and were enjoying a trip down memory lane. Bang on 17.00 Richard appeared to check us in. We are alone tonight in our cabin, hurrah, we just have people tomorrow.

Hi Mosquito hostel, our wilderness camp in the woods. We were in the nearest cabin, our own room, but shared kitchen. The building to the left in the distance was a wood fired sauna - we didn't use it. The toilets were out of sight to the left. It was sort of quite nice, but two nights was enough!

Pulled beef that we had brought from Richelle's and frozen in our place in Banff for dinner, yum, then, back in the car. The ranger had pointed out to us that if we wanted to see Lake Louise we could park for free after 19.00. We set off to do this. 

Lake Louise in the evening when the crowds had gone. After 7:00pm parking is free (CA$42 - £23 at other times) and, although there's not enough time to do any hikes it was crowd free. We've seen other people's photos during the day and photos like this are not possible for people. Lake Louise was lovely, very different from other lakes we've seen, but felt much more closed in with the mountain beyond and those either side. Others were much more open with dramatic mountains more in the distance giving a great feeling of space

We weren't the only people with this idea, but it was still a manageable number. I'd found an ice-cream shop, so I thought, but it turned out to be in the Fairmount Hotel. There were many signs saying guests only beyond this point, but asked the concierge outside about the ice-cream shop and he said yes, it's just downstairs. "Are we allowed?" I asked, to which he replied that I seemed to know exactly where I was going, so off we went! Very expensive, but the cheapest room is $1000 so it's hardly surprising.

We had plenty of time to walk halfway round the lake. This is from the end looking back. The big building is the Fairmont, a 4 star hotel. Rooms facing the lake are over £1000 per night, the penthouse at the top with a balcony will set you back about £6000 a night (but that does include breakfast, so that's ok!)

The lake is beautiful, and to see the sun setting, a few kayaks on the water and a lady singing in the garden it all had a lovely vibe. We are glad we went even though we don't think it is the prettiest lake, but at least we can say we've seen it. It was a long day out of the hotel just after 07.00, and back from the lake about 20.30, just time for a small glass of wine and bed.

The highlight for us though was the black bear we saw at the side of the road on the way out, munching on dandelions. The traffic car that came past wasn't too happy with us stopping, motioning us to carry on and honking his horn to try and scare it away. The bear took no notice of him and neither did we. Others stopped too, so the traffic car just drove on

Day 45 Thursday Mosquito Creek

We didn't set the alarm, hurrah, but did get up early. The plan was to drive the Icefields parkway up to Jasper and back. It's 2.5 hours without stops people keep telling us. That doesn't sound too bad, and we've done Bow Lake, one of the big stops.

Peyto Lake from the higher viewpoint, dramatic and beautiful, no wonder it's so popular. However this photo is from the alternative viewpoint along a dirt path along the ridge that few people go to. Good old Organic Maps, the offline app I have on my phone that shows all footpaths as well as being a really good Satnav 

First stop Peyto Lake, before 08.30, or actually the viewpoint as it is a long way down and we are not doing that! Two viewpoints, after bumbling about in the woods. It's getting busy as we walk out, but suddenly I'm engulfed in a big hug. It's the couple we spent ages talking to when we found the car keys. Another huge long chat which made us feel brilliant. They had spent more than $250 for gondola tickets and the bus to Lake Louise (1hr) and Moraine Lake (also 1hr) along with the hoards. Getting a picture without crowds or people posing was impossible apparently and they'd hated it. They had then set off to Emerald Lake, only to get caught in the road closure, due to the accident that we nearly got caught in, for 90 minutes to 2 hrs. Then when they finally got turned round and got back to the starting point where they should have turned to go up the Parkway, to the campsite on the other side of the river to us, they missed the turn and didn't realise they were on the wrong road till they'd been going about an hour, then they had to turn round come back and do the half an hour on the right road! Obviously we were talking to them for quite a long time! They write a blog, it's The Roadmantics

A Dark Eyed Junco on a rock at Peyton Lake

We carried on, up the Parkway, I hadn't realised that the main sheet I was following, from the Banff national park actually only went half way. 

Mistaya Canyon, another spectacular, atmospheric canyon that photos just can't do justice to

The Northern half being the Jasper National park. We stopped at viewpoints galore, next  goodie though was Mistaya canyon, fabulous with so much water rushing through it. 

Weeping Wall. It looked so much better in real life, the height is huge, (compare it to the trees)

Weeping wall was lovely, again, because there's been lots of rain it was weeping as opposed to snivelling pathetically.

Walking towards Ci Fuentes falls. A canyon opening, but looking unpromising until you see the scramble up and over the rocks ahead of Jackie

Our favourite was not even on the map, but one of the many many dots Brian had put on his map. The Ci Fuentes Falls. I don't know why we stopped really but we did, walked across a big flat area to suddenly be confronted by rocks. We weren't the first so up we went. A lovely little scramble to some pretty little falls. It was more about the walk for us, though we did find a slightly more sensible way down!

Balancing over rocks (which, of course Jackie shouldn't have been doing with her ankle) with big drops below, we came to an impressive waterfall. All the better for us as few people would ever get here. The girl in the tourist office in Jasper was quite impressed that we'd found her secret waterfall!

Half way point, the Colombia Icefield centre. It's taken us 4.5 hours to get here, it's 12.30, it's absolutely rammed and we can't even park. OK, drive the hour and a quarter to Jasper, don't look, don't stop. Get there, find the parks office, find a pizza and turn round. To avoid cooking at the cabin lunch out had been the plan. Sitting down would take too long, so we were going for pizza with a view, a piece at each viewpoint on our way south! This is pretty much what we did. 

About 27km before Jasper we started to see the burnt trees from the 2023 fire that destroyed most of the town of Jasper. Complete devastation as far as the eye could see, right up into the distant mountains on either side of the Parkway

Jasper had proven almost impossible to stay in, there was a fire two years ago which is obvious in the trees, then in the portacabins which are obviously where people are living, and then in the rebuilding of wooden houses, where wooden houses used to be! It was absolutely devastating.

Taken from the car as we drove along the Icefields Parkway, these are the portacabins that many residents of Jasper are living in while their houses are rebuilt

If the big things on the southern half were lakes, here they were waterfalls, so Athabasca and Sunwapta. Obviously we are now hitting them at peak time, but we managed the half hour hike at the first and the hour at the second. 

Athabasca Falls. It's impressive, take it from us!

Still at Athabasca falls, this used to be part of the falls at the end of the last iceage when melting glaciers altered the course of the river. We could see large circular wells in rock worn by the whirlpools of the ancient cascading river

Sunwapta Falls, a loud, atmospheric cascading of water

A couple of viewpoints and we are back at the Colombia Icefield and it's 17.15. 

There were some lovely viewpoints we stopped at on the Parkway, here's one. The river is white with the ground stone particles washed out from the glacier above. It's also very full from spring meltwater

The girl in the parks office had said ignore the first parking lot, drive to the second and we could do the Toe of the Athabasca Glacier trail to see the big glacier. This we did. One last stop in the main carpark, just to take a picture of Snow dome, the highest peak that is a three way continental divide with rivers going to the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The Athabasca glacier in the Columbia Icefields. It's still impressive but the walk in showed positions of where the tip of the glacier was in various years back to 1908 and only then do you realise how much of it has melted away

Taken from the car park of the visitor centre, the Athabasca glacier is the one on the left. The mountain in the middle is the Snow Dome (3456m), marking the triple Continental divide, waters on the left flowing to the Atlantic, on the right to the Pacific and in front flowing to the Arctic. We love these sort of points! At one time the glaciers reached up to this car park and you can see the grey line across Snow Dome and imagine the bulk of those two glaciers coming down on either side and the bulk of ice that has been lost

Back to the cabin, just before 19.00, what are the other people going to be like? They aren't there, hurrah. We finished the pizza and had a glass of wine before they turned up. A family of four, two young children, who had stayed before and seemed really put out to find us there, and we'd obviously picked the room they had last time! They weren't too bad, and we made an early retreat to bed after a really long day!