Icefields Parkway, Banff National Park to Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
The top 5 most scenic drives in the world, according to The Luxury Travel Expert and a hundred other sources, are:
- Milford Road, New Zealand
- Chapman’s Peak Drive, South Africa
- Seward Highway, Alaska
- Icefields Parkway, Alberta, Canada
- Lysebotn Road, Norway
Icefields Parkway is only a six-hour drive north of Couer d’Alene and is where I spent a full day exploring with Barabrian Scientist last week. It is a 232km road that begins/ends at Lake Louise, in Banff National Park and goes to Jasper National Park. It began as The Glacier Trail in the 1800’s, and as exploration and development expanded, it became a one-lane highway called the Wonder Trail, and then finally, in 1961, the highway was developed into the Icefields Highway that is used now. The development of the road was an important opportunity during The Great Depression for hundreds of men to be employed for a decade, resulting in increased tourism and further helping the economy of the region. Today, more than a million people visit the parkway every year.
There is minimal cell service along the parkway, some remote hostels for distance travelers, one gas station, and one small store connected to a resort along the way. I downloaded the GuideAlong app, which is free, and then in that app I purchased the Icefields Parkway Tour for $11.99. Once you purchase a tour, you can download it so that it works when you have no service for your phone. It was great. The app is GPS based, so as soon as we were at the Icefields Parkway’s starting point, the app began talking to us. Barbarian Scientist called the narrator Mr. Awesome Voice. Mr. Awesome Voice explains the history of the area, the development of the scenic drive, and more. It stops when you stop, and at one point, he scared the shit out of me on a trail I was walking when his voice suddenly said I was going off course, and he wanted to be sure I was doing it intentionally. He offers warnings like, “When we near this curve in the road, you will see a sign for <this>, and if you are doing this trip in one day, we may prefer to skip this stop.” And other times he will say that what is coming up is a vital stop for a scenic view. I highly recommend the GuideAlong app and plan on using it for other trips.
Bow Lake was our first stop. You can see the hanging Crowfoot Glacier on the left, that feeds the turquoise lake. If you have more than one day to explore the Icefields, then there are longer hikes with even better views around the lake.
Peyto Lake might be the most impressive turquoise-blue lake in the world. It is fed from the Peyto Glacier, which is part of the Wapta Icefield that also is the source of the above Crowfoot Glacier. The trail to the viewpoint is paved and short, even if a little steep. The viewpoint is a developed area with different decks.
The Weeping Wall was one of the prettiest things to me. We were lucky to see it during the spring when the snow melts from Cirrus Mountain, creating a bunch of tiny waterfalls. It is directly on the side of the road, so you will not have to risk using your limited time to find out if the water is flowing or not.
The Columbia Icefield is a huge highlight of this adventure. It is a timed and ticketed event that you pay to enjoy. You begin at the Discovery Center, where you are shuffled to a bus that seats 50-ish people. The bus driver gives a brief introduction to the region and then transfers you to an ice machine. The driver of the ice machine continues the audio tour that the first driver had begun. After driving down one of the steepest unpaved roads in North America, you are dropped off on Athabasca Glacier. Due to global warming and climate change shrinking the glacier, there is a perimeter set up to contain tourists in an effort to protect it. I had never been on a glacier before, and it was beautiful. Due to recent wildfires, the icefield and glacier appeared dirtier than they would usually, but it did not diminish its beauty.
Once you are through at the glacier, the ice machine returns you to the transfer station, where you get back on the bus. The bus then takes you to the Columbia Icefield Skywalk. This is the only way to visit it, as it is restricted. The skywalk hangs over the Sunwapta Valley, over 900′ above the valley floor. The walls and floor of the skywalk are glass, providing you with a completely open view of your surroundings. Barbarian Scientist is far less comfortable with heights than the average person, but it was so incredible that he found that pushing himself past his limits was valuable.
Once you are done visiting the skywalk, the bus returns you to the Columbia Icefield Discovery Center. There is a gift shop, bathrooms, Starbucks, what must be expensive but very impressive lodging with a view of the glacier, and several interactive and educational exhibits about the glacier and the region. Mr. Awesome Voice was very happy for us and the experience we had when we returned to the road to continue: “Wow! Can you believe you just stood on an ancient glacier? What an experience!”
The rest of the drive has more stops to do short hikes to more waterfalls. By this time, we were recognizing other people on the trail after having intersected with them multiple times throughout the day. Parks Canada takes incredible care of their trails and has made each of these places accessible to those who have mobility concerns. Many places I have hiked in Canada even have separate parking lots for those who are handicapped to make the trails shorter and easier for them to have the same view that the so-called able-bodied get.
We spent 13 hours on this drive. Mr. Awesome Voice was with us the entire time, although some of the things he narrated on the return to Banff were repeated from the drive toward Jasper. We drove 13 hours and saw countless waterfalls and glaciers; we hiked 6 miles in all and saw numerous wildlife: Big Horn Sheep, foxes, mountain goats, and black bears. You will find that most sources will say that one day is not enough to tour Icefields Parkway, which is true if you want to do the longer hikes. Will you have an epic time if you did what we did? Absolutely. We hiked the day before this and knew we had a day of bike riding the day after, so we did not mind a day of mostly sitting and getting in very few miles on the trail. I think that planning things that way was part of the success of making one day on the Icefields Parkway great. If we were to go back a second time, we would do a few of the longer hikes, with Parker Ridge being the one we felt we missed out on the most. Neither of us is going to complain about a day full of wildlife, mountains, bright blue lakes, and waterfalls, though, and neither should you.