Day 7: Canmore, AB to Jasper, AB

Today brought us into the National Parks, beginning with Banff National Park and making our way down the Icefields Parkway into Jasper National Park. Along the way, we stopped at Bow Lake, the Columbia Icefield, and Athabasca Falls.

Bow Lake is undeniably beautiful, especially on a sunny day when the turquoise waters are glinting up at you. Then you look left and notice the giant Bow Glacier at one end (see the photo on the right), feeding the lake. But, just up the road is Peyto Lake. It's not visible from the road and it's a little bit of an ascent on foot, but it's 100% worth it. We decided to skip Peyto this trip, for the sake of time, but if you’re anywhere near Peyto Lake, definitely stop. (Here's a picture from our trip to Peyto Lake last year.)

Next, the Columbia Icefield, where you can get pretty damn close to the toe of the Athabasca Glacier. Note: Across the way you’ll see a big information center/cafeteria thing (pass), from which you can also take a bus onto the glacier (hard pass). Instead, we walked up a short, gravel ascent to where you can walk around the toe and watch the glacial runoff begin it’s trip downhill.

As you walk up, there are markers showing where the toe of the glacier reached in previous years, which is incredibly interesting (in a very tragic way)—not to mention the fact that the whole spot will likely be a lake by 2100, with no glacier in sight.

After that, onto the Athabasca Falls (which are fed by the glacier above), which are quite active this time of year. There were more people there than is ideal, but you can’t deny how spectacular they are, even when ten other people are at the same viewing point with you. See below:

Though we'd originally planned to try to get further today, there's just something about Jasper. On the off-chance they had something available, we pulled into the Pine Bungalows, located just outside of town on the Athabasca River. Turns out, we took the very last room they had—we even watched the "Sorry, no vacancy" sign turn on when we got back in the car to drive to our cabin.

The cabins are absolutely perfect, super clean with everything you need, including a functional kitchen with a stove. There's no wifi in the cabins, but it's kind of nice to be a little disconnected. They've done an excellent job renovating the place, and they keep the area very quiet and dark at night. Less light pollution + the sound of the Athabasca River outside our cabin = two thumbs up. We went to the grocery store for some supplies (which was surprisingly well stocked, for a grocery store on the small end) and walked around in downtown Jasper. It’s an old railroad town, very quaint and relaxed. It's a bit more understated and homey than the Banff townsite, and even though it has the expected surplus of t-shirt and tchotchke shops, there’s also plenty more to see.