When I take trips to see things like landscapes and trees, I expect it to feel relaxed and peaceful. That was a big thing the Banff and Lake Louise area were lacking. Although undeniably beautiful, they both had wayyy too many people for me to get that serene feeling. Luckily I also planned three full days in Jasper and a half day at Yoho National Park. I didn’t find a lot of itineraries or guides on either place so I had to do a little more research to figure out what to see in both places. You can find my itinerary here and post on Banff here.
JASPER
To get to Jasper from Banff, you take Icefields parkway, which has been ranked as one of the most beautiful road trips in the world. I think it probably was the most beautiful and serene road trip I’ve ever taken. The whole time, you’re surrounded by mountains, pine trees and soo many blue lakes. Blue lakes just aren’t for Lake Louise—they’re everywhere going to Jasper and around Jasper. The drive to Jasper is about 4 hours from Canmore, 3 hours from Lake Louise, so that’s why many people don’t bother to fit it in their itinerary.
Besides gorgeous landscape and hiking, there isn’t a whole lot between Lake Louise and Jasper. There is one gas station/rest stop with a couple of restaurants, located at “The Crossing Resort.” Then there is the famous Athabasca glacier, the most visited glacier in North America. You can only get one the glacier by doing either a guided Ice Walk or drive onto it via an excursion from the Icefields Center. You take a shuttle from the Icefields Center to the beginning of the glacier and then these $1.3 million “Ice Explorer” vehicles take you to the glacier, where you can get off and walk around a small area. Honestly, these was probably the least exciting thing I did the whole trip. Having been on one of the largest glaciers in the world in Iceland, I get that it might be more exciting for other people who have never seen or been on a glacier before. But really, the drive on the $1.3 million vehicle is only about 5 minutes. You don’t go up high at all. The area you can stand is very small. I don’t know if I would even recommend doing a guided “ice hike,” since you aren’t really hiking anywhere that great either. It would probably be best just to admire the glacier from afar, unless you simply want to be able to say you stepped foot on a glacier. One interesting thing about the glacier, though, is its very apparent that the glacier is receding because you can see the dirt leftover from where the ice melted away. It melts at a rate of about 5 meters a year.
The other part of this excursion includes a “Glacier Skywalk.” Only you’re not really above ice, so it was a big disappointment. I did a skywalk overtop the Grand Canyon and that was really great. This, not so much. So I would skip this whole part. The Icefields Center is also the only other place that has food other than The Crossing Resort.
The drive was still gorgeous the rest of the way to Jasper. It snows more often closer to the glacier and had snowed just a week before we got there, so we got to enjoy some snow topped mountains. And when we were coming back, the trees had started to change for the Fall. So cool to basically see winter, summer, spring, and autumn, all on the parkway.Arriving into the gates of Jasper National Park, we saw our first wildlife—an Elk! Since there are less people in Jasper than Lake Louise, you have better chances of seeing wildlife.
Our first full day in Jasper, we went to do a boat ride at the Maligne Lake. On the way, we stopped at the Maligne Overlook and then Medicine Lake. Medicine Lake drains by the fall through random sinkholes in the bottom, which is really unique. It was really cloudy when we passed through so it didn’t look as pretty as I’ve seen in photos, but it can be really pretty on a sunny day.
Maligne Lake is absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful color with mountains all around. It also hosts “The best boat ride in Canada” on a boat that takes to you Spirit Island. Spirit Island is actually a peninsula, only becoming an island around the Spring and Winter when the ice melts. You can only get to Spirit Island by paddle boats or the boat excursion. This was definitely a great part of the trip. The boat ride was fun and we saw a moose bathing in the water! And Spirit Island is really beautiful. It is one of the most photographed places in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and is randomly a common stock computer desktop photo. It’s also a very spiritual place to the Stoney Nakoda First Nation. Three sides of the island are surrounded by the same mountain-top, which is extremely rare and important to the Stoney.
The boat ride was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We didn’t get to stay on the island for very long, but it was still fun. After we finished our excursion, we had lunch at the cafeteria back at the Visitor Center and then went to visit Maligne Canyon.
The Maligne Canyon is not that large at 180 feet deep, ¾ of a mile long. But it is very striking. The limestone walls of the canyon make many interesting shapes and even reminiscent of “potholes” I saw at the Blyde River Canyon in South Africa. There are six bridges among the canyon, which would probably amount to about 3-4 hours roundtrip. We ended up parking at the main visitor center and did the first three bridges which were fairly close together. After that, we got lunch at the visitor center tea house and just sat by the river for awhile. That was one of those serene moments I talked about wanting earlier. There were hardly any people on the deck where we were hanging out and it was really peaceful and relaxing.
After tea, we drove over to bridge 6 to look around there. I think there may have been more to see at bridge 5, so I would have parked there instead.
The Maligne Canyon and Lake were so pretty and one of the top experiences during my trip. Afterwards, we walked around downtown Jasper, which is mainly just a bunch of tourist shops, but cute nonetheless. And we finally had some good food! Most of the trip didn’t have very impressive food, but our meal at the Cassio’s Italian Restaurant was some of the best Italian food I’ve had outside of Italy. The service was really great also and our meal oddly came with a token for free admission to the Wildlife Museum next door. The Wildlife Museum was actually a bunch of stuffed dead animals.
The next day was my mom’s birthday so we had breakfast out for the only time the whole trip instead of making oatmeal in our hotel rooms. We went to the Jasper Fairmont Park Lodge and the breakfast was sooo good and had a gorgeous view. I would love to stay there. They had (of course) a gorgeous lake and cabin-style hotel rooms. It felt really relaxing and peaceful.
After that we drove to the Athabasca Falls. They were back a little ways down Icefields Parkway, so it might make sense to visit the falls on the way in or out of Jasper, but we spent pretty much the whole day there. The water was, of course, gorgeous and I found one of my favorite views of the trip sitting on the rocks by the water.
Finally, we drove back to Jasper to have dinner at Pines Restaurant at the Pyramid Lake Resort overlooking Pyramid Lake. And then as we were leaving, we passed by about half a dozen elk.
Jasper was exactly what I was looking for in terms of feeling like I was actually in nature without so many people around. The drive was so pretty, with the trees and mountains constantly in your rearview mirror and there were so many pretty lakes. Definitely a can’t miss place if you’re headed to the Canadian Rockies.
On our drive back to Canmore, we stopped at the bluest lake of all—Peyto Lake. You have a hike uphill for about 10-15 mountains and then you see the prettiest view.
Bow Lake is another well-known lake. It looked blue from afar, but when we got closer, it wasn’t as pretty. Still a nice stop.
YOHO NATIONAL PARK
Another gorgeous, serene, not as popular as Banff, must-see, is Yoho National Park, about an hour and a half from Canmore, 40 minutes from Lake Louise. It’s technically in British Columbia, whereas Banff and Jasper are a part of Alberta.
Yoho has 61 lakes and ponds in its boundaries but the largest and most popular lake in the area is Emerald Lake, which looks more of a green color than the other lakes. The vivid turquoise color of the water, caused by powdered limestone There are cabins to rent right next to the lake and canoes. Parking here was a lot easier than Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. The lake also has a little restaurant by the water but it was closed for a wedding.
Not far from Emerald Lake is the Natural Bridge. “The Natural Bridge” is an arch over fast-moving water coming from every direction.
Our last stop in Yoho National Park was Takakkawa Falls, loosely translated as “its magnificent.” Like the other places mentioned in Yoho National Park, this is a really quick walk to the falls, about 15 minutes or so. There is a bridge leading to the falls. A lot of people just go right up the bridge when they should walk past it to see the best view behind the red chairs.
Yoho National Park is a little more manageable to visit during a Banff trip since it isn’t as far away as Jasper is. But I really think you get the true feel of the Canadian Rockies going to the more secluded places. The most ideal place in Yoho would be to visit Lake O’Hara if you want seclusion. They have a shuttle bus that only takes maybe 100 people a day to the lake and the lottery for the entire season opens for one day a year in advance. If you aren’t lucky enough to be one of those people, there’s the option for a very long hike to get there, which would probably be worth. Another place I would have loved to visit would be Kootenay National Park, also in British Columbia and known for its hot springs.
The Canadian Rockies were probably the most beautiful natural place I have ever seen. I’m sure its just going to get more and more busy over there with all of the tourism attention so I am on the hunt for somewhere just as pretty but more secluded! I will soon be posting some of my favorite places I’ve visited (Iceland, Australia, and New Mexico), while planning my next trips (Thailand, Amsterdam, Colorado, Utah, Chile, Antarctica and maybe Saint Lucia).
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