Continuing north along the Icefields Parkway in mid-August, we eventually came up the Sunwapta Pass into Jasper National Park in sight of the Athabasca Glacier pouring over from the massive unseen Columbia Icefield.  We ate at the Glacier View Lodge and viewed the exhibits but passed on the bus tours to the glacier. Instead we stayed a couple of nights at the Wilcox Creek campground near the boundary between Jasper and Banff National Parks.

We had a great hike from the campsite up the Wilcox Pass Trail for more views of the Athabasca Glacier and surrounding mountains and we came across a herd of bighorn sheep.  Later that day, we explored a bit more over the boundary into Banff NP and happened upon the very cool Panther Falls where the water is so thick with glacial silt (or rock flour) that it’s plastering all the rocks and trees white below the falls and along the creek.  Another great hike was up to Parker Ridge (also technically in Banff National Park) and the stupendous view of the Saskatchewan Glacier Valley.

We then continued north stopping at Sunwapta Falls and the quite fantastic Athabasca Falls before reaching the town of Jasper.  We could see the remnants of the wildfire that burned down a third of the town and some 96,000 surrounding acres last year.  We had meals in Jasper but stayed in a campsite to the east of town in a little ways.  We tried to visit the popular Maligne Canyon but the fire had also burned through that area and it was still closed to visitors due to hazards.

From Jasper we decided to continue on our way by traveling west through Prince George to get to Fish Creek near Stewart where there is a viewing platform to potentially see grizzly bears feasting on the salmon run at this time of year.  We stopped for lunch and to see the visitor center exhibits (and a very interesting video about dealing with grizzlies) in Mount Robson Provisional Park.

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Banff National Park is huge and full of incredible scenery. There is so much to see and explore even just via short day hikes. Unfortunately, it’s also very busy in the summer months and there are always crowds of people at the more popular sites, much like many US national parks.  Some locations are so popular that special planning is required.  For example, Moraine Lake Road is closed to personal vehicles year-round and the parking lots at Lake Louise fill up at sunrise in the summer months.  It’s even difficult to secure time slots on the required shuttle buses a day or two in advance because they sell out so quickly.

We ended up spending two five-day stretches in the park over two weeks (visiting Yoho National Park in between) before continuing north on the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. Wild or dispersed camping isn’t allowed in any of the national parks and we didn’t have any advance reservations so we just had to grab spots here and there as they showed up online.  We managed to snatch up a few consecutive nights at one of the large campgrounds near the town of Banff, another few nights near Lake Louise and then some first-come, first-serve sites further north at Waterfowl Lakes.  We also stayed in a hotel in Banff when we couldn’t get a campground site (like Friday and Saturday nights) to avoid having to drive all the way out of the park. It was probably even more difficult than usual this summer because the Canadian government had granted free access to all the national parks along with discounted camping fees.

We explored the town of Banff by bike and on foot, visiting the Cascade of Time Gardens, the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum, the river walk and Bow Falls, hiking up the Sulphur Mountain Trail and riding the Banff gondola back down.  We also rode the Lake Louise gondola up to the ski area for lunch and to go hiking and enjoy the ultra wide views of Lake Louise and the surrounding mountains.  It was kind of freaky to pass through the big gates of the electrified fence that protects the top of the gondola visitors area from grizzly bears.

A major highlight was visiting Moraine Lake for sunrise and hiking from there up towards Wenkchemna Pass on the Eiffel Lake Trail.  Afterward we briefly visited Lake Louise itself but never ended up doing any of the classic hikes up from the lake. Another favorite was the gorgeous Peyto Lake viewpoint and hiking up the valley from there.  We enjoyed hiking through Johnston Canyon despite the crowds and the insane lines for photo ops at the waterfalls.  It is impressive but admittedly still cooler to see the canyon iced over in the winter (without crowds of people) as we’ve done in the past.

We enjoyed still more hiking from Bow Lake up towards Bow Glacier Falls on a cold wet morning, a late afternoon hike from our campsite to Chephren Lake and a short hike to more stupendous views at the edge of Hector Lake.

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