Icefields Parkway

Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Jasper, Alberta, Canada
First thing in the morning we went back to Lake Louise to sit on a bench and absorb the view. It was super crowded as usual, but parking was a bit easier to find than the previous day (probably because we came half an hour earlier). So we chilled on a bench for half an hour or so and then dropped by a grocery store, filled up the tank and got on Icefields Parkway a.k.a. Highway 93.

The highway is extremely scenic and there's a ton of interesting points along the way . We stopped at some of them: Crowfoot Glacier, Bow Lake (another blue glacial lake), Peyto Lake (with a beautiful view from a summit) and Columbia Icefield with Athabasca Glacier. Even while driving the views are breathtaking!

Finally we arrived to the Icefields Centre, where we participated in Glacier Adventure: a tour to the top of Athabasca Glacier! We put on our warmest clothing and got onto a shuttle bus that took us to a huge red glacier bus, a slow hulking monster with giant wheels capable of driving over glacial ice. The driver provided us with a ton of information about the icy world we saw around the bus. When we got to our destination and got out of the bus, it suddenly started raining. The whole experience was wet, cold, slippery and extremely windy. Still, this is a unique place that I've always wanted to visit! We roamed around the cleared out area around the bus, trying not to slip and fall and not to get too wet. Ice is constantly melting, so there were tons of small streams on top of the glacier. The view was quite brutal and harsh, with huge masses of ice slowly flowing through the landscape, grinding down rock to powder. After 15-20 minutes on the ice we were cold and soaked by the rain, so we finally got onto the bus (Julia was one of the last to give up and get in :) ) and it took us back to shuttle, which took us to Icefields Centre. There I took some photos of beautiful white glaciers on top of mountains.

After all that we continued driving to Jasper and skipped the rest of the planned stops, because it was raining.

Comments

Elena
2014-08-31

I want to go too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

juliettka
2014-08-31

You should go next summer :) I will tell you where to go and what to see here :)

2025-02-16

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