Cal & Rachel Litwiller's Adventures

Friday & Saturday, September 22 & 23, Jasper National Park, Icefield Parkway, Banff National Park, Lake Louise and on to Whitefish, Montana

I did not write last night, as we stopped too late. I am going to combine both Friday and Saturday, as we were in both Jasper & Banff National Parks on the Icefield Parkway.

Each morning there has been fog until about 10:00 am, when the sun finally burns it off. Therefore, we have not been in a hurry to get out and going in the morning - as the fog has been too dense. By the time we arrived in Jasper it was after lunch. We drove to Pyramid Lake just outside of Jasper, before getting on the Icefield Parkway.

Mount Robson

Our first Elk

I don’t know if there is a place in the world like the Icefield Parkway. It is just a continuous drive of mountains, usually on both sides of the road which is in the valley, alongside the river. The mountain peaks are so interesting. Right now, with the “termination snow”, it accentuates the ridges and strata’s in the mountains. There was still plenty of daylight so we kept driving, stopping often to take photos – all around us. It was a beautiful mostly clear day. The sun was better on the mountains to the north and east, but we took them all around.

There is a lot more traffic on the roads than we have experiencing the last few weeks. There are many pull-outs, plus there is a wide shoulder on the highway for cars to pull off for photos. There are also areas to park, allowing you to walk to waterfalls or beautiful reflective lakes. We did not stop at every pull-out, nor did we do any long hiking trails, except for this morning. Cal walked to Peyto Lake at Bow Summit. The trail was icy from the snow that had fallen in the area 2 days ago. I did not change shoes to be able to go with him.

Athabasca Falls

Our second Elk

We did see some wildlife along the way. There was a herd of elk right beside the road. There was a male, 3 females, and numerous young. At another location, there was just a single male elk. There was one medium sized black bear that decided to scamper into the wooded area, instead of poise for us.

We also discovered that most of the campgrounds are already closed for the winter, even though there are lots of campers on the highway. Motorhomes were parked in parking lots. We kept driving, as it was not dark. Finally, we reach Rampart Creek campground, which is open until Oct 9^th unless there is too much snow. By now it is 7:45! We found a nice spot, made a light supper on our stove/burner, and crawled in for the night by 8:30. It was a beautiful clear night. There were millions of stars shinning, as this is in a very dark location. We saw the stars until early morning, but by 8:30 when we woke, it was foggy. We were looking forward to a clear day! It was 34 degrees, so getting up is a quick process!! We drove a few miles to a restaurant for breakfast, taking our time, as we were sure the sun would burn off the fog. By the time we finished breakfast, sure enough it was almost clear and the clouds were continuing to rise.

Athabasca Glacier

After Jasper National Park we continued into Banff National Park. At Lake Louise, we ran into a traffic jam. Vehicles and more vehicles! Parking lots were overflowing. The parking lot at Lake Morraine was full – they would not let more traffic drive there, so after viewing Lake Louise, we continued southwest through Kootenay National Park to Radium Hot Spring, BC. It was a lovely drive, but after the Parkway, nothing can beat it!

We are going this way so we can drive the “Going to the sun” road through Glacier National Park in Montana. We crossed the Canadian/American border at Roosville, Canada, and drove to Whitefish, MT for the night.