Anniversary Trip, Day 4

{Day 1 here}

{Day 2 here}
{Day 3 part 1 here}
{Day 3, Part 2 here}

We had set our alarms for 6:30 on Sunday.  We woke up, made some coffee and started to discuss our plans for the day.  After having slept on it, we were still both leaning in the direction of driving up the Icefields Parkway.  Glacier National Park would have been amazing, but it was a four-hour drive to get to the park entrance, and then we would have had to do additional driving after that to see the sights.  We had also heard that Glacier could be extremely crowded this time of year.  Icefields Parkway was still a four-hour drive but after completing the four hours we would be at the end of the driving and ready to head back.  It seemed like a more do-able day since we were both a little tired from the previous day's exertion.

We had a very light breakfast again (we were both still feeling a lack of appetite in the morning)... I think I just had toast that day.  Then we hit the road around 7:30 AM.

We saw a huge group of male bighorn sheep crossing the road right in front of the Austrian restaurant in Radium where we had dined two nights earlier!

Very interesting that such a large group was all males; I'm not sure if that's how they travel or what?  Anyway, it was super cool!

It took us the usual hour and forty-ish minutes to get back to Lake Louise, just north of which is where the Icefields Parkway begins.

I should say that one of the attractions that swayed me in the direction of the Icefields was the Athabasca Glacier... I was really excited to see a real live glacier close-up!  While the Athabasca is certainly the largest glacier on the Icefields, I had no idea that we would be seeing glaciers almost around every corner.  Just past the entrance to the parkway was the Crowfoot Glacier, where we stopped at the pull-off to take pictures and use the outhouse.

It was named Crowfoot because it used to have three toes like a crow's foot, but the bottom toe has now melted.

While we were stopped we tried to get our bearings a little, because we had no phone signal and we hadn't really researched the attractions ahead of time.  Luckily we had brought along our Banff and Jasper guidebook and so we leafed through to find the appropriate maps that would guide us to the sights.  Then we hit the road again.

The view was absolutely stunning the whole time, and it seemed as if the mountains just kept growing higher and higher as we traveled north.

We passed glacier after glacier along this stretch.  One of my favorites was the Snowbird Glacier:

It's hard to get a sense of it from this picture, but it's basically stuck to the side of this mountain and looks like a frozen avalanche.

The next stop we made was at Mistaya Canyon.  The canyon itself was a short walk from the parkway, so we parked our car and I changed from sandals into sneakers.  I had unfortunately acquired a few large blisters after breaking in new hiking boots on our hike the previous day, so walking wasn't too comfortable, but I toughed it out and luckily the walk was very short.

We were rewarded with these beautiful sights:

After enjoying the roaring waters of the canyon for a while we made the walk back to the car and continued along the parkway.  The next section of the parkway brought some of the most mind-blowing scenery I've ever seen in my life.  First we passed by the "Weeping Wall"-- a series of waterfalls coming down a large cliff:

Then we drove around the "Big Bend"... this video really doesn't do justice to the size of the rock faces on either side of us:

Around lunch time we crossed the line into Jasper National Park and were treated to the sight of the Athabasca Glacier.  We pulled into the pull-off on the left side of the road because the visitor center on the right was just swarmed with people (and the parking lot was all but full!).

We perched on a rock with a view of the glacier and had a picnic lunch:

After eating we used the bathroom and then decided to make the 2-kilometer hike up to the edge of the glacier.  You can actually book a bus tour and be driven out on the glacier, and we saw many buses going up and down the road as we took our walk.

There was a lot of meltwater from several glaciers converging in this valley, so we enjoyed the sound of babbling brooks as we walked.  There was a lot of gravel and small rocks, just like we had seen at Lake Louise.  Despite all my blisters we made pretty good time!  When we were about halfway to the glacier we realized that we were sort of off the main trail on a secondary pathway (the main path led from a road you can drive on with your car from the parking lot where we had parked).  So we had a longer walk than we would have, but it was actually nicer that way, since most of the crowds were on the other trail and we had this one mostly to ourselves!

You can see that M is all bundled up in these pictures-- it was actually quite chilly since the glacier creates its own weather by cooling the air above it, so the heavier, cooler air rushes down into the valley creating a cold and steady wind.  It was actually gorgeous and sunny but the wind really cooled us off.

Our guidebook had said that you would be able to walk out on the glacier at the end of the hike in a roped-off section, but as we reached the end and saw the ropes the glacier was still at least 1 k off from where we were standing.

We quickly realized, however, that either they have changed the location of the ropes, or the glacier had melted away all that distance since our guidebook was written in 2016.  Signs along the way told us that the glacier's melting has sped up recently due to global warming.

After viewing the glacier up-close for a while, we made the 2k walk back to the car.  We immediately stripped off all of our layers; the glacial wind was not as strong there and we began to feel the mid-70's warmth of the sun intensely!

At that point we started to think about what to do next.  It was almost 1 PM and the drive to the end of the Parkway in Jasper was another 1.5 hours.  Having had two late nights in a row and some early mornings, both M and I didn't really feel like getting back really late again.  There was still a chance of afternoon rain as well.  Because we were both interested in seeing Athabasca Falls, however, we decided to press on that far, and then turn back... meaning we wouldn't drive the full length of the parkway to the town of Jasper.

On the drive to the falls we passed by the Columbia Icefield Skywalk, which looked like something I would probably never do... but it exists if you're interested!  This video does a pretty good job of explaining the whole experience.  It would take SO much mental fortitude for me to do it, especially with children!

At about 2 PM we began to see the Athabasca River getting choppy on our left out the window, and we knew we were close to the falls.  Sure enough, the pull-off appeared on our left and we parked the car, put on our jackets to protect from the cool spray of the water, and found the pathway that circled around offering several different views of the falls.

Another amazing and gorgeous place!

Then we got in the car and drove back!  We left Athabasca Falls at about 3:30.

It was really cool to come back around to all the things we had seen before-- the perspective was completely changed seeing things from the other direction, and there were often new sights that hadn't been visible before.  For example, we had a full view of the Dome Glacier (close to the Athabasca Glacier) this time around and it had been behind us before so we didn't really notice it.

I drove the whole way back since M had done most of the driving on our way north.  He caught this footage driving past the Icefields Skywalk, and then some of the mountainous roadways with dropoffs on one side.  Again the video doesn't really do justice to the steepness of everything, but here it is:

We reached Sascatchewan Crossing, just south of the border from Jasper into Banff, around 5 PM.  Since the only real bathroom on the entire parkway is here, we made a stop, and spent a little time shopping in the gift shop as well, to stretch our legs.  We got some Icefields Parkway playing cards for the girls, and M got a book about the Columbia Icefield.  I was able to get a much-desired cup of coffee in the little snack shop there as well!

We got back in the car and unpacked our sandwiches from our previous day's hike at Lake Louise, which we hadn't been hungry enough to eat... they became our dinner!  So I enjoyed a tuna sandwich, coffee, and beautiful views of glaciers while I drove the next stretch-- doesn't get much better than that, does it??

After we exited the Icefields Parkway and began the drive from Lake Louise back home to our resort, some clouds and storms blew in.  The mountains sort of broke up the clouds here and there, and sunlight would stream through at times, and we saw some of the most vivid rainbows I've ever seen in my life!

When we got back to the resort we opened a bottle of British Columbia wine that we had bought at the market the first day and hadn't had a chance to open yet.  Then we went in the hot tub!  We met some super friendly Canadians who were vacationing from Calgary with their young kids and chatted for a long time with them.  Then it was back to the room.  We chatted a bit again about what we might do the next day-- we had to check out of the resort in the morning, but didn't have to return our rental car until 7 PM, and our flight didn't leave until 12 AM!  We didn't really decide on anything, in our typical pattern for this trip.  Ha!  The only thing we decided was that we would decide in the morning.  Then we settled in for a bit of an early bedtime... I think we were asleep by about 9:30.  It felt good to have an early night in and be cozy together on our last night.

{Move on to part 5 here!}