Day6: Lake Louise to Jasper

First trip on Icefields Parkway
Peyto Lake
Columbia Glacier
Athabasca Falls
Jasper Park Lodge

Another long travel day but stopping numerous times to see spectacular scenery. And, of course, Tanya made it highly enjoyably by constantly plying us with food, goodies, tons of interesting information about the Rockies and the many geographical highlights at each stop. Her playlist of music connected to everything we were seeing and was quite tasteful and enjoyable.



Our first main stop was Peyto Lake where we hiked in a little ways to see this very blue glacial lake.

Our lunch stop was at the Sunwapta Falls resort where some furry creatures of the stuffed kind made for some cute photo ops.


We passed the very large Columbia Ice Field, and saw one of its large offshoots— the Athabasca glacier to which we would return in a couple of days.

Tanya pointed out geographical points of interest like the Saskatchewan River basin area that kept crossing over itself in what is called a “ braided river”.

Another pattern that we kept seeing is in the rock patterns where they were forced up so they crossed over each other in “ uplift”.

The Athabasca Falls were spectacular; we were mesmerized by the patterns they made against the backdrop of trees, and the first signs of the humongous Jasper fire that just happened a year ago.



Finally, in the late afternoon we arrived our next to last Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. On the way we saw stark evidence of just how close this huge fire came to destroying all of Jasper.

The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge is spread cabins over many acres and includes a range of rooms, suites and cabins that create a kind of “luxurious rustic”ambience.


Many famous people have stayed here over the years.

Happy to be settling in, we took pictures of the beautiful Lake Beaufort, watched an unusual avian volleyball game, and saw up real close the in your face fire devastation around the lake.

After a long two- plus hour dinner, we got so tired, we ordered dessert but did not have the patience to wait another half hour for it to come. Forty- five minutes later there was a knock at the door and a huge basket of fruit, wine and chocolate was delivered as an apology. Wow! Very nice resort!