We spent one week this summer in
the Canadian Rockies, visiting Banff and Jasper National Parks. The 7-day,
6-night trip including 2 days of travel to and from Calgary was one of the most
memorable trips I had ever had. No, we did not travel by train, we flew from
San Francisco. These parks are filled with abundant natural beauty with soaring
mountains and lush green valleys.
Do you remember having drawn a
“scene” during childhood with triangular mountains and Sun rising from between
one of the pairs of mountains? I did that several times before my Art teacher
told me that mountains seldom have triangular tops and then I started painting
the “scene” with rounded mountain tops. Mountains in these parks tell how wrong
my Art teacher was. Most if not all the mountains, and I mean, plenty of them,
have triangular tops with streaks of snow on them. The white snow on the grey
to dark grey background of the mountains creates stunning contrast and beauty.
Now I know, I can draw dark grey mountains, with triangular tops, with streaks
of whites as I like and I will never go wrong!
Although there is a direct flight
from SFO to Calgary, we could book it only on our return journey. Onward
journey to Calgary had a stop in Seattle. Flight from Seattle to Calgary was
filled with snow clad mountains below, which more than compensated for the
break journey.
Calgary is a spread out city,
with confusing street names, even for Google maps. Google maps took us to the
other end of the city in search of our hotel, which apparently was very close
to airport itself. We had to resort to asking the locals about the address; one
of them referred to the old style, paper maps (no, I have stopped carrying
paper maps; too much reliance on technology!). Finally, after an hour long
drama, we landed in Clarion Hotel.
Icefields Parkway
Next morning, we headed for Lake
Louise. Before entering the Banff National Park, we had to purchase park pass
which is valid for 6 parks in that area. The pass is a little too expensive we
felt ($98 for 5 days), I was accustomed to $20 for the week pass in Yosemite
and other national parks in the USA.
After a brief stop on the road to
have home packed lunch, we took the Icefields Parkway, an awfully scenic road
inside the park. Mountain after mountain, the scenery was getting more
exquisite, be it the Crowfoot glacier, hanging near the top of the mountains to
the mystical waters of Bow Lake to the turquoise waters of Peyto Lake and the
vista around the lake, everything was grandiose.
We stopped at Columbia Icefields
to take the tour of Athabasca Glacier, one of the biggest glaciers outside of Alaska
(and Antarctica of course). We spent around 3 hours there, including a short
bus tour to the base of the glacier from where a huge wheeled bus took us on
the glacier itself. Not surprisingly, the glacier is retreating, about ½ km in
the last 100 years or so.
After about 9 hours (including the 3 hours at Athabasca Glacier) and some 250km (Canada uses metric system for length and temperature but not for weight), we reached Jasper after visiting Sunwapta Falls on the way. One goods train, about 200 bogies long made us wait for more than 15 min before entering Jasper. Jasper seems to be a very busy train station in the Rockies; in our short stay of less than 40 hours, we saw at least 8-10 goods trains!
Jasper
We started with a couple of
serene lakes near Jasper; Lake Annette and Lake Edith. Their lakeshores are
popular with horse riders. We then went to Maligne Canyon; Maligne means wicked
in French (& our Jasper hotel name was Maligne Lodge). The canyon is carved
by Maligne River over millions of years. After hiking some 3km round trip with
an elevation gain/loss of 150m or so, we finally reached the first bridge
(closest to parking lot) from where we could see a spectacular waterfall.
After the Canyon, we visited a
couple of lakes, Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake. All the water in Medicine Lake
drains by late fall, early winter into an extensive underground system and
flows to various lakes and rivers.
We saw a black bear on the way to
Maligne Lake. The Lake is famous for its water color and the surrounding peaks.
We decided to take a Boat cruise at Lake Louise instead of at Maligne Lake;
unfortunately there were none in Lake Louise!
After returning to Jasper and
visiting the small downtown, we went to Pyramid Lake and Island and then onto
Patricia Lake and then returned to our hotel.
Icefields Parkway (Back to Banff Area)
Fourth day, we started our return
to Banff area. 9 hours on 2nd day on Icefields Parkway were not
sufficient and we had missed several spots then. This day was the only
opportunity to catch up with those spots. So we started at Edith Cavell
Mountain about 30km South of Jasper. We had to take an internal road from the Icefields
Parkway and we started seeing the Edith Cavell Mountain; but it took another
14+km to reach near the mountain. It has a peculiar shape, yes triangular head,
but slant layers of rocks and ice sitting in those huge crevices. A short trail
(about 1km or so) took us to a spot from where we could see Angel Glacier
hanging from the mountain. Angel’s wings were clearly visible. The glacier had
filled the valley once and we could see a lot of erosion. The vista on all
sides was great!
We then resumed our journey and
visited Athabasca Falls (We now refer this name as “Ata Bas Ka” – Is it
enough?). You guessed it right, it’s on Athabasca River. Not a tall Fall by any
means, but it was still massive. The amount of water flowing is sheer immense!
Before leaving Jasper, we had packed veggie burritos from a Veggie-Vegan
friendly restaurant (Coco’s Café). Even mid-morning, the restaurant was packed,
telling us that there are vegan/veggie foodies in remote corners of the World.
We had those burritos on the banks of Athabasca River.
After spending an hour or so
there, we went to Athabasca Glacier spot (remember, we took the Glacier tour on
2nd day). This time, we stopped there just to get refreshed. Looking
at the crowd (it was Saturday), we felt lucky that we had covered it already,
on a weekday when there was hardly any crowd. Like any other tourist place,
there was a big Indian crowd there.
We then headed straight to Banff,
specifically Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, a massive hotel near Bow River,
overlooking Bow Falls. After spending about an hour there, we headed south to
Canmore via Bow Valley Parkway. On the way, we wanted to stop at Johnston
Canyon, but thought it was getting too late; no, the Sun was still way up high
in the sky, it was just about 8pm and it had still more than 2 hours to set!
After having dinner at an Indian
restaurant in Canmore, we went to our hotel, Best Western Plus, a decent, clean
place with complimentary breakfast.
Banff
Next morning, we decided to visit
Banff. On the way, we visited Lake Minnewanka and Two Echo Lakes. At the
smaller, less visited Tow Echo Lake, we saw bighorn sheep. We took Tunnel
Mountain Drive to have a look at Bow Valley Vista and then went to Banff
downtown.
Banff is a small, yet larger than
Jasper, place surrounded by partially snow clad mountains on the banks of Bow
River. In less than a couple of hours, we could stroll through the entire
downtown and then went to Tunnel Mountain Vista to have a look at Fairmont
hotel from a distance. Next stop was Bow Falls and 24-hole golf course. The
amount of water flowing through streams, falls, and rivers in this area is
massive!
A couple of hot springs was
discovered in Banff, which made the Canadian Govt to declare this area as the
first National Park. We visited one of the hot springs where you can take a hot
water bath. We were more interested in taking the Gondola however to the top of
Sulphur Mountain. After a brief wait, we were seated in a Gondola taking us to
a height of about 2300m (from 1600m base). From the top of the mountain, we
could see six different mountain ranges. There is about 1km Summit Walk on top
of the mountain. We could see Banff town below and the 24-hole golf course. The
whole experience of Gondola and scenery, especially the town below which is
nestled in lush green surroundings, reminded us of Engelberg in Switzerland.
After getting down, we headed
straight to the other hot spring site, which is now preserved as a historic
place, but its operating hours were until 5pm only and we missed that. We then
returned to our hotel in Canmore.
Lake Louise
We reserved 6th day
for Lake Louise area. We reached a little late and ALL the parking spots were
taken, luckily we found a space along the roadside and parked. The point of
attraction was Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, an even grander hotel than its
brother in Banff. One of the specialties of this hotel is the high tea that
they serve overlooking Lake Louise. Well, with $500/day, it seems not
affordable, but we saw an Indian wedding there on the backdrop of Lake Louise;
must be a super-rich couple.
Lake Louise is the starting point
for many long trails, including the plain of 6 glaciers trail. We were not so
much interested in taking the 3-4 hour round trip trail so spent some time
along the lakeshore trail itself. The emerald water of Lake Louise was amazing;
Victoria Glacier is guarding the Lake (Princess Louise was one of the daughters
of Queen Victoria).
We then visited Moraine Lake,
another glacially fed lake in the neighborhood. It’s situated in the Valley of
the Ten Peaks and has distinctive blue color waters. A short rockpile trail
shows you the vista of those 10 peaks and marvelous water beneath. Some
squirrels were posing for photos on the way back.
It was not too late in the day to
visit Johnston Canyon this time. There were lots of cars in the parking lot,
but we couldn’t see those many folks nearby or even on the 1km trail that took
us near the waterfall, which together with the flowing river is carving the
massive canyon for millions of years. The trail has a few catwalks and you feel
as if you are walking above the river. We could have taken a trail to the Upper
Falls as well, but did not have enough time (at least another 2 hours).
Calgary and Back
July 1st is celebrated
as Canada Day, a reason we got a free park pass on that day, but we did not
want to go back to Banff (and certainly not to Jasper) that day as we had to
catch a flight from Calgary in the afternoon/evening. After all, we did not
visit Calgary downtown and any other places of attraction. So we decided to
head back to Calgary. On the way, the car showed that it’s running out of fuel.
Gasbuddy app showed a nearby gas station, but waze or google maps could not
show clearly how to reach there. It was besides the freeway, but the entry was
a little awkward. We could not have afforded to miss this opportunity as the
next gas station could have been 50km or more away.
After filling up gas (and asking
the locals how to get on the freeway, which was very close anyway), we headed
to Calgary Winter Olympics Park. They have preserved park (since 1988) and commercialized
it with gondola rides, cycle tracks on the small mountain and some Winter
Olympic games. We then visited downtown Calgary, which wasn’t that impressive.
We had enough time to kill before
our flight, so took it easy and then headed to airport. This time, I used Waze
to find the way to the airport (getting burnt by Google maps on the first day).
It asked me to take an exit and follow a path which looked like backdoor entry
to the airport. It literally took us to the Cargo and other office complex at
the back of the airport. Okay, back to Google maps. Luckily, we had enough
time. We finally reached the airport in time before the US customs started for
our flight.
I have now started envying J Calgary folks who have
such an amazing natural beauty right in their backyard!
Comments
Post a Comment