Day 62 (July 15). Icefields Parkway

From: Jasper, AB

To: Lake Louise, AB

Miles today: 146

Total miles: 12848

After waiting out a short morning thunderstorm (unusual even here), I left Jasper and headed south on AB 93, the Icefields Parkway. This route connects Jasper to the town of Lake Louise about 150 miles away, and from there an extension leads to the town of Banff.  The road itself is another of those engineering marvels, as it connects several distinct river valleys by climbing over some very difficult passes.  My view of the scenery was constrained by the near-constant (and cold!) rain, but the weather broke often enough to get some great views.  There was a lot of tourist traffic (of which I was a part, of course), but lots of pull-offs and passing lanes so it was  possible to maintain a decent pace when not stopping to take pictures. As the road’s name promised, there were some spectacular views of “ice fields,” large relatively flat areas that accumulate snow and become the source of glaciers. 

Ice field on a mountain.  This shot is taken during the climb-out from a river valley (foreground).

About halfway between Jasper and Lake Louise I came across signs indicating that the “Icefield Centre” was coming up shortly.  Oh good, I thought, an interpretive center with displays and perhaps a film or two explaining the local geology.  The place was not identified on Google maps, so I figured it must be pretty small.  Just the opposite: it was a huge facility, with a gigantic parking lot that was absolutely full, and connected to the main building was a terminal for probably 20 tour buses, most of which were occupied.  Inside was pure chaos; there were no displays, but hundreds or even thousands of people of all nationalities looking for the right line to get in. There were some counters selling tickets for different glacier tour packages, and these had long lines too.  It reminded me of an airport.  I went up to the observation platform and took some pictures of the amazing scenery, but found I had no desire to fight these crowds for a chance to spend 4 or 8 hours examining the glaciers up close.  Some other time, perhaps.

Views of two different glaciers from the Icefields Centre, Alberta, without and with my fellow tourists.

I continued south though more cold rain and more spectacular scenery.  Both the rivers and the lakes have this radioactive “turquoise” color that is apparently referred to locally as “emerald.”  It is quite striking and beautiful to look at.  Apparently it is due to something called “glacial flour,” very finely ground rock that is suspended in the water when glaciers melt.  I will have to look into this more later. 

Beautiful water. I ask myself, "What the heck is wrong with it?"

I was going to push on past Lake Louise, but my back was acting up and I decided to call it a day.  There isn’t much here, unlike Banff, I’m sure, but I didn’t want to ride the extra 50 miles there and back, since I would be forking off in a different direction from Lake Louise to get to Idaho.  I would have been willing to go the extra 20 miles to the town of Field, BC, which is on my intended path.  Field is the town closest to the famous Burgess Shale (perhaps more on this tomorrow), but the one hotel in town didn’t answer their phone, so I’m staying here tonight. 

Faithful Steed in the Canadian Rockies.