Our last day in the mountains in Alberta marked the midway point of our short, late summer vacation. We only had loose plans for the day – check out of our Banff hotel, pick up coffees for the road, then explore the Icefields Parkway before heading east toward a cabin we had booked for the rest of our vacation near Rocky Mountain House. This would be my second time driving the parkway, and I don’t think this drive will ever fail to wow me.

Having already explored Lake Louise a couple of days earlier, we passed that by on the highway and headed straight for the parkway. The post Labour Day roads were fairly deserted, the Tim’s coffee was tasting good (obviously helped out by the scenery), and our driving day was off to a great start. It would be a day of a lot of pulling off the road, including this first stop where the highway is elevated above Bow Lake.

We drove a kilometre or two further ahead and pulled into a campsite parking lot at the far end of the lake. A short hike had us standing at the edge of the water. It was a perfectly still morning and we had this view all to ourselves.

There is a very unique sense of peacefulness that washes over me when I’m in the mountains. Standing here with my wife, I was glad we were able to get away for a driving trip to somewhere so beautiful in the midst of the pandemic. We lingered here a while, taking in the mountains, trees, water and glaciers all around us.

The very informative GPS-enabled “Icefields Parkway GyPSy Guide” played along in the background for much of our road trip. It pointed out mountain peaks and told stories of the history of the area. It was like we had a well-informed tour guide with us the entire day. I’d highly recommend it and the others in the series for drives through the Canadian Rockies.

There are ample pull-offs on the side of the road, but maybe none as picturesque as the one at the aptly named “Big Hill & Big Bend” after you drive north and spiral up the side of the mountain. It is a great view from here, even if it makes your knees buckle a bit as you look over the edge.

As we continued heading north, the clouds began to pull away and the morning temperatures hovering just below freezing started to warm up. We pulled off the road to stretch our legs near the base of the Columbia Icefield and the Athabasca Glacier just as a touring motorcycle group made its way toward the parking lot on the other side of the highway.

We made another stop very nearby to stop to explore this waterfall on the east side of the highway.

It was tough to know what to look at – that gorgeous waterfall, or this view looking west from that very same spot.

While slightly illegal, with so little visitor traffic on this day, we got this picture of my wife standing in the middle of the Highway 93 at the base of that waterfall.

One of the highlights of a day of amazing stops was the time we spent at Athabasca Falls. About a five minute detour off of the Icefields Parkway, this was the only place we encountered any sort of crowd. It still felt like we had ample room to move around, even if the closer quarters meant we had to mask up while we stood at this prime spot above the falls where you could feel the power of the water’s 80 foot drop shaking the ground on which we stood.

Just below the falls, I loved this view of the gorge, the cliffs and the colours of autumn creeping into view.

Even the parking lots here have spectacular mountain vistas – this is the view of Mount Kerkeslin towering above the Athabasca River at the top of the falls.

My wife had never been to Jasper before, so we headed into town there to fill up the car and to drive though town before turning around and driving the Icefields Parkway in reverse toward our journey into central Alberta. We put more than 450km of driving in by the time we took the turn-off east at Saskatchewan River Crossing. On the way back we continued to pull off in a couple of places… how couldn’t we?

The scenery in the opposite direction was just as spectacular and served as a great reminder – always drive through the mountains both ways so you don’t miss any of the jaw-dropping beauty. We are both looking forward to being in the mountains again