We started the day at Mount Edith Cavell, where we were able to walk about a mile up to a pond formed by the runoff from the glacier. It's a mostly paved walk with a hike through a bunch of broken rocks down to the pond. Not too bad, but it is all sloped. It was pretty cool to see the water running down into the pond and got a good view of the glacier itself.
We then headed out for the Icefields Parkway which takes us down to Banff. This is also where we, OK, I, made a logistical error. Rather than getting gas before we headed out to Mount Edith Cavell I decided to get it afterward. Unfortunately I didn't look at the map closely enough and though the gas station at the edge of town was right by the start of the Iceway. It was actually back several miles. So, our start in the parkway was delayed about an hour.
Our first stop was Athabasca Falls. Not the biggest falls, but the water was really raging through this area. The coolest part is you walk right over the top and can get really close to the water and the falls. We then moved a little way down the parkway to Sunwapta Falls. These are bigger than the Athabasca falls and very scenic. We walked around a bit to get some different views of the falls and the river that feeds them and got back on the road.
On the way to the Columbia Icefield we stopped at Tangle Falls. These are right at the side of the road and aren't huge falls, but they are big enough and are really cool as the water cascades down several steps of limestone rock. We could have walked up to the top but just went up a little bit, we got the idea and it looked really neat from where we were.
We then got to Athabasca Glacier, Deb remembers coming to this same glacier as a kid. It was really poignant to see how far the glacier has receded since then. They have signs there that show where the glacier was in different years in the past. I don't know the actual distances, but it has receded ALOT. Interesting to see the scraped landscape it leaves behind as it recedes. We walked as far as we could, but didn't take the little tour to the glacier itself, maybe next time.
Here is where we wished we had more time, as it would have been nice to stop in at the Icefields center, but we wanted to keep moving. This proved to be a good decision though, as we ended up getting stuck in construction where they had a temporary stop light due to the road being one lane for both ways over a bridge. This added a good 20 minutes to our drive.
Pretty hungry by this point and so we stopped at the Rocky Mountain cafe, as it was the last food until Banff, and we knew that would be hours away. This gets back to wishing we could have stopped at the Icefields center, as they have food there, and while I'm sure it is overpriced there's no way it was as bad as this place. Talk about gouging people for bad food, we paid exorbitant prices for not great food. The only plus is it did fill us up and we didn't get sick from it.
We then drove on to Peyto Lake. We were lucky enough to see this right around sunset-awesome view. Might be the most incredible view I've ever seen. Bonus- very easy and short walk to the view point. After spending some time just soaking it in, we got back on the road.
We were anxious to get into our Vrbo as we were running out of daylight, but as we drove by bow Lake we had to stop. Another stunning view that we had to get some pictures of. We didn't hike at ll, just took the pics from the roadside. Beautiful.
We got to Vrbo after 11 and it was DARK around there, had some trouble finding the right code to get into the underground parking but we did eventually get in.
A very long, great day, with stunning views everywhere. We will definitely have to come back and do a more leisurely trip on the parkway. Put this on the list for when we're retired and can spend as many days as we like doing things.
No comments:
Post a Comment