Banff to Jasper, Icefields Parkway tour in the Canadian Rockies

It’s the ultimate scenic drive, from Banff to Jasper on the Icefields Parkway in the Rocky Mountains of Canada, including stops at knock-out sights such as Peyto Lake, the Columbia Icefield and Athabasca Falls. For my experience read on. For all the how to’s about driving or taking a tour, scroll to the bottom.

An Icefields Parkway tour

“The bus driver said you’d abandoned me,” Mark said, as I hastily boarded our bus after a stop at Peyto Lake on an Icefields Parkway tour between Banff and Jasper.

“I’m not late!” I said, trying to ignore the uncomfortable sensation of having an ENTIRE busload of tourists stare at me with a steely so-she’s-the-one-who’s-always-going-to-hold-up-the-bus expression. I turned to the bus driver for support. “You said Peyto Lake was a 15-minute stop!”

The driver grinned. “You’re not late.”

Couples shot at Peyto Lake, with woman strangely dressed like a mountie in the background, and yes, I know my pants are dirty – that’s what you get from lolling around on the rocks.

Tour through the Canadian Rockies

How was I supposed to know everyone else would board our tour bus early? With such clear views of turquoise Peyto Lake and the Canadian Rockies I’d just wanted to maximize my time so I’d gone for a mini hike, amazed at the pine-y sun-saturated silence that sprang up as soon as I’d stepped away from the viewpoint.

My husband had the wisdom not to say any more, although for him the so-she’s-the-one-who’s-going-to-hold-up-the-bus expression is a semi-permanent condition. Nonetheless, at our next stop I vowed to be early, so early I probably wouldn’t even get off the bus.

Bow Lake, a stop on the Parkway

What is the Icefields Parkway?

The Icefields Parkway is a 232 km-long (144 mile) highway that slices and curves its way through a dramatic stretch of the Canadian Rockies from Lake Louise to Jasper in Alberta, Canada. With one end in Banff National Park and the other in Jasper National Park, the parkway is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It’s a classic driving route complete with forbidding-looking glaciers, waterfalls and alpine lakes. For those without a car, you can sign up for a bus tour. Undoubtedly, the blockbuster stop on the Icefields Parkway is the Columbia Icefields.

Columbia Icefield

The Columbia Icefield

I don’t like to name drop but the Columbia Icefield, a 325 square kilometre (125 square miles) mega swath of ice that sits in a high plateau in the Rockies, is a good friend of mine. I worked at one of the ‘toes’ of this frosty sightseeing attraction – the Athabasca Glacier – for three summers after high school.

(I worked in the staff kitchen if you must know, and only once did someone find a rusty nail in the brownies.)

On ice

Because I’m so intimately acquainted with the Athabasca Glacier, I opted out of our Glacier Adventure Tour, a 20-minute ride over the Athabasca Glacier in a monstrous-looking Ice Explorer.

It’s not that I didn’t want to revisit the Columbia Icefield, which is cold and mysterious and in some places deeper than three Statues of Liberty put together, but I also wanted to visit the icefield’s newest attraction, the Glacier Skywalk, a glass platform perched 280-metres (918-feet) over the ancient Sunwapta Valley.

Skywalk!

I’ll take one glacier-inspired adrenalin rush, please

So after a quick lunch at the Columbia Icefield Glacier Discovery Centre, a tourist hub with a very crowded cafeteria, gift shop, information desk and hundreds of sightseers milling around, I hopped the shuttle to the Glacier Skywalk while the rest of our tour group boarded a shuttle for the Athabasca Glacier.

Discovery Walk

The Glacier Skywalk

I quickly learned that the Glacier Skywalk, a 6-minute drive up the Icefields Parkway, is more than a view. Here’s the drill:

• Note: If you’re driving you need to park at the Columbia Icefield Discovery Centre and take a shuttle from there.
• Once you’re off the shuttle, pick up a free audio guide at the entrance
• Walk along the 400-metre cliff path called the Discovery Trail
• Learn no end of things about big horn sheep and ecology
• Get wowed by the view … and by the long drop below

Because I’m a keen and eager traveller I read all the info boards then stopped to talk to an Icefields staffer whose job it was to stand behind a briefcase-sized display of bird skulls. (I think they were birds skulls. In retrospect they might have been claws or teeth.)

I asked how she liked spending the summer at the Columbia Icefield and if the Happy Bus still took Icefield staff members into Jasper one night a week so they can go to the bar.

She said yes, the Happy Bus still runs, so I reminisced about those weekly nightclub crawls, feeling a shadow of sadness because I’d never ride the Happy Bus again.

Birds don’t need Happy Buses

The glass platform

Then I continued on to the big kahuna of the Glacier Skywalk, the glass-bottomed viewing platform that loops out over the Sunwapta Valley.

If you’re not afraid of heights the glass platform is fun. If you are afraid, you’ll probably cling to the railing and hope for salvation. Either way, you’ll get stunning views of snow, rock, waterfalls and the vast cold spread of the Columbia Icefields.

Fun

Upping the excitement on our tour through the Rockies

Then I noticed a man taking photographs of his daughter (at least I hope she was his daughter) as she lay on the glass floor.

Hm, I thought. What a great way to ramp up the Glacier Skywalk adrenalin rush. I ran over and asked him to take a picture of me, too. He agreed, if not enthusiastically, so I lay down on the glass and tried to look glamorous while also earthy and one with the ancient glaciers and big horn sheep.

Work it! Work it!

Panic on the Parkway

Perhaps the photo session took longer than it should have, but lying with your back on a glass floor 918 feet over a glacially-carved valley is something to savour, and I didn’t start worrying about the time until I saw the lineup for the shuttle back to the Discovery Centre.

I can’t be late again, I thought (even though I hadn’t been late earlier), so I tapped my foot in a frenzy until I got on a shuttle, then pushed my way through the pandemonium at the Discovery Centre in search of the group and then out into the parking lot, which was full of one hundred million tour buses.

Hey, wait for me!

I’m really going to be in trouble now, I thought, my heartbeat fluttering like bird wings. Could the bus had left without me? Wouldn’t my husband notice he was missing a wife? Frantically I tried to text and phone him, but there was no reception. I started to wonder about hotels on the Icefields Parkway and how I would find one, or if I could hitchhike and catch up.

After 30 minutes of running around with my hands in the air, I found our bus driver, practically clinging to him in  fright. He assured me the group wasn’t back from their Glacier Discovery Tour yet, so I spent another 10 minutes watching eagle-eyed for anyone from the group in order to race ahead of them and be the first on the bus.

Where is the group?

Icefields Nostalgia

In retrospect, I should have used that extra time to stroll around remembering my time at the icefields including:

• the time I’d walked by a bear without blinking because I wasn’t quite awake yet
• the long mountain hikes
• the night some staff members (not me) snuck a Beware of Killer Penguins sign onto the ice

But I was so relieved to find our group (and be the first on the bus, even if I’d had to shoulder a few retired couples out of the way), I couldn’t dwell on the missed opportunity to revisit my past. All I could do was sit back with relief and watch the dove grey mountains as we sped down the Icefields Parkway.

Athabasca Falls

Athabasca Falls

At the final scenic viewing stop, Athabasca Falls, I stuck close to my husband (who never seems to get in these predicaments), and on the last stretch to Jasper it was all so majestic and worry free that I sat back in contentment, thinking that our Brewster Icefields Parkway tour bus was a Happy Bus after all.