Monday: I got up at 8. We are still in Jasper. After my breakfast, that usually consists of toast and nutella, I called my parents and had a call for an hour, because Mario and I had to leave the Hostel at 10 to get to the Maligne Lake. We rented one canoe for 11am until 12am. It was a 45min drive up there. Stunning views along the way, some wildlife (mostly deer ad elk) and just amazing driving along the highway through the Rockies. After every section, after every corner or curve, there is something else or a different view on the mountains. Anyways, we arrived shortly before 11 and went out with our canoe. Such a beautiful lake, with stunning mountains around it. I loved it on there. We weren´t able to go to Spirit Island, that would have been a 4/5 hours canoeing trip and we just had an hour, but even though, we completely enjoyed it. After our Canoe Trip we went 500m further up the street and parked in the other parking lot. We started the Opal Hike. I gotta say that this Hike probably has been the most exhausting hike for me so far. 10km and an elevation of 800m. I think we went the whole way just uphill, but it was worth it. We had stunning and amazing views from the peak. We could have gone further up, what I really wanted, but we didn´t have any more power and time left, so we decided just to relaxe at the „first“ peak, where we also had some amazing views. After spending 30 minutes up there we hiked back down. In the evening we had some leftover noodles and went to bed quiet early.
Tuesday: Mario and I are so exhausted. We got up at nine and we both didn´t feel that good. I mean good, but tired and just exhausted. I guess that is just because oft he last 8 weeks of travelling, hiking, West Coast Trail, farm work…. Anyways, we drove to 11am to the „Valley of the Five Lakes“ and hiked the 8km and easy doable 100m of elevation. We had 30 degrees and Mario and i were just sweating the whole time, even though the hike wasn´t exhausting. The five Lakes are beautiful. Blue water, water that is blue like I´ve never seen it before. Unbelivable. We went for a swim in the second lake. It was freezing cold, but so good. One thing that I realized in my two days in Jasper, ist hat there are a lot of french speaking people here. In our Hostel, on all the Trails, just crazy. Probably a lot of Quebecois, who come here to enjoy their summer. The cool thing about is, that I can speak a bit french and can improve it. I realized that since I am out of school and I haven´t seen Gianni in a year, my french is getting worse, so I have to keep going speak it. Around 3pm we arrived back at our Hostel, where we took a power nap, planned the next couple of days and prepared dinner. We wanted to do pizza (with selfmade dough) But the problem was that the dough was just shitty, so that we had to take pre-made tortilla dough. Wasn´t that tasty, but ok. Let´s see where we´re gonna head tomorrow.
All in all, Jasper is a great city. Even though it is crazy expensive, really small and mostly consists of hotels, motels, hostels and vacation houses (tourist city), I do like it. Living, making holidays directly in the Rockies or even having Jasper as a base camp for your holidays, your hikes or other stuff. Jasper is a great location to explore the beautiful north part of the Columbia Icefield Parkway and the Rockies. More to come.
Wednesday: I just say COLUMBIA ICEFIELD PARWAY! What a beautiful Highway between Jasper and Lake Louise and we´ve just seen the first part of it. But let me start in the morning. Mario and I both had a phone call at 9. After this we had breakfast, packed our stuff together, went for groceries and started the day around 11. We headed south the Icefield Parkway, direction Lake Louise. First stop after 20km was Athabasca Falls. A short 10 minutes walk and we arrived at the Falls. Definitley a must-see on this route. I mean it is maybe in total a 30 minutes stop and you´ve got a beautiful viewpoint, where u can see the Falls and the big Mountains behind it. A nice spot for a great photo. After our little stop we went on to Sunwapta Falls. Just another 30 minutes drive. This is definitley my favourit of the two Falls. Incredible nice. Same here. Maybe a 30 minutes stop, not even that, probably less, but it is so worth it and a Must-See. Close to the Falls is our Hostel for the night, but it was just 1:30pm, so we decided to drive a it further south. Destination was the Athabasca Glacier and the Wilcox Pass. A Trail where u´ve got an incredible view on the Glaciers. First stop was the Glacier. I´ve never seen a Glacier in my life before, so I was excited. We were able to get close to the Glacier, if u wanna walk on it, u have to book a guided tour, so we just walked to the edge, but it was worth it. We were able to see on our 15 minutes „Hike“ the development of the Glaciers in the past 150 years. It is just crazy how much the Glacier shrinked in this time. They put up signs where it was said „In 1928, the Glacier was up to here“. Seeing this and still having to deal with people who are saying climate change doesn´t exist, that is just not understandable. Anyways, we moved on to our 9km, 500m elevation Hike. We had an incredible view on the Glaciers on the opposite site of us. Because it started to rain we didn´t go the whole way up, almost, but not the whole way, but the views were still amazing. After this we hiked back down and drove to our Hostel for the night. In general I can highly recommend the Icefield Parkway. This is one oft he most beautiful and stunning roads in the world. Honestly there is so much to see, to do, that u could even spend here two weeks. Just between Jasper and Lake Louise (266km far away from each other). Anyways, Mario and I are gonna spend 2 full days between these two cities. That is the plan. Tomorrow we are heading to Bow and Abraham Lake and probably gonna do some stops and hikes on the way.
Thursday: Got up pretty early and started the day with our drive back south, heading to Lake Louise. Still, the Icefield Parkway is incredile. It looks completely different every day. Depends on weather, direction of driving it … Anyways, we headed to Abraham Lake. It was a 2 hours drive, pretty long, but u forget the time when driving a road like this. Honestly, even though after the Athabasca Gaciers there was not a lot to see, the views are still awesome, the drive from Jasper to the Glacier was the prettiest one so far. If u´r heading to Abraham Lake, you´re leaving the Icefield Parkway and continue on the David Thompson Highway. There is in my opinion such a big difference. The Icefield Parkway is so much more prettier than the Thompson Highway, same about the Abraham Lake when we arrived there. I was a bit disappointed, because on the pictures in the internet it looked amazing, but I would say it wasn´t worth it to leave the Parkway for almost a 2 hour Out&Back drive to the Lake. Anyways, we saw it and that is also part of exploring. Seeing something that soesn´t freak u out. Anyways, we headed back on the Parkway and went to Mistaya Canyon. A short little 10 minutes hike and we could enjoy the amazing power of water and the way how the water built it´s own way down from the mountains. A great canyon. We went on to the Bow Glacier Falls. It´s about30 minutes north from Lake Louise. Couple days ago, back in Jasper, when we´ve done the Opal Peak Hike, I said it has been my most favourit hike so far, this one is probably even better. The 10km In&Out Hike was gorgeus. I litteraly felt like being in another world. We hiked along the whole Bow Lake, which is completely turquoise. Actually it is a mix of blue, green and turquoise. Unfortunately the lake wasn´t quiet and flat, so we weren´t able to take a picture of the mountains and the sky reflected in the water. Anyways, beautiful hike until the end of the lake, weh ad to follow the river deltha until we got to some wooden stairs. After this we were already able to see the Valley with all the Waterfals. Just gorgeus. We hiked up tot he biggest Waterfal, took pictures and just enjoyed our time. Further we´ve been there completely alone, so we had the whole moment just for ourselves. Probably we´ve seen a marmot or a wolverine. We are not sure, it looked more like a little cute marmot, but it looked similiar to a wolverine and in the beginning there was a sign with something on it about the wolverines in this valley, so we weren´t sure, but still great to see either animal. After spending 30 minutes at the end of the Trail we headed back, jumped into the icecold Glacier Lake (Bow Lake) and drove to Lake Louise, where I am currently laying down on my bed and writing this blog draft. Amazing day, unfortunately the last one on the Icefield Parkway, but I guess we still have some more great streets on our trip. AND…. I haven´t seen any bears or mooses so far on our Road Trip. Hopefully they will come up the next days.
Friday: Good Morning Lake Louise! We got up, ad breakfast and started our day around 11ish. We had two things on our bucket list. Emerald Lake and the Takakkaw Falls. First thing were the Falls. The Falls are so tall, just crazy and beautiful. I guess that they are the third biggest falls in Canada, so pretty impressive. Even though we´ve been 300 metres far away from the Takakkaw Falls, we got wet. Took some pictures and enjoyed our time on a bench with the beautiful view of the Falls. Then we moved on tot he Emerald Lake. We arrived there around 12:30pm. There is a little Café on a little Island close to the shore, where we had a cool beverage. We took pictures of this breathtaking lake, we were even able to take a picture with the reflection of the mountains on the water and finally jumped into the lake. A Glacier Lake is always a bit colder than the others, but because it was so hot on this day, it was just so refreshing. I think we´ve had around 30 degrees, so I was maybe 20 minutes out there swimming😊 Afterwars we headed back to our Campground fort he night where we stayed form 4pm on. A really chilly day, but even though it was relaxing, we´ve seen cool stuff. Tomorrow we´re heading early to the Lake Moraine and Lake Louise, probably another chilly day, but we´ve got two more exhausting days coming up after these days.
Saturday: We started the day at 9. Drove to Lake Moraine. We wanted to go there, arrived around 9:15 and we weren´t able to take the road to Lake Moraine, because some Parcs Canada Staff blocked the road. Why? Parking is full. At 9:15, during Covid… just crazy. I mean we have 30 degreees, blue sky and Saturday, but we didn´t expect it to be that full. Lake Moraine is known for the one picture that almost everyone knows when they read a magazin, when they see a TV show of canadien Rockies , which shows the Mountains on the left hand side, the reflection on the lake next to it. Just google it and you´ll remember it or just scroll a bit and you´ll see my taken pictures, which are probably worse than the ones in the internet. Anyways, we decided to keep going to Lake Louise and go for a hike there. The Lake Agnes Trail is 8km long, elevation of 400M. The Trail and around Lake Lousie, it was crazy busy. We realized that there r a lot of canadiens that make vacation in the Rockies, especially people from Quebec. I guess even though there aren´t any international tourists, thanks to Covid, there r plenty of national tourists from all over Canada. The Hike was beautifuk, even though it was crowded. We enjoyed it. We were pretty fast and we both realized that we are in a really good shape after all the hikes we´ve done. We passed a ton of people and noone passed us. But this doesn´t matter. When we arrived at Lake Agnes, after we passed beautiful Lake Mirror, we took pictures, I jumped into the icecold water. Glacier Lakes are just crazy cold. I want to say soory. All people wanted to take pictures of the Lake, with the nice reflection on the water, I probably ruined that when I jumped in there. Anyways, the Lake was so refreshing after hiking while under 30 degrees. We hiked back down, took pictures at Lake Lousie and drove back to the road, which brings u to Lake Moraine. Still, parking is full, noone can access this road. We decided to keep going to Banff, where we will stay fort wo nights. It´s just a 40 minutes drive from Lake Louise. For that reason we said let´s get up pretty early tomorrow, let´s drive to 8am to Lake Moraine and after that we will head back to Banff and will do stuff there. The rest of the day we haven´t done a lot. Mostly relaxed and went for a walk around Banff. Went to bed at 11pm.
Sunday: We decided to go to Lake Moraine on Monday, because weekends are just crazy busy. So wem et with two german girls, which weh ad contact with in a german Work&Travel Group. Wem et at the Trailhead of Sulphur Mountain, the Trail that I´ve already done together with the danish girl Frida back in Winter, when I was working on the „Black Whiskey Ranch“. I gotta say the Hike was easier than the first time. Even though we had 32 degrees, beautiful views from the top, back down around noon. The rest of the day was more like doing nothing. Just to hott o do anything. We just sit in our hotel room, drove to a Lake, jumped in it and drove back. Hopefully the upcoming days won´t be as hot as this one.
My last week in Canada is gonna come. Unfortunately. Honestly I love going back, but on the other hand I would love to explore more of this amazing country. BUT, I am gonna enjoy the last week. Every little second o fit and then I am looking forward to, well I guess just everything, back in Germany.
Canada Work&Travel 