I read somewhere that the drive between Jasper and Banff National Parks on Icefields Parkway was one of the "top ten most beautiful drives in the world," or something like that. So I was really looking forward to it, and Sam has never met a geological feature he wasn't fascinated with, so I knew he would like it too. The children are pretty good at keeping themselves amused with sticker books and games and so forth, so it was just Ziggy I was worried about. And thankfully, he stayed mostly happy and content! It was a long day in the car (in an ideal world, we would not have come all the way from Edmonton and then from Jasper to Banff in a day, but instead camped in Jasper or something so we could take our time and stop at every overlook!)—but we were still SO glad we took this route. It really was one of the most beautiful places we have EVER been. Every turn brought some new panorama that seemed like the most perfect mountain scene an artist could dream up.
Every time there was a sunny spot by the road, we would see huge washes of wildflowers—often daisies, which was surprising because the daisies here in Utah are gone by mid-June. I guess the higher elevation lets them bloom later. They were so pretty! And so abundant! I finally decided I ought to stop trying to photograph them from the car, because they mostly just looked like white indistinguishable blurs in the grass, but we did stop in one place so Daisy could join her compatriots for a picture.
We stopped to eat our picnic lunch at a lovely little spot by a stream. There was so much fighting between the children as lunch began that Sam and I moved to a different table nearby, which we designated the "non-fighting table." Naturally, the children migrated one by one over to this second table and then continued their fighting there, but we banished the worst offenders back to the first table and enjoyed a relatively peaceful lunch. :)
Here is Ziggy enjoying a moment of solitude on his little toilet. This toilet was a lifesaver, as Zig is newly toilet-trained and bathrooms are scarce on this road! It was a relief not to have to worry about if he'd be able to wait long enough between stops.
The view from our picnic table was amazing!
Oh, these mountains. They seemed SO HIGH and SO STEEP. I had actually worried a little, before our trip, that since we have such great mountains in Utah, the Canadian Rockies wouldn't seem that special to us. But these were more impressive than any mountains we've ever seen! When we got home and looked up their heights, we were so surprised to find that these mountains really aren't that much higher than ours in Utah. Our Timpanogos is nearly as tall as several mountains in Jasper and Banff. But it feels much smaller, and I'm not exactly sure why. Sam said it might be because of the lack of foothills by these Canadian Rockies, meaning you can take in their full, uninterrupted height—whereas in Utah we can't get very close to our mountains without already being rather high up in the foothills. It might also be the steep drops and cliff faces that make these mountains seem so towering and precarious, rather than gently sloped as some of ours are. Or maybe it was just because the surroundings were different with more trees and more snow. But we felt like we were experiencing mountains as we had never experienced them before!
We made a quick stop to see Athabasca Falls, which was beautiful and powerful. I love waterfalls! However—I must admit—having just seen the
dramatic plunging narrow falls of Maligne Canyon, I was a tiny bit less impressed by Athabasca Falls than I might otherwise have been. Still, it was a beautiful view and well worth the stop.
