Day 28- June 20- Icefields Parkway

The drive from Banff to Jasper is considered to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world. That road is called the Icefield parkway – there are mountains and lakes on both sides almost the entire way…180 miles or, as they say in Canada 233 km.

We stopped at multiple places to pull over and take pictures of the beautiful scenery.

One of our favorite places was a place called Peyto Lake.  When you look at this lake, it doesn't even look real due to the turquoise color of it. We had to hike down past where the majority of the tourists are because at one point it was crawling with people.

I mean seriously – does it get any more beautiful than this?

Of course – most of the lakes we stop at have to have some time for skipping rocks. The boys continue to get better at their ability to skip rocks.

We saw several glaciers along the way.

We stopped at the Mistaya Canyon which is a sharp beautiful canyon where the water runs very quickly. It is gorgeous.

We also pulled over at Bridal Veil Falls and there was a secret falls there that is not labeled called panther falls. It was unbelievably powerful.

When I got close to it, the boys started freaking out a little bit worried that I was going to fall in. Once I get close to the edge, I lay down on my belly and scoot closer so I can see down into the canyon.

As we neared the halfway point, we started getting a lot of snow/rain/clouds.

We stopped at the Columbia Icefield to get some information. Hunter made a few friends here :-)

The Columbia glacial Icefield is around the boundary for both Banff and Jasper national parks. Shortly after that – we hit Tangled falls.

When we got to the campground, the girl checking us in said to be aware of bear and elk. She said it was calving season for the elk and not to go between a mama cow elk and her baby. We saw about 50 elk in our loop in the campground as soon as we pulled in… Including several babies like the one below.

Once we got settled in to our campsite – we headed into the small town of Jasper to get some more information.