Icefields Parkway Grandeur

The majestic scenery along this 143-mile mountain route is truly one of the best in the world. Words and photos cannot come close to showing how incredible the sights are, with waterfalls galore, rushing rivers everywhere, glaciers, rocky peaks, lush valleys, and cloudy mists on the mountain tops. If you combine all the glorious views in Yosemite, the Colorado Rockies, and the Swiss Alps, you need to multiply it by ten and then assume they go on continuously for 143 miles.

The photo above is at our lunch stop on Saturday at Bow Lake, some 30 miles north of Lake Louise. It had just stopped raining, so the guys were glad to see me finally arrive in the motorhome. I had ridden the first 8 miles with them, and just as I turned around to head back for the RV, it started pouring. I had to completely change clothes before driving ahead to meet up with them.

Right now we are in the town of Hinton, which is just east of Jasper, outside the national parks we've been in since last Thursday. Let me go back to after my last posting on Saturday afternoon, when I rode up to Lake Louise. It was a REALLY steep hill, and I could not believe Bob did it on his heavy bike. The others were back to the RV when I returned from my computer time, so I rode up alone and had to hurry to make our lasagna dinner already in the oven. Okay, so here's my photo of the most photographed spot in all of Canada:

That glacier in the back is 4.5 miles away, and when a chunk of ice falls, it takes 20 seconds to hear the BOOM from where I'm standing. The tour book said that each day in the summer, tour buses drop thousands of people off to take a photo, then they immediately get back on the bus and depart. I was lucky I was up there at 6:30 pm, because there was hardly anyone. Sure enough, it's pretty incredible to see.

Day 8 Saturday, June 23. Lake Louise to 7 mi n of Saskatchewan Crossing. Distance 55 miles. My distance 21 miles.

Early that morning, Rick and I rode back to the village to access the Internet. I got to say good morning to Janet.

During my 8 miles I rode with the others, I got this shot of Bob with a sampling of our background scenery:

When I finally reached them at Bow Lake for lunch (see photo at top), they had to change out of their wet clothes. Check out this shot of the shower where most of the stuff got hung, although anywhere and everywhere was fair game throughout the RV.

Derek decided not to put on wet clothes and continue, but the other three did. Derek and I pulled off the road ahead and hiked UP UP UP through snow to reach a viewpoint for Peyto Lake. Isn't it amazing?, and this was only one of thousands of glorious views we had on the Icefields Parkway:

I also liked this photo of Derek with a snowball during our walk to the viewpoint. Playing in the snow on June 23!

Bert thinks it's pretty cold at this stop farther ahead, with Rick right behind.

Mosquitoes!! I was glad I could quickly locate my mosquito head net when Derek and I pulled into our rustic campsite in the middle of nowhere, amid the scenic splendor north of where the wide Saskatchewan River crosses under the highway. Yes, the little pesky problem has begun, at least in our campgrounds the past two nights. Here I am preparing for today's ride:

Getting back to Saturday, after we changed clothes and locked our bikes, we drove the RV back to the Crossing to see if we could get WIFI and dry our clothes at a laundry. No luck on both those counts, but we DID decide to eat dinner (Rick, Bert and I) at the cafeteria, and man did my BBQ pulled pork sandwich taste great! We then returned to the campsite and hit the hay by 8 pm!!

Day 9 Sunday June 24 Rampart Campground to Jasper. Distance 82 miles.

More scenic splendor, including the vast Columbia Icefield glacier (74 sq miles of ice) and Weeping Wall, a waterfall masterpiece. First off, take a look at Bob on our "road ahead". Wouldn't you like to ride a bike here?

We've seen quite a few black bears, although Rick sees the most - he's an eagle eye for wildlife. Here's one next to the road last Sat. morning. Not that great a picture, but I didn't want to linger on getting it just right.

Saturday was the day for impressive waterfalls all along the way, but this place called the Weeping Wall took the prize. The tour book said that in winter, they all merge together to form one huge waterfall of ice with many layers, which is popular with ice climbers (something along with bungee jumping I have no desire to try).

At Yosemite, you need to hike a few or many miles to see most of their magnificent waterfalls; here you just need to stop on the highway bridge and look down:

From this bridge, we had an epic 8-mile climb that rose 1425 feet, a 1/4-mi portion of which was a 14% grade! Part way up we got this view of where we had been below, and of course you can glimpse the beauty where we were fortunate enough to ride for the past three days.

Once we crested that monster climb, we descended to the Columbia Icefield. There it is in the background as Rick poses next to the "glaciermobile".

To give you an idea of how big it is, I took this photo using my maximum 20X zoom of people in front of and on the glacier:

We continued past endless incredible sights to the lunch stop at 36 miles. Our lunch view in this direction was of a range called Endless Chain:

After this lunch break, just as we were ready to go again, it started to sprinkle. I was already pulling out, so I went on even though the others hoped if they waited a little while, the rain would stop. It didn't stop. It poured. 30 miles later the RV passed me and stopped and I learned that they decided not to go back out into the rain for the remaining 43 miles. I have no photos of that section due to the constant rain. After we settled into our campsite and I showered and we locked up the bikes, we drove into Jasper. THEN the sun came out and it was a beautiful afternoon and evening! We all did tons of laundry and some Internet, although I could not connect. We ate at this brew pub, with its big horn sheep statue out front:


Day 11 (today) Jasper to Hinton. Distance 57 mi. (My distance so far - 721 mi.)

The picture below sums up today: sun, warm, scenic, and downhill from the Rockies. What also made it a nice ride was the tailwind and it was only 57 miles.

Not too far out of Jasper we saw several elk near the road. At first I passed them without wanting to photo them since we've seen quite a few lately, but then since all of us stopped to read an historical marker, I turned back and got this photo:

At the lunch stop, I noted a noise from my rear wheel when I spun it. Rick, our mechanical genius, said the bearings needed greasing, probably due to all the riding in the rain. So, the spare wheels I brought from Ohio were not a waste of time and space. I changed over to the spare, and we will fix the original hub at a later time (when we don't have Internet!).

Rick can always spot wildlife. I don't how he saw this elk hidden under a tree, but I wanted to show you because it was a full-antlered buck, unlike the other does we'd seen up to now. Look carefully...

Tomorrow we have an 84-mi day, then about 100 miles as we now head toward Dawson Creek and the start of the Alaska Highway in just a few more days. Here is a map showing where we are tonight, at the bottom, and where we're headed over the next four days to Dawson Creek, at the top.

Everyone continues to do well, although Rick has been having technology problems with his Garmin. This afternoon it seems to have failed completely, so he rode into Hinton for a new one but was unsuccessful finding one. To top it off, he had a flat, which is now the group's 4th. Not too bad. Northward!