Smoke and Ice

Even with the unpredictability of distant wildfire smoke, the Icefields Parkway in Alberta from Banff to Jasper does not disappoint!

Today we were able to traverse the Parkway both directions, and the majesty of these Northern Rockies is just jaw-dropping. The walls of rock are endless, esp when you consider that what we can actually see from the road is just a sliver of the range.

Reserving National Park campsites along the Parkway is strangely stressful. You basically end up in a first-come, first-served, have-to-be-there-in-person situation, and we had no idea what to expect. We found a fantastic site that is reasonably close to our glacier tour tomorrow, and as it turns out, we found plenty of viable spots in various places. We did reserve a spot in an “overflow” area (meaning a grass lot) as a $15 backup, but thank goodness we did not have to use it!

We stopped to check out a pretty impressive little waterfall, and Steve decided to climb it for a photo op.

We found a nice little spot for our picnic lunch, which, per Keig family tradition, involved bologna sandwiches on white bread. The area was still recovering from a prior wildfire, and the wildflowers really love the newly-carboned soil.

And after lunch I even got to drive for awhile as we headed south past the Columbia Icefields. The smokey skies were really coming in by then, not a lot of blue to be found. A few more glacier shots and it was back to our campsite to hang out. Tomorrow we get to take a snow crawler out to walk on the Icefields, which should be fun!