Highway 93 North is a 144 mile stretch of road in Alberta, Canada called Icefields Parkway that joins the hamlet of Lake Louise in Banff National Park with the town of Jasper in Jasper National Park. Although you can drive it end to end within 3 hours, you won’t want to as it’s the most scenic drive in the Canadian Rockies.
We’ve got 7 suggested attractions after you leave Banff and Lake Louise behind. These are along Icefields Parkway and in Jasper National Park:
- Bow Lake and Bow Glacier Falls
- Athabasca Glacier
- Tangle and Sunwapta Falls
- Mount Edith Cavell
- Medicine Lake, Maligne Lake and Canyon
- Valley of Five Lakes
- Athabasca Falls
The joyride begins as you leave Banff and Lake Louise behind. The highway stretches out and curls around formidable peaks. The tree-lined lanes provide peak-a-boo views of dramatic rock spires, ice-covered saddles, and turquoise waters that prevented me from putting my camera down.
I was overwhelmed when we pulled into an unserviced, first come campground at Silverhorn Creek that’s only about 1/3 of the way up the parkway.
If you’ve seen our Instagram account lately, you know that I could not get enough of the area’s turquoise-colored, glacier-fed lakes and for this reason, we stopped at Bow Lake. There’s a moderate hike to Bow Glacier Falls that’s fun to do.
With quite some distance to go before reaching the town of Jasper, we got an early start the next morning and with it came some wonderful surprises like the reflection on this lake and the clouds sitting in the valley.
Our next major stop on Icefields Parkway was the Athabasca Glacier and visitor center. Athabasca Glacier is one of the six principal “toes” of the Columbia Icefield – the largest icefield in the Rocky Mountains, covering 125 sq. miles. The ice depth of Columbia Icefield is between 330 to 1,198 feet and it gets over 280 in of snowfall per year. We walked to Glacier viewing area, and although it looked massive, we were only viewing about 2% of the entire icefield. Another fascinating fact is this icefield feeds 3 different oceans – Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific.
Continuing north on Icefields Parkway, Tangle Falls is just past the Athabasca Glacier stop and steps from the highway. This was a pretty spot to grab a little picnic lunch before walking around our next stop – the thundering Sunwapta Falls!
Sunwapta Falls consists of an upper and lower falls. Its over 60 feet high and 30 feet wide. A massive amount of water cascades over the top and upper falls is easily accessible from the parking lot. There’s also a rough path along the northern edge that lets you get close enough to feel the mist. Reaching the lower falls requires a short hike.
After the long and eventful day, we rolled into Wabasso Campground where we spent the next few nights. It was cool, wet and cloudy when we awoke the following day. Doug rarely lets the weather get in his way and convinced me that we should hike in Mount Edith Cavell Park. Short at 3.5 miles but relatively steep with 1100ft of climbing, the Angel Glacier hike also has wonderful mountain views, even in the rain.
The next day we toured downtown Jasper which has a great farmers market, a walkable downtown, and plenty of restaurants like The Raven Bistro.
Despite the continued rain, we were pumped up to see Medicine Lake, Maligne Lake and Moose Lake just a short drive from Jasper. My hair didn’t love it, but we did.
With signs of the weather clearing on our drive back towards Jasper we decided to spend the afternoon walking along Maligne Canyon.
They describe Medicine Lake as a leaky bathtub because it drains through an enormous underground cave system and flows into Maligne Canyon. There are plenty of places along this popular and well-marked canyon walk to see the water seeping through caves or right out of the porous rock. Pretty waterfalls and cascades made for a fun day! We didn’t partake, but there’s a restaurant next to the canyon as well.
We had since moved to the Waputi Campgrounds just south of downtown Jasper and enjoyed the many elk that wandered through.
With improved weather, we decided to bike a few miles south, cross the Athabasca River, and head to the Valley of Five Lakes. We rode the bikes as far as we could up the Valley of Five Lakes Trail before chaining them to a tree and continuing on foot. The trail loops around each of the 5 blue and greed colored lakes. All in all we biked/hiked about 10.4 miles and had a wonderful morning.
This, however, wasn’t enough biking for Doug so he spent the afternoon on a 35 mile round trip bike ride south to Athabasca Falls. (If you don’t want to bike this far, catch these falls on your drive up Icefields Parkway before you get as far as Jasper!)
There are good reasons why Icefields Parkway is considered one of the most scenic drives in Canada. Each sweeping turn reveals another one of nature’s splendors – ancient glaciers, beautiful vistas, enormous rocks, colorful lakes, and thundering waterfalls. Please don’t stop once you reach Banff and Lake Louise. Venture up the Icefields Parkway and see Jasper National Park if you’re anywhere near this area. You won’t regret it!
