Canadian Rockies: Jasper and the Icefields Parkway

Heading north on the Icefields Parkway we stopped off at the Icefield Centre to take a tour of the Athabasca Glacier in an Ice Explorer, a vehicle with balloon tyres that can drive over the crevassed surface. There was also plenty of time to walk (slide) about on the ice and take pictures.
The next day (my 50th birthday) we hiked the Cavell Meadows trail. The snow-covered Mount Edith Cavell peeks out in the centre of the photo below – at 11000+ feet, no way were we ever going to hike all the way up that!

The Cavell Meadows trail took us to several viewpoints with good views of the mountain and Angel Glacier.
Day 2 saw us at Maligne Canyon, Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake.
On our final day in Jasper we took the Jasper Tramway 3280 feet up the steep north face of The Whistlers – named after the hoary marmots that live there – and we were lucky enough to see one. From the upper terminal, we hiked to the true summit.
The next day we headed back south to our last stop – Lake Louise. More next Monday!
The glacier looks beautiful. And I love that marmot! You were so lucky to see one 🙂
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He was so cute!
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What a great post- thank you!
All my shots of our holiday there are before I started to shoot digital and it’s one of those projects! I’d probably be quicker going back and taking more. Look forward to lake Louise post- one of my personal highlights.
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Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of scanning lately for my next series (Galapagos). It’s a pain! Lake Louise is tomorrow’s offering.
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Brings back very happy memories of a trip there over 20yrs ago. My recollection is that Maligne Lake has the island with a few pine trees on it!
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Thanks. Remembering is so hard! In the old days, I carefully labelled the back of hard copy photos. There weren’t that many of them to do. Now 1000s of digital images just sit there un-indexed, and although I’m good at keeping a diary of where we’ve been it’s not always detailed enough. 21st century problems!
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When I went round the world I was so disciplined every evening after writing my diary, I would go through my digital photographs 1 by 1 and record in a book where I took every single one. I just knew I wouldn’t remember on my return. 10 years later I’m not as good and like you have zillions of un-indexed!
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Wow, that was dedicated!
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I know! I still am amazed I did it – so unlike me!!!!
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Might have been helped by the pre-dinner drink I always had as I did it 😉
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Ah, now the truth is out! That would definitely make the task more pleasant.
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That looks like an amazing trip. I have to admit, though, the juxtaposition with the ice and your short sleeves had my brain going in knots, haha. I guess it was pretty moderate outside! But what a lovely view. 🙂
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Yes, it just doesn’t seem to make sense, but the weather was very warm – one of their hottest summers as I remember.
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Well, at least it would be easy to cool down or warm up, then! 🙂
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Wow, Edith Cavell really does crop up everywhere, doesn’t she?! Stunning scenery, and I like that cheeky marmot thrown in at the end! 🙂
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Yes, yes, yes – agree with all points!
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