2014 Exploring The Northwest – DAY 16 – Icefields Parkway
Today’s goal was to see a part of the Icefields Parkway, then on to Lake Louise in the afternoon. The tour books all point to the Icefields Parkway as a top attraction. It extends north from Lake Louise to Jasper and beyond. That’s more than 140 miles, one-way – too much driving for one day. We decided to stop at the first highlight at Bow Lake and see the Peyto Glacier [ see photos below]. The unusual color of Bow Lake is the result of glacier creep that grinds the rock beneath. We took a 2-mile, scenic hike and saw some unusual high country plant life, such as the Anemone, which looks like a puff of cotton. We picnicked for lunch in a beautiful setting on our way back to Lake Louise.
Our next goal was to see Lake Louise. Unfortunately the number of visitors, including cars, tour busses, and RV’s prevented us from getting there. We don’t understand why so many people are here at this time of year. We thought we’d be by ourselves – I guess others had the same idea. It is clear that Canada Parks hasn’t figured out how to accommodate the volume of visitors. We can only imagine how traffic would make this a nightmare place in the high-season of July and August. Despite the beauty of the area, it is not clear we’ll come back unless they solve the traffic and congestion problems – other parks, such as Glacier National Park, Zion National Park, Yosemite National Park seemed to have solved it by using shuttle busses.
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