North of the Wall

We rose early and after breakfast at Ricky’s the kids hugged our waitress goodbye. The hotel’s restaurant had been a regular for breakfast during the week and by the end our waitress knew our order and had become a favourite with the kids (she had given them a toy every meal).

We drove out at daylight waving goodbye to Banff and headed north for Jasper.

We researched road conditions the previous night and again that morning as Highway 93 – The Icefields Parkway can be treacherous this time of year. The temperature had dropped over night and continued to plummet to -23 as we drove north.

We had no trouble in our 4 wheel drive Tahoe with winter tires and poked along at a slow pace. This particular stretch of road has been rated as one of the top journeys in the world by National Geographic and Lonely Planet and I can vouch that it is definitely one of the most beautiful road trips both in the summer or winter. The 232km road connects Banff and Jasper National Parks winding through soaring rocky mountain peaks, dense deep forests, ancient glaciers, spectacular lakes and sweeping valleys. We wouldn’t have wanted to go any faster as the scenery was breathtaking, even surreal in places. I felt like we were in an episode of Game of Thrones and was expecting to see white walkers stagger out of the icy fog.

We hadn’t ventured too far when we started to notice random cars parked on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere…their drivers nowhere to be seen. The first couple we thought had maybe broken down but as we saw more and sometimes two or three parked together we wondered what was going on. About half way we stopped at a rest stop filled with more driverless cars parked, for a bathroom break when a vehicle pulled in, the occupants filing out, clipping ropes to their belts and fitting ice cleats to their boots. My curiosity got the better of me and I asked what they were up to. They pointed to the massive cliff across from us and squinting I could see ant sized people climbing an ice wall! They said it would take them about 5 hours to climb to the top and it wasn’t until we drove off that Ad and I wanted to know how long it would take them to come down!

We continued on, still passing empty cars every few miles and Ad and I started contemplating what adventurous things people were doing…more ice climbing, cross country skiing? Just driving this particular stretch of remote highway was adventurous enough for us let alone venturing out into unmarked wilderness in subzero temperatures.

We stopped at Athabasca Falls about 30km from Jasper and quickly changed everyone into their ski pants. The snow was quite deep but the trudge in was well worth it. The turquoise icy water thundering over the falls was a sight and sound to behold.

After booking into our accommodation The Lobstick Lodge we set out to explore Jasper. The scenery and township was very different to Banff with a laidback feeling and less touristy. We found grazing elk being stalked by a coyote on the edge of town on our way out to the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge on sundown.

After dinner at Montana’s we took a detour to Pyramid Lake to check out the dark sky reserve. Unfortunately it was a little cloudy and quite moonlit so not great for star gazing but we did see more elk.