DAY 57 - 62 (June 29 - July 4): Canada's Grand National Parks

This will be a massive post of our week in Jasper, Lake Louise & Banff.  

I am sitting at the Banff Public Library on the 4th of July since we can get free WiFi here!  Here is the synopsis...from Dawson Creek, BC we quickly pass into Alberta, and are greeted in the town of Beaver Lodge by this gigantic Beaver - LOL!

We hit a lot of bugs on our drive and Barry takes note of this in one of his latest doodles...

Alberta seems to be a big logging Province (State)...there are a TON of logging areas and trucks...and these signs!

We asked the Lin's for their itinerary when they came here in '19.  Thank goodness we follow it, as I did not understand the extent of these 3 National Parks (even though my parents took us to Banff & Lake Louise, I wasn't paying attention to the details back then!).  Here is a map that shows our overall itinerary, even though as a last minute thought, we are cutting our stay in Banff short by 1 night - it is just way too crowded here, and we want to end our stay with our great memories of Lake Louise...

The Icefields Parkway which connects Jasper and Lake Louise is a highlight, but Jasper itself has 5 areas of interest that also cannot be missed. Here are our highlights from Jasper:

We tackled the first half of the Icefields Parkway on our first day in Jasper (the slide with the waterfalls).  We did the rest of it on our way to Lake Louise.  Here are highlights from that second half drive.

Meanwhile Luke is doing just fine.  He has been seen at work with both Dia & Jake...relaxing and napping!

We anticipated that by now the parks we are visiting would be crowded, and we were not wrong - it is packed!  On our full day in Lake Louise we biked around the "Village", and did the 4 mile hike to the lake. We barely stopped as it is wall to wall people, and the Fairmont is packed when it starts to drizzle.  We decide to get up super early the next day to do the "Plain of Six Glaciers" hike, which came recommended by both the Lin's and Uncle Brad.  This might just be the highlight of our trip!

...and then we ran into this guy!  He was literally on the trail in front of us around the bend.  Barry took this shot while I got the bear spray out.  I think he was more scared of us, and ran down into the valley.

Here is a shot of the crowds along the lake line when we returned in the early afternoon.

On to Banff by way of Bow Valley Parkway.

By the time we get to Banff, it is so crowded we can barely get a photo with their sign.  I think we would have had to wait for at least 20 minutes to get a clear shot, so we decide to take a photo in between when others are doing theirs!

This is why we are planning our exit here early.  We will try to hit (Canada's) Glacier Nat'l Park and split the ride up back to Seattle so it is not too long.

...a last food collage to remind us of some of our meals on this leg...

Miles driven: 406 (Dawson Creek - Jasper), 68 (Driving around Jasper), 155 (Jasper - Lake Louise), 45 (Lake Louise - Banff)