2015 Summer Roadtrip: Day 35–Saturday—7/18: Drive from Jasper to Athabasca Falls, Icefield (Athabasca Glacier Toe of the Glacier hike), Peyto Lake overlook, Waterfowl Lakes Campground, campfire. (Accidentally checked out early from Jasper).

Warning: The beauty in the Canadian Rockies is so spectacular that we’re posting more pictures than normal J.

We’ve already driven 2,157 miles from La Crescenta to Jasper via CA, OR, WA, British Columbia and now Alberta. Although we’re going to Lake Louise and Banff for 9 nights, this does actually begin our southward return trip heading back south to the US and to LA. We drove to Athabasca Falls to show Denise the best waterfalls in the Jasper area. We all enjoyed them. Then we continued south on the Icefield Parkway to the Columbia Icefield and the many glaciers there. We did the 1.5 mile hike called the Toe of the Glacier trail which leads you to the base or toe of the Athabasca Glacier. It’s gorgeous to see the glacier—especially the ice cave at the bottom. We really liked seeing the blue ice in it, as well as watching small chunks of the glacier break off at the cave entrance and splash down into the glacier river at the toe of the glacier. It’s too dangerous to actually climb on the glacier without experienced guides because of hidden crevasses. There were signs all over warning of the danger and describing the last 3 deaths of people who went on the glacier anyway and died of hypothermia in a crevasse. Sad.

Sam made a ridiculous mistake today but it ended up being for the better. Since our trip is so long, we keep forgetting dates and days. He thought we were supposed to check out and leave Jasper today to head to Lake Louise. Oops. We weren’t supposed to leave until tomorrow but we did anyway. As we were a few hours south on the Icefield Parkway, he pulled out the piece of paper from the Jasper campground that was on the dashboard and asked, “hey, why does this say our checkout day is the 19^th when today is the 18^th”? That’s when we realized he made the mistake. So now we had no reservations and were heading south to Lake Louise on a Saturday evening —which was sold-out. Fortunately, one of our planned stops was Waterfowl Lakes, a campground which takes no reservations and where moose are often seen. We were in luck! We found a beautiful spot and so we stayed here for the night for $30 Canadian. We left the RV in the campground and drove our car 10 minutes further south to see beautiful Peyto Lake. The trail to the lookout point had many beautiful wildflowers growing alongside it. The color of peyto lake is a unique, pretty, milky light blue-green. It’s hard to describe but beautiful. At one end of the lake is a large glacier where you can see the blue-green glacier water filling the lake. Off in the distance were more lakes beneath towering cliffs and forests. We then went back to Waterfowl lakes and walked along a small river to the upper lake looking for moose. The view of the lake with the clouds and reflections was incredible. Although we didn’t find any, we all loved this campground. Outside, we cooked cheeseburgers with sautéed mushrooms and onions. We also made a campfire (they lifted the fire ban due to all the recent rain which lowered the fire danger) and ate smore’s. We also played Frisbee. Today was spectacular.