Icefields Parkway to Lake Louise

Wednesday we had cold and partly cloudy weather.  We had a slow morning of breakfast, coffee and dumping tanks.  The trip advisor said we may hit snowy patches on the Icefields Parkway but we went for it anyway and left the campground at 11:10.  

We rolled back into Jasper and the first few fuel stations we had picked out were leveled by the fire.  We found one a little further into town and with some illegal turns, made it in just fine.  There were a bunch of sheep and elk on this part of the trip.  After fueling up, we headed south on the Icefields which has been labeled a top drive in the world by Conde Naste Traveler.  It lived up to it.  The first 20 or so miles southbound are burnt up with fire scars going all the way up to the tree line in many places.  The mountains are still beautiful though.  

The rest of the drive has mountain and glacier views around almost every corner.  Blue lakes and rivers, bighorn sheep and plenty of pull offs to stop and take photos.  The Columbia Ice Field and Athabaskan Glacier Area are impressive.  Surprisingly the place was packed with RV’s and tour busses.  I think it’s a big area for fall tours.  It was so busy we didn’t stop at the visitor center/lodge.  It was even snowing up there, the sun was out too.  

There is a very steep down road from here and the valley is impressive, pictures do not do it justice.  I really enjoyed our engine/exhaust brakes.  We passed some more stunning lakes (Bow and Peyto) and made our way into Lake Louise.  We got set up in site 99 at the Lake Louise Hard Sided Campground.  The sign said to find a spot that isn’t occupied and come back to register.  

I walked back down to register and filled everything out.  We hung our tag from the post and then made some dinner.  We were watching a movie when a class C pulled up and the guy knocked on our door.  The dogs went nuts and I went out to speak with him.  He had a very deep French accent and told me this was his site.  

I advised him there was no tag on the power box and he told me he didn’t have one.  He then pulled out a folded stack of receipts that were paper clipped and spring clipped together.  I told him he should have hung those off the post and told him to give me 30 minutes to pack up.  He said, “really”? I told him we were all set up and it would take a minute.  

As I was starting to pack up, he came back and said he would pull in next to us in 100 and stay there unless someone came and kicked him out.  Based on our first meeting, I didn’t think he would’ve been that nice.  Maybe he realized he made a mistake when they gave him all the paperwork and two clips to hang it up.  Anyway, in the end, I’m glad he didn’t make us pack up.