From Jasper to Canmore
Up at about 8:00AM today. We showered, packed our suitcases, then went for breakfast at a place called the Wicked Cup, which was attached to our hotel, the Maligne Lodge. The food was delicious and, as we were hotel guests, we received a 15% discount off our breakfast bill.
We returned to the hotel, finished packing our bags, and loaded them into the vehicle. We then went to the hotel office to check out. The fog was slowly lifting and, luckily, we had a beautiful sunny day with which to travel and see the sights along the Icefields Parkway:
We explored the town of Jasper a bit and gathered some food for the long drive down the Icefields Parkway. We retrieved our vehicle from the hotel parking lot, refuelled at a station just down the street, then left for our scenic drive down the Icefields Parkway. Our goal is to reach Canmore for tonight’s stay.
It was an all day drive, as we stopped at many lookout points along the Parkway for photos. We stopped to admire so many stunning locations but the most notable and beautiful were:
Sunwapta Falls
Waterfowl Lake
Bow Lake
No picture can do these stunning locations justice. They must be seen in person to be fully appreciated.
The weather started out beautiful and sunny but turned to pouring rain, then some snow flurries, about halfway down the Parkway. For the last hour of the drive, however, the weather became fine again, so we at least got to see some of the mountains in all their splendour.
After a good 8 hours of driving and sightseeing we finally arrived in Canmore. Our hotel here was the Canmore Rocky Mountain Inn, where we booked into Room #414. To call this place a dump would be unkind but it needed a major facelift and was quite dirty. We’ve stayed in a lot of hotels over the years but this one was probably one of the worst [if you’re interested in some further reading, my TripAdvisor review of this hotel is located here].
We needed food as it was around 7:00PM, so we opted for Boston Pizza as it was close to the hotel. We finished up with a stop at Dairy Queen for dessert, then returned to the hotel for the evening. We unpacked a bit and just relaxed, then went off to bed about 10:00, absolutely exhausted from the long day of driving, sightseeing and fresh mountain air.
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