Columbia Icefields Parkway
Lake Louise to Jasper
230 km one way
You couldn’t do this drive often enough to be anything but awed by it.
As you drift past the silent majesty of millennia-old glaciers, millions of tons of age-old ice draped over the looming, ancient peaks, you may as well leave your jaw on the dashboard, because around the next bend it’ll just land there again.
Easily and without a doubt the most dramatic stretch of highway in the province, if not the entire country.
Icefields Tour Itinerary
Stay at Baker Creek Mountain Resort in Lake Louise and finish your road trip in Jasper at the Overlander Mountain Lodge.
You may also want to consider including a jaunt over to Rocky Mountain House's The Prairie Creek Inn.
Accommodation
Spanning 232 km from Lake Louise to Jasper, the Icefields Parkway doesn't offer a lot of accommodation in between. You can stay in Lake Louise or Jasper or both! For a different experience, travel the Icefields Parkway and turn off on the David Thompson Highway to Rocky Mountain House.
Baker Creek by Basecamp
Lake Louise, Alberta
Overlander Mountain Lodge
East Jasper / Hinton, Alberta
The Prairie Creek Inn
Rocky Mountain House, Alberta
Dining
Top Attractions
Columbia Icefields and the Athabasca Glacier
The Columbia Icefield is the largest icefield in the Canadian Rockies, covering some 230 sq km (89 sq mi) to a depth of 365 m (1,200 ft) and some 28 km (17 mi) long. Draped over the continental divide on a high alpine plateau along the Alberta-BC border, it receives an average of 7 m (23 ft) of new snowfall per year.
Banff National Park
Rocky Mountain peaks, turquoise glacial lakes, a picture-perfect mountain town and village, abundant wildlife and scenic drives come together in Banff National Park - Canada’s first national park and the flagship of the nation’s park system.
Jasper National Park
Wildlife
Seeing wildlife up close and personal is often the highlight of a visit to the Canadian Rockies.
Most people visiting Banff National Park and Jasper National Park want to see wildlife. Our national parks offer such an incredible diversity of wildlife that it is likely that you will see some animals and birds. There are over 53 species of mammals and over 260 species of birds.
