SATURDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2026

(Jasper, AB – Lake Louise,AB)

I was up earlier, showered and had the coffee brewing while I packed some things back into my case. We’re broadly living out of the cases, with things sorted by packing cubes, so it’s not as if we have to repack a lot every time we move on. I made a couple of flasks of tea to take with us on our trip, and once we were both ready we put everything in the car, checked out of the hotel, and did one final hike into town for breakfast. The scenery was still beautiful, and we’ll miss these mountains and the easy way we can walk everywhere.

We were going to eat at Papa George’s, in part because it was good but also it was closer to us, but it was closed for a group event until 1030. That wasn’t long to wait but we decided to go back to Harvest instead and set out across town. The breakfast there was at good as the first morning. Walking back to the hotel we picked up a muffin (for me) and a peanut butter chocolate cup (for Andrew) from the Bear’s Paw bakery which will be our lunch.

Then it was time to get on the road. Our first stop was at the Athabasca falls. The river was definitely at the lower end of its volume, based on the spread of dry gulch either side of it. Despite this, the power of the waterfall was huge, its sound reverberating in the canyon, and the vibrations felt in your chest.

Our second stop was another waterfall, the Sunwapta falls. This was a narrow, picturesque canyon through which the water was tumbling.

We had no planned stops after this, as we’d stopped at many places on the northbound trip. However, the scenery was very different today. The clouds were low, hugging and twisting around the mountains. As we climbed higher the mountains disappeared into fog, whilst snow appeared on trees and at the side of the road. We passed Tangle Creek Falls, decided it was worth a proper look, and u-turned back to a snow-covered pullout. The waterfall itself was a frozen cascade down the side of the mountain.

Shortly after that we passed a couple of mountain goats (I incorrectly referred to yesterday’s bighorn sheep as goats, when of course, they weren’t). These were definitely white fluffy goats, but I only got a picture of their behinds in passing, so you’ll have to just believe me!

We pulled off the road in the wide valley of the North Saskatchewan River to eat our lunch and have some hot tea. We were both feeling the cold from hopping in and out of the car, the day having failed to get into positive figures. (Yesterday was similarly cold, but at least the sun made it feel just a little better). From there we stopped briefly at Bow lake, which looked quite different from our previous stop a couple of days ago.

We reached out hotel, the Mountain Lodge at around 4.30pm and checked in to a lovely room which had clearly had recent refurbishment. Feeling tired, we decided to go and get dinner early, and chose the Bill Peyto cafe (named after the early explorer). This, it turned out, was a restaurant attached to the hostel, which caused us a bit of confusion in searching and parking, but once we had that figured out we went in for dinner. We’re both had burgers, but I had soup instead of fries with mine, and it was extremely good.

We made short stops at the supermarket and liquor store for supplies, but other from that, it was back to our room for an early night. We’re hoping the clouds lift tomorrow, as otherwise we won’t see the Lake Louise mountains.

[Editor’s note: road trip photos to follow when I’m less tired.]