Alberta, Canada Road Trip: Day 4 (Driving to Jasper)

If you were following my documentation of this wonderful road trip, you know that Day 4 was a day brimming with adventures and fantabulous sceneries (Lake Moraine, Lake Louise, Ice Field Walk, and Skywalk) and so by this time, I was very ready to call it a day.

It was about 5 pm when we set out towards our hotel for the night in Jasper. It would be about a little over an hour's drive away along the Columbia Icefield Parkway or AB 93 N. This parkway is such a joy to traverse because it's full of breathtaking sceneries and opportunities for wildlife sighting. There are viewpoints along the way. Stop as many times as you can.

We were driving happy when all of a sudden, we saw a waterfalls by the road side, and thankfully a parking area just across the freeway from waterfalls. Then I saw the sign that says this is the Tangle Creek Waterfalls.

Other waterfalls you can reached by hiking long trails, but here it's road side, how cool is that? Someone suggested hiking up but we didn't have any time for that at all.

We were passing Stutfield Glacier Viewpoint and saw people looking out at something that cannot be seen from the road. In my experience, when you see this you better stop. There's always something interesting to see and so we did. And we saw this. There was a herd there, but for some reason, I focused on photographing this one.

Soon we were making a turn to view Sunwapta Falls, which was on our itinerary.

Next we were turning for Athabasca Falls. Again this one is not too far from the main highway.

Afterwards we were back on the road. As you can see we made many stops along this very scenic highway. As we were happily cruising the road (we were the last car) we saw this on the side of the road. Our friends missed this sighting. This was so exciting for me.

Then we made another stop, because we saw people had stopped to look at something in the woods.

It was this. Another bear.

Nearby, there was this sighting.

We finally got to Jasper and our hotel was a little drive from the main highway. But by the highway, we saw this bear who was guarding her cubs. We were shooting from a distance and was ready to run in case the bear chased us, that's why none of the cubs photo turned out well. There were a few other people there who spotted them while driving the highway.

The bear was not happy being photographed.

Finally after a long day, we got to the hotel and endured a very long check in process.

This is a very nice place to stay. It's a pity we only stayed here for a night. My travel buddies get to stay for 2 nights, because they were traveling longer than us.

While the lodge had a restaurant, we were not keen on eating there. We drove a short distance to Jasper town and ended up eating at a Korean place, because it was the only one that was still open (or not in the process of closing down for the night). Some of the dishes we enjoyed.

This was a most fascinating and memorable day in this road trip. This ends Day 4.