1 Week in Banff & Jasper National Park: Part 1

A few weeks ago, J and I flew up to Alberta to explore the Canadian Rockies for a week. We split our time between Jasper and Banff and tried to squeeze in enough to make it feel like we were really getting a good flavor of all of the different types of activities on offer while still having it feel like a vacation.

We flew up on Saturday afternoon and arrived in the early evening. We checked into our hotel and then walked to a nearby restaurant, Pio Peruvian, for dinner. It was delicious and I highly recommend it. Their roast chicken, the maduros, the sauces, everything was fantastic. Oh! And the mango margaritas!

Our itinerary in Jasper was as follows:

Sunday: We got our rental car delivered to the hotel (which was a Jeep with a rooftop tent that was rented through Outdoorsy, our exact listing here) and drove all the way up to Jasper via the Icefields Parkway. Our vehicle was pretty great. It was really comfortable for the two of us and it was well stocked with everything we could have needed for camping.

On the way to Jasper, we stopped at Sunwapta Falls and at Miette Hot Springs before setting up camp for the night at Miette Campground. We ended up getting rained out at the hot springs (there was a thunderstorm nearby so they vacated the pool) but we got about an hour of soaking before we had to leave. Our campsite at Miette was really nice but we didn't get to take advantage of it because of the rain; we ended up just eating cheese and crackers for dinner.

Monday: Early in the morning, we headed out on a half-day fishing charter (with Jasper Fishing) on Maligne Lake with Robin, where we caught so many fish! I caught the first one and then between the two of us, we probably caught 15 to 20 trout, both rainbow and brook. Robin kept throwing them back into the lake, confident that we would catch some of an appropriate size to keep and eat; we ended up catching one of each to take with us. While we were on the water, we saw a few loons and a bald eagle guarding its nest. I was hoping to see a swimming moose but no such luck.

Afterwards, we stopped by Medicine Lake and then had lunch at Maligne Canyon Wilderness Kitchen, and then for the evening, we camped at Wapiti Campground, where we enjoyed one of the fish we caught cooked over an open fire with a little lemon and butter.

Tuesday: We rented bikes and rode up to Pyramid Lake to have brunch at Aalto. After our meal, we resumed biking to Pyramid Island and then walked across the bridge and admired Pyramid Mountain. It was kind of misty and rainy so we then headed back to Jasper town to hang out and have some beers at Jasper Brewing Company. We finished the day at Jasper Skytram and hiked up to Whistler's Peak (kind of), and then camped at Wabasso Campground (probably my favorite campsite we had).

After dinner (more of our delicious freshly caught fish), we ended up hiking along the Athabasca River Trail at the campground to finish out our day. The hike was so unassuming but it was extremely peaceful, we got to see a bit of sunset colors in the sky, and I think this might have been my favorite low-key activity of the whole trip.

Wednesday: In the morning, we hiked Mount Edith Cavell and checked out the glacier before driving down to Banff. We broke up the drive by stopping off at various viewpoints, including Goats & Glaciers and Tangle Creek Falls, and ended up spotting a black bear on the Icefields Parkway.

xoxo.