On Tuesday when we got up it was cloudy and rainy. We figured that was ok because we knew we’d be in the car a lot. The plan was to drive the Icefield Parkway. It is rated as on of the most beautiful drives in the world! It’s the highway between Lake Louise and Jasper through 2 national parks!

On our way to Lake Louise we saw beautiful cloudy mountains. Jaelee and I were snapping a bunch of pictures.

We had been on this highway a few times at this point and we’d seen some Big Horn Sheep. I was hoping we’d see some again. We were up and out pretty early and traffic was light so my fingers were crossed. Greg spotted a big horn, I wanted to get a picture so we passed it and came back around. We were so lucky it still was there and traffic was light because we were able to pull over on the small shoulder so I could get some pictures. It was awesome! So cool seeing that animal.

I really wanted to see Lake Louise, we decided to wait until we came back to stop at it. So we sent out on the Parkway.

Our first stop was Bow Lake.

Our second stop was Peyto Lake. Unlike Bow Lake that was just off the side of the road, Peyto was a hike uphill. It was so worth the hike, another teal green lake. This one we saw from up high. It was just stunning with the mountains and clouds.

Back in the car, more drive by images.

We saw our first glacier.

We made it to Columbia Icefield.

It was another hike to get near the glacier but I made it. We were hoping to actually get to step on the glacier but you can’t unless you book a group tour. Maybe next time.

To get a scale of just how big this is, there are 2 buses and people in this picture that you can barely see!

Next we stopped at Sunwapta Falls.

And Athabasca Falls

We stopped in Jasper for lunch. We were already hours into the trip and still had the drive back and Lake Louise to stop at so we didn’t spend much time in Jasper, we just had lunch and got back on the road. We saved some of the stops for the way back.

One place we saw but decided to get on the way back was the Weeping Wall.

We made it to Lake Louise, it was pretty late in the evening. I think around 7. On the upside there was a lot of parking, it was free since it was so late and not many people.

Love this picture Jaelee took.

We were fortunate that we asked a professional photographer to take our group photo. He gave me options.

That night we got back to our hotel pretty late so we decided to just grab McDonalds and eat in our hotel. Jaelee was very happy about that.

Like everything else the pictures just don’t do any of this justice. We were in awe every foot of this trip. The mountains surrounding us and the beauty.