The Drive That Changed How I Think About Beauty: Banff's Icefields Parkway
I've driven scenic roads on four continents. The Amalfi Coast in Italy. The Garden Route in South Africa. Highway 1 through Big Sur. The Great Ocean Road in Australia.
The Icefields Parkway made me forget all of them.
Highway 93 North runs 232 kilometers from Lake Louise to Jasper through the heart of the Canadian Rockies. It passes glaciers you can walk on, lakes colored like melted gemstones, waterfalls that carve through stone canyons, and mountain passes where the world drops away on both sides and there's nothing but rock and sky.
I drove it on a Tuesday in early September. The larch trees were starting to turn gold. The tourist traffic had thinned. And I pulled over seven times because the beauty was physically disorienting.
7:15 AM — Lake Louise to the Parkway Junction
I left Lake Louise at dawn. The lake was mirror-still — the Victoria Glacier reflected perfectly in water so turquoise it looked artificial. I'd seen it before, but early morning Lake Louise, with no one else around, is a different experience. The silence is total. The scale is enormous. You're standing at the edge of a glacial lake surrounded by 3,000-meter peaks and the only sound is meltwater.
The junction to the Icefields Parkway is 2 km north. I turned west onto Highway 93 and the road immediately changed character. The Trans-Canada is a busy highway. The Parkway is a two-lane road through wilderness.
7:45 AM — Hector Lake (First Pullover)
I wasn't expecting to stop this soon. But Hector Lake appeared through a break in the trees — a long turquoise lake backed by snow-streaked mountains — and I couldn't drive past it. The viewpoint isn't marked. It's just a gravel shoulder where you can park.
The lake's color was intense even in morning shadow. The glacial rock flour that creates these colors hadn't settled overnight, and the surface was a deep blue-green that seemed to glow from beneath.
Five minutes. Then I drove on.
8:30 AM — Peyto Lake (Second Pullover)
Peyto Lake is the most photographed lake on the Parkway, and the viewpoint from Bow Summit (2,088 m) explains why. You look down at a wolf-head-shaped lake so intensely turquoise it looks Photoshopped. Dense forest frames the water. Glaciers hang on the peaks above.
The 10-minute walk from the parking lot to the viewpoint is paved and easy. I arrived before the tour buses and had the platform nearly to myself. The color intensifies through summer as glacial melt increases — by August, it's practically neon.
I stood there for 15 minutes trying to photograph something that cameras can't capture. The depth of color, the scale of the valley, the silence — none of it translates to a screen.
9:30 AM — Mistaya Canyon (Third Pullover)
A short trail (15 minutes from the parking lot) leads to a narrow slot canyon where the Mistaya River has carved smooth curves through limestone over millennia. The water is a violent turquoise, compressed into a channel barely wider than a car.
The sound in the canyon is enormous — water amplified by stone walls. Looking down from the bridge, the depth of the carved rock is dizzying. This isn't a gentle stream. This is geological force made visible.
10:30 AM — Saskatchewan River Crossing
The only fuel station on the 232 km route. I filled up ($2.10/liter — remote pricing) and grabbed a coffee from the basic cafeteria. The building is utilitarian. The view from the parking lot — the North Saskatchewan River valley stretching to the horizon between mountain ranges — is anything but.
Critical tip: gas up here. The next station is Jasper, over 150 km away.
11:30 AM — Columbia Icefield (Fourth and Fifth Pullovers)
The Columbia Icefield is a 325 sq km mass of ice — the largest icefield in the Rocky Mountains. From the road, you can see the Athabasca Glacier flowing between peaks, its dirty white ice tongue descending toward the valley floor.
I did the Glacier Adventure ($45 CAD) — a massive Ice Explorer vehicle drives onto the glacier surface. You step out onto ancient ice at 2,200 meters. The guide explains that the glacier has retreated 1.5 km in the last century. Climate change is visible here in a way that abstractions and data points can't convey.
The Skywalk ($37 CAD) is a glass-floored platform extending over the Sunwapta Valley. 280 meters above the canyon floor. My legs didn't want to cooperate with my brain's insistence that the glass was solid. The view was worth the vertigo.
1:00 PM — Sunwapta Falls (Sixth Pullover)
A powerful waterfall where the Sunwapta River drops into a narrow canyon. The falls aren't tall — maybe 18 meters — but the force and the turquoise color of the churning water are hypnotic. A short walk from the parking lot. Free.
I ate a packed lunch on a bench overlooking the falls. Peanut butter sandwich, an apple, and water. The best restaurant view of the trip.
2:15 PM — Athabasca Falls (Seventh Pullover)
The last major stop before Jasper. The Athabasca River — one of the most powerful rivers in the Rockies — squeezes through a narrow gorge and drops 23 meters. The spray fills the air. The rock walls are carved into smooth, organic shapes by centuries of water.
This is the most visited waterfall in Jasper National Park, and the infrastructure shows it — paved paths, viewing platforms, interpretive signs. But the falls themselves are worth the crowds.
3:30 PM — Jasper
I arrived in Jasper at 3:30 PM — 8 hours after leaving Lake Louise, having driven 232 km and stopped seven times. The town felt small and quiet after a day of monumental scenery.
I checked into a motel, ate a burger at a pub on Connaught Drive, and sat on a bench watching the sun set behind the Rockies. The mountains were pink, then orange, then purple.
What I Learned
The Icefields Parkway isn't a drive. It's a meditation on scale. For 232 km, the world is bigger than you, older than you, and more beautiful than you knew it could be. The glaciers are retreating. The lakes won't always be this color. The larch trees turn gold for two weeks each September and then lose their needles.
Everything on the Parkway is temporary. And knowing that — really feeling it — makes it more beautiful, not less.
Practical Notes
Free to drive with Parks Canada pass ($11 CAD/day per person)
Allow a full day one way. Don't rush.
Gas up at Saskatchewan River Crossing (only fuel on the route)
Cell service: non-existent for most of the drive. Download offline maps.
Best months: June-September. Trail Ridge Road closes October-May.
Larch season: late September (golden larch trees against snow and turquoise water)
Wildlife: watch for mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and bears along the roadside
