Wildfires a fact of life in the Rockies
In 2022 they coincided with our arrival in the mountains
A lightning strike started a wildfire on Chetamon Mountain 15 km northeast of Jasper one week prior to our arrival in the Canadian Rockies. Parks Canada photo.
The smoke looked nasty as we drove the final 75 km to Jasper from Hinton but cleared somewhat once we passed Chetamon Mountain northeast of town. Parks Canada photo.
By the time we got to iconic Spirit Island on Maligne Lake near Jasper, the smoky and overcast skies combined to create a dramatic scene. All photos by Chong & Kolesnikovs except where noted otherwise.
Here's an excellent website for seeing where there is smoke and fire on your travels: https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/curren Computer screen capture shows how bad the smoke and fire situation was during the second week of our stay in the Rockies, when fires in Oregon and Washington state generated much smoke.
Parks Canada announced closure of Wapiti, our intended campground, just 24 hours before our scheduled arrival in Jasper National Park. It was a shock to receive the notification email from Parks Canada the day before our arrival.
The Chetamon Mountain wildfire northeast of Jasper, although not threatening town directly, had plunged it into darkness when power lines were destroyed. Jasper was left to operate on emergency power leaving many non-essential community and tourism services, including gas stations, food service and grocery stores without the ability to operate. All Parks Canada campgrounds were closed for at least five days.
Not to be daunted, we set up a mobile office (MacBook Pro laptop, Apple iPad and two cellular phones) in the nearest Tim Hortons to use its free WiFi to rejig our itinerary. Three hours later:
—We found a hotel room available at Quality Inn in Hinton, 75 km from Jasper, for an overnight stay. Nothing was available in Jasper itself.
—We were able to confirm that a tour we had booked months earlier to Maligne Lake and Spirit Island would still proceed with an easy-to-find pick-up location in downtown Jasper.
—We were able to cancel (and receive a full refund) for our intended afternoon on the mountain called The Whistlers overlooking Jasper via Jasper SkyTram. It is the highest and longest guided aerial tramway in Canada. It goes to a height of 2,263 metres above sea level but because of the wildfire smoke, visibility would have been minimal.
—At Lake Louise Campground near Lake Louise in Banff National Park we were able to book campsites to replace the week we lost in Wapiti near Jasper. Unfortunately, the only availability was such that we had four different sites over six days, meaning repeated setting up and breaking down of our camp. Oh, well, we were in the Rockies.
We were so glad we could proceed on our Maligne Valley Wildlife and Waterfalls Tour & Cruise to Spirit Island on Maligne Lake. We highly recommend it. The scenery is amazing but although our guide kept mentioning elk and bears, we failed to spot any. On the other hand, we did see many different species of birds, including osprey and bald eagle.
We met an international group of visitors on our tour—from Canada, Netherlands, UK, USA and Australia. On our return to the car park, we are saddened to learn of Queen Elizabeth’s passing. Thereafter, we always saw flags at half-mast during our travels in the Rockies.
After the tour, we headed down the Icefields Parkway to Lake Louise in Banff National Park.
Mount Temple at 11,621 feet overlooked our campground in Banff National Park near Lake Louise.
The Icefields Parkway stretches 230 km between Jasper in the north and Lake Louise in the south. It’s generally regarded as the most scenic drive in Canada if not the world.
The Columbia Icefield is the largest icefield in the Canadian Rockies, covering some 230 sq km (89 sq mi) to a depth of 365 m (1,200 ft) and some 28 km (17 mi) long. Draped over the continental divide on a high alpine plateau along the Alberta-British Columbia border, it receives an average of 7 m (23 ft) of new snowfall per year. Not all of that snow can melt in the short summers so it accumulates, turning to ice which flows outward through the surrounding passes, creating fingers of ice known as glaciers, the Athabasca Glacier being the most well-known. The waters from the Columbia Icefield flow to three different oceans: the Arctic, the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Here we are at Athabasca Glacier, one of the six principal toes of the Columbia Icefield. The ice at the centre of the Athabasca Glacier is as thick as the Eiffel Tower is tall.
Mrs. K hiked up to check out the glacier up close and personal.
TRIP DATA
Day 15: 4,427 km from home
Next stop: Lake Louise Campground near Lake Louise in Banff National Park via famed Icefields Parkway