FOCAL POINT Icefields Parkway (Highway 93) Dramatic peaks, forested valleys, ancient glaciers, plummeting waterfalls and sparkling turquoise lakes make the Icefields Parkway one of the most scenic drives in the world. Stretching 230 kilometres from the Town of Jasper to just north of Lake Louise, the Icefields Parkway has an average elevation of 1,550 metres, making it the road with the highest average elevation in Canada. On this drive, you’ll pass through both Jasper National Park and Banff National Park.
1. Jasper SkyTram jasperskytram.com For 360 degree views, take a seven-minute tram ride 2,300 metres up Whistlers Mountain — Canada's longest and highest aerial tramway — then hike an alpine trail to reach the
2,500-metre summit. Keep an eye out for pikas, mountain goats, and grizzlies. 2. Maligne Canyon and 4. Maligne Lake
A short jaunt off the parkway, hike, canoe, or take a boat tour at Maligne Lake, the largest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies. Before you get there, stop at Maligne Canyon, one of the deepest river canyons in the Rockies. The canyon plunges 50 metres, creating thundering waterfalls. Look for Devonian-period marine fossils embedded in the limestone bedrock. 3. Medicine Lake Along the road to Maligne Lake, you’ll drive right by Medicine Lake — if it hasn’t disappeared! In the summer, glacier melt floods the area, but later in the season it turns into a mudflat. QUICK FACT: There’s no visible drainage channel at Medicine Lake. Scientists believe the lake slowly empties through fractured bedrock into a complex underground cave system. 5. Athabasca Falls Water flowing along the Athabasca River is funnelled into a narrow gap. Then it drops 23 metres over a lip of Gog quartzite into a gorge below — creating one of the most powerful waterfalls in the Rockies. 6. Mount Columbia At the Columbia Icefield, look up, look way, way up. That snow-capped peak looming to the northwest is Mount Columbia, the highest mountain in Alberta and the second highest in the Canadian Rockies. It tickles the sky at 3,747 metres.
76 | PEG SUMMER 2016
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