Monday, June 19, 2023. After a pretty decent night’s sleep, we all rolled out of bed around 7:00am MDT. Carson and I got everything packed up while the girls did…stuff. While we packed, we discussed our plans for today: we would start by grabbing some Adventure Labs around Banff, then head back north up highway 93 a.k.a. the Icefields Parkway, stopping at Sunwapta Falls on the way, and plan to wrap up the day with whitewater rafting at 3:30 in Jasper.

Well, as plans go, we learned pretty quickly that we would need to be flexible. Per the usual on this leg of the trip, the morning started out cold and rainy. We drove around Banff grabbing several ALs, got breakfast at McDonalds (because it was quick), topped off the car with gas, and headed out of town. But hang on, we needed one more quick stop at the sign leading into town.

THEN, we were finally on our way out of town. A little ways down the road, we approached the gate into Banff National Park and noticed there was a pretty long queue trying to get in. There was also a sign that said “Current Winter Driving Conditions” with the lights for Poor lit up. What’s that about? It also looked like every single car was stopping at the little hut to talk. This is gonna take a while… 

Finally our turn came around! We already had our pass and should have been able to breeze right through. But something just felt amiss, so I rolled my window down to have my turn chatting with the attendant. She informed us that it was snowing at the higher elevations and although the route to Jasper was currently passable, travel was not recommended. OK, so the sign was legit. 😕 Well, we needed to get to the other side of the icefields, so we decided to take our chances and went for it anyway. 

With the temp hovering around 3° C, the first several kilometers was all just rain. As we climbed higher though, the temp dropped to 2° C and the snow started falling. Given our current speed at the time and the fact that we still wanted to make it back to Jasper for rafting, we decided to skip Sunwapta Falls. A few kilometers farther and the temp dropped to 1° C and the snow had started to accumulate on the roads. Because of the warm temperatures and preceding rainfall, this was a very heavy, wet snow About an hour past the park entrance, the trees started to sag under the weight of the unseasonal snow. About an hour after that the temp was down to 0° C, visibility coming and going, and road conditions getting worse we passed the Columbia Icefields parking area and restaurant. This was the first time that we debated whether we should stop for a break or keep going. We knew there were large mountains in front of us, but all we could see was white. In good weather, we would have been about an hour from Jasper but this weather was making the roads questionable and the inexperienced camper drivers were making this trek even more treacherous. The storm had no intention of stopping any time soon, so we opted to keep going.

At one point I made the comment, “At least we get to experience all the seasons of Canada.” Mackenzie immediately replied, “Except the good ones.”

Ten minutes beyond the restaurant, northbound traffic came to a complete stop. Oncoming traffic appeared to be a bit snarled and very slow just up ahead for no reason we could see. As the lead car to the oncoming traffic got closer it became obvious that they were stopping to talk with every vehicle in our lane. Suspiciously, the vehicles in our lane that the car had passed started to turn around??? When the lead car got to us, they informed us that there were multiple campers stuck at the top of the pass completely blocking both lanes of traffic. Oh boy. So, we joined the procession and turned around in bumper to bumper traffic on the snow covered highway to head back to the restaurant to regroup.

We got parked and headed inside. While we stood around trying to get our bearings, Carson joined their Wi-Fi and promptly received a voicemail notification from the rafting tour company. They wanted to know if we still wanted to keep on schedule with our tour at 3:30 or reschedule. While Carson was listening to the VM, the Icefields Center made an announcement that the remainder of their tours for the day were cancelled; the roads, trails, and tour locations were too dangerous to go. 

At this point, it was about noon. So we headed to the restaurant upstairs, planning to call them back after we ate. Lunch was an overpriced buffet of fish sticks for the girls and cold brisket for Carson and me, but their dessert lineup was worth it: doughnut holes with honey drizzle, cream puffs, strawberry shortcake, butter tarts (a Canadian specialty!), and some layered chocolate bar thing. (Carson says they were Nanaimo bars. He wasn’t a fan, but I liked them.)

While we were eating, Carson got another call from the rafting tour company. As they talked, they agreed it would be best to move our rating to the next day at the same time. OK, one fewer thing to worry about today.

Throughout lunch, I was paying attention to the traffic patterns in front of the restaurant. As we were wrapping up, there was quite a bit of traffic coming down the hill indicating that whatever had stopped traffic before had cleared up and things were moving again, and the snow appeared to be letting up just a bit. So we got in the car and started out again.

On our way out of the parking lot, Carson stopped a couple coming into the restaurant to ask what direction they had just come from. They had just come down the mountain from the direction we needed to go and said that they were delayed a couple of hours but traffic was moving through that pass again. So, we should be good to go. Now with a bit more confidence, we got back on the highway and kept going.

We quickly made it past our original turnaround point and were able to keep going this time without issue. It was slow going for the first 20 minutes or so, but we made it over the pass and started down the other side. From here on, as we started to drop in elevation the temperature started to go up and the precipitation bounced between snow and rain. All things considered, it was pretty easy driving the rest of the way into Jasper.

We pulled into Jasper around 3:45, but it was too early to check into our hotel. So to kill some time, I had Carson pull over at the Jasper town sign for a geocache and our second sign pic of the day. Since it was still raining pretty hard, I was planning to get out for this cache on my own. But as I headed down the slope, Carson and Mackenzie were right behind me. It took a few minutes longer that I’d have liked, but we found the container, took our picture, and were back in the car in 5 minutes. 

Welp, since we were all pretty wet and we still had a few minutes left, we went for a couple more. 🙂 The damage that the snow was causing was pretty visible at our 3rd (and final) cache of this run; with significant broken limbs and branches near the find. 🙁

We finally made it to our hotel around 4:30pm. We unloaded the car, I pulled together all of our dirty clothes, and we headed out to dinner at Something Else Restaurant. They had a pretty wide variety on the menu, but Carson and I settled on Greek souvlaki (one lamb and one chicken). Carson dropped me off at the laundromat and took the girls back to the hotel to swim. Approximately an hour and a half later, I texted him that I was done and he swung back over to pick me up. 

After some quick showers, we were all off to bed.