Jasper National Park

In November, 1996, I helped some friends move from Connecticut to Washington state by driving one of their vehicles. When the job was done, I had to get back home to New Hampshire, which I decided to do by taking Canada's Via Rail home through the Canadian Rockies. I didn't make the trip straight through, however; I got off at Jasper, rented a car, and made my first visit to Banff by driving through the Jasper National Park and along the Promenade of Glaciers. Here are the photos of that breathtaking trip.

Jasper is the largest and most northerly of the Canadian Rocky Mountains national parks, part of a spectacular World Heritage Site. Comprised of delicate and carefully protected ecosystems, Jasper's scenery is nonetheless rugged and mountainous.

The road from the town of Jasper to Banff is mostly gravel, though this is irrelevant in the winter. The trip to Banff took me almost two hours, but only because I kept stopping to take pictures. The road itself was well-graded and easily passable, though I saw at most only two other cars on it throughout my entire drive. Wildlife was abundant and seemingly indifferent to the fact that my highway was their dining room, so I had to keep my eyes on the road despite the great temptation for them to roam over the scenery. It's a good thing I got these photos when I did; now, a little more than ten years later, I understand that Athabasca Glacier has suffered substantial melting due to the warming environment.