Day 17 - Jasper to Moraine Lake

Our final morning in Jasper began with breakfast in the town before we got back onto the Icefield Parkway and headed south. This lead us back past the Athabasca Glacier and shortly after out of Jasper National Park.

During the drive we were lucky enough to spot some more wildlife. First of all, we saw a large Black Bear eating berries at the roadside as we drove by and ended up doing a U-turn to get a better luck.

Next, as we made our way through the more mountainous path of the journey where we spotted three Bighorn Sheep calmly meandering down the middle of the highway, holding up the traffic. They were clearly perturbed by a roadside crash barrier, but eventually they managed to jump over and continue on there way, allowing us to do the same.

We stopped off at Saskatchewan Crossing, a major junction in the area where the highway goes North to Jasper, South to Lake Louise, and East to Red Deer and Edmonton. Beyond this, there are no other roads for hundreds of miles. This was about to become relevant!

As we continued South, we were met with a long line of vehicles. After some time, it became clear there had been an accident further ahead. People began to leave their vehicles, and other began to turn around and head back the way they came. One person said they heard it'd likely be a 5 hour delay!

Our options now was to either wait it out, or find an alternative route. However the only options we had was to go through Red Deer, Calgary, Banff (a 7 hour drive!) or back to Jasper, Clearwater, and Kamloops (an 11 hour drive!). Feeling we didn't have an option, we chose to sit tight. We whiled away the time reading and occasionally getting out to talk to the hundreds of others who'd left their vehicles and were wandering the highway. Eventually, after two and a half hours, we got moving again. It was a collision between a car and a motorcycle.

The evening was drawing in now, but after another hour or so, we entered Banff National Park, and arrived at Lake Louise - a town confusingly named the same as its nearby lake. We stopped off here to get ourselves some more supplies, and then continued up the winding mountain road to Lake Moraine, high in the mountains, where we'd be spending the next two nights.