Climbing mountain around the Icefields

The road between Lake Louise and Jasper is one of the most scenic road in Canada, surrounded by mountains and glacier, all along the road there is incredible view point. and if you take the time to climb some of the mountain around you can reach more amazing view.

About half way between Lake Louise and Jasper you can find the Icefield center, the base for some tourist attraction like the glacier skywalk and Ice explorer, as this is run by the same company as the gondola, I get a chance to do these attraction for free.
The Ice explorer is some huge buses the bring on on the middle of the glacier, on a small area that have been secured. I think for someone that have never seen a glacier before the experience can be really nice, but for anyone that just a bit of experience with glacier it will just feel like goin walking on a carpark few days after a big snow fall.
The skywalk is a really new attraction, it is basicly just a big viewpoint on the side of the road, with a glace floor to make you feel a bit more the high of it. it feel to me that it is just one of the many amazing viewpoint that are all along the road that have been closed, just to force tourist to pay for a viewpoint that use to be free, and they put a bit of attraction with this huge glace floor and lot’s of information about glacier and wildlife to justify to make people pay for something that supposed to be free.
these attraction are still interesting, but i wouldn't pay for it.

few weeks after doing these attraction i came back in these area just to climb some of the mountain around. the first one i did is Wilcox peak (2884m), it is fairly easy and not to long to reach the summit but the view from the top is really amazing. You can clearly see the ice explorer and the skywalk, that looks a bit ridiculous from up there (have a look on the photosynth) as it is often described in scrambling guide, it is the “best view for energy spent” in the Canadian Rockies.

 The next day I decided to do another mountain, Nigel Peak (3211m). It is just next to Wilcox peaks, it is a bit higher and much more difficult climb. the view from up there is also amazing, but that day there was a bit of smoke all around so the view wasn't as clear as the day before on Wilcox peak.

Climbing mountain around Jasper

A bit more north of Banff there is Jasper national park, and the small town of Jasper in the middle of it. I decided to go visit around during my days off. The town itself is very small and more quiet than Banff. it is a really nice little town.
I decided to take a full day to climb on top of pyramid mountain (2766 m), one of the mountain surrounding Jasper. it have been a really good day, the beginning of the trail is very long so I did the first half mountain biking. that make the day much more interesting. The climb itself isn't very difficult, but the view from the summit was also incredible.

Climbing mountain around lake louise

Lake Louise is about 1h away from Banff it’s a very small town with basically just one big hotel on the side of the lake and a big ski resort  with almost nothing else.
there is two very beautiful lake around, Lake Louise and Moraine lake, both are really beautiful and change color along the year because of the sediment coming from all the glacier water that feed these lakes.


Of course it is also surrounded by mountains, the most famous in the area is Mount Temple (3544m) the scramble to get on top of this one is a bit more challenging that Cascade or Rundle that I climbed before around Banff which made this hike really amazing and the view from up here is also perfect, it was a bit sad that it was a bit foggy the day i got there because of some fire further away in BC, so the view wasn't very clear.

Later in the season I went to climb another mountain just a bit further away than Lake Louise : Bow peak (2868m)  the scramble to get up there was really nice, including a river crossing. and the view from up here was really amazing, one of the best view i got this summer, also because it was a very clear day.
have a look at the photosynth, I did this one with a very very high resolution so you can really enjoy the view!

Climbing mountains around Banff

The most famous mountain around Banff is Mount Cascade (2998m) , it offer an incredible view over all the Bow valley. and it is relatively easy to climb. that is the first one I did. and I end up going up here two times over the summer as it is easy to access from Banff.

Another very popular mountain is Mount Rundle (2948m). it is just next to cascade, both are easily accessible directly from Banff.  Rundle is a bit shorter but steeper and a little bit more dangerous according to me.  the view from the summit is really similar as the view from cascade. the summit is just on the edge of a very impressive cliff that make the summit quit interesting (if you are not afraid of heights)

I also climbed another mountain very close to Banff, Mount Bourgeau (2931m) I have been quite disappointed by this one. the climb was really easy, and the view on top wasn't as good as the other climb i did during the summer. also I did this one late, in October so it was really cold, which was one of the reason i didn't really like this hike.