Canada Day 12 (3) - Icefields Parkway - The journey is the destination

Following the motto 'The journey is the destination', we continued our journey on the Icefields Parkway after visiting the impressive Athabasca Falls. Our next destination would have been the Sunwapta Falls, but the parking lot was so overcrowded that we decided to drive on. There was no space for parking anyway, and we didn't want to know how crowded the waterfalls would have been. It's a shame, we would have liked to see them.

But no reason to be sad, the Icefields Parkway has plenty of other great things to see. Many of them are not even at the actual sights, but along the way. And so it happens that we get into a total traffic chaos caused by a black bear posing on the green strip right next to the road. Some people even left their cars to get even better photos of the animal. Pretty adventurous, if you ask me. We, on the other hand, stayed safely in the car and observed the bear from there. Who wants canned food when the buffet is right nearby? ;)

Happy about the many bear encounters on our way, we eventually got into a traffic jam, but this time a real one. Not the only one today, as there is a lot of construction on the route. But with the views here, any traffic jam is only half as bad. Along the way, we also saw - in our opinion - crazy cyclists who chose to ride the Icefields Parkway by bike. Considering how many bears constantly come out of the woods...food on wheels! ;) No, let's be honest, as long as you don't bother the bears, they are actually peaceful, but I still wouldn't feel comfortable on a bike...

We were slowly approaching our next destination: the Athabasca Glacier. We already passed the corresponding viewpoint of the Columbia Icefields, from where we could admire the glacier from afar. But that was nothing compared to what we would see next.