Lakes that shine bright emerald and turquoise with enormous snow-capped mountains in the background. Tall trees blanket valleys and the occasional evidence of where avalanches occur during the Winter are present.
Make sure you have your camera ready, all of your Canadian landscape Instagram worthy photos are right here.
The sights below are located in the national parks Banff, Jasper, and Yoho. Here you will find some of the most beautiful places to see in the Canadian Rockies.
Athabasca Falls
Location: Jasper National Park
An extremely powerful and striking waterfall in the Canadian Rockies.
A short walk from the parking lot will take you to several safe look-out points, to this beautiful view. There is a paved trail that leads you up to a road. Look both ways before crossing! You will see where the waterfall feeds into.
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Lake Louise
Location: Banff National Park
Lake Louise was originally called Lake of Little Fishes, then named after the 4th daughter of Queen Victoria, Louise.
It is incredibly crowded at Lake Louise. It looks like no one will ever move for you to take your photo. That may be true. Luckily the view is very much the same at any spot on the lake. Bring your tripod and set the interval timer on your camera. This way, you can take as many photos as you need to get the perfect one. That’s how these photos below were taken.
You can canoe at Lake Louise, per canoe, it is $105 plus tax per hour and $95 plus tax per half hour.
An alternative lake to canoe at is Emerald Lake, and it’s just as beautiful and slightly cheaper.
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Emerald Lake
Location: Yoho National Park
For $60/hour you can spend time taking photos and canoeing around this beautiful lake.
Summer Rental Rates at Emerald Sports & Gifts
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Peyto Lake
Location: Icefields Parkway
It is a short walk to the lookout point. From there, everyone jumps the wooden fence to the rocks that oversee the lake.
While there is room to move around, exercise caution. It is very clear where the drop-off is.
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Moraine Lake
Location: Banff National Park
To get to the lookout point of this glacially fed lake, follow Consolation Lakes path.
Traverse up a few stairs, it will get your heart rate going, and before it gets too painful you will be up at the viewpoint!
The reason why the glacier filled lakes are so blue is that rock flour that is created when the glacier grinds against the rock beneath it. When the glacier melts it carries the rock flour into the lakes. It’s so fine that they are suspended in the water, refracting blue and green wavelengths of light.
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Columbia Icefields
Location: Northwestern tip of Banff National Park and partly in the southern end of Jasper National Park
If you have an opportunity to take a tour of the Columbia Icefields I highly recommend it!
Aside from the novelty of being on an icefield. If you go at the right time, when the glacier is melting you can get fresh drinking glacier water!
From the information center, you take a two-minute bus ride to the snow coach.
The snow coach is a bus with very big tires that will take you onto the icefield.
There is a designated safety zone after exiting the snow coach where you can take your photos.
During the short ride up to the icefield, there is time for questions and educational commentary, it’s very interesting!
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I haven’t seen everything in the Canadian Rockies and would love to know what other beautiful places there are!
Let me know about them in the comments below!
Thanks for reading,
