Jasper

Safeguarding some of western Canada's most beautiful wilderness, Jasper National Park is rugged, awe-inspiring, and ultimately, welcoming. Mountains are the parks calling card displaying high peaks such as Mount Edith Cavell and valleys dotted with glacial lakes such as the picture perfect Maligne Lake. In its midst, where the Athabasca and Miette rivers meet, lies the town of Jasper. Serving as the base for Canada's largest national park, Jasper is quiet, laid-back, and ideal for leisurely sojourns. It's still tourist-driven, and trains and buses regularly deliver visitors to its pristine, glacier-fed lakes, wooded trails and snow-covered peaks.

Just south of Jasper towards Lake Louise along the Icefields Parkway is the Columbia Icefield where visitors can take a snowcoach ride on the mighty, but receding Athabasca Glacier and view Athabasca Falls, one of the most aggressive waterfalls in the Rockies. Visitors to Jasper can also enjoy the Miette Hot Springs – the warmest spring waters in the Rockies – or travel on the Jasper Tramway which boasts some of the best views in the Rockies, as you gaze out on lakes, mountains, glaciers, and the town itself from a vantage point of more than 7400 feet above sea level.