Yoho National Park

Backpackers hiking the Skyline Trail north toward Tekarra camp, Jasper National Park, Canadian Rockies.

Hiking and Backpacking the Canadian Rockies—A Photo Gallery

By Michael Lanza

While I always prefer to get as far from any road as possible whenever I visit a mountain range, one truth that may—and perhaps must—be said of the Canadian Rockies is that they will leave you smitten with an lifelong, unshakeable love before you even step out of the car. Driving to any trailhead along the 143-mile-long (232-kilometer) Icefields Parkway between Lake Louise and the town of Jasper, or along the Trans-Canada Highway across the mountains, and you will struggle to sound like a literate person as superlatives and simple gasps of “wow” roll repeatedly off your tongue. On my most recent visit we saw, in addition to countless, sizable glaciers tumbling off a chain of peaks stretching for miles, perhaps the largest grizzly bear of my life (a sow with two cubs), two bull elk with racks possibly broader than my wingspan, and a pod of bighorn sheep—all from the car in one afternoon on the Icefields Parkway.

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Iceline Trail view of the Emerald Glacier, Yoho National Park, Canada.

Great Hike: Iceline Trail, Yoho National Park

By Michael Lanza

The hike begins with a short walk to the base of Takakkaw Falls, which plummets thunderously more than 1,100 feet (350m) over a cliff, raining mist on hikers below. Fed by the Daly Glacier and Waputik Icefield, the waterfall takes its name from the Cree word meaning “it is magnificent.” You won’t contest the claim. Beyond, you begin a long, steady ascent, first through forest, but soon with expansive views of the Yoho Valley in the Canadian Rockies, where sprawling icefields cap the mountains. A bit over two miles from the trailhead, traversing an ice-ravaged, open landscape of rock, dirt, and a few tiny but hardy plants and wildflowers, you get your first view of the thick, severely cracked Emerald Glacier, pouring off of 10,000-foot peaks in the President Range.

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