Jasper, Canada is one of the biggest reasons to visit Canada in winter! This already spectacular park, and home to the Canadian Rockies totally transforms in winter to some almost fairytale-like winter wonderland.
The lakes freeze over, waterfalls turn into magnificent ice sculptures and mountain roads turns into ski slopes! Not many places in the world does winter quite like Canada and the national parks here, like Jasper, are some of the best places to head out to to fully take it all in.
Suffice to say, when we visited Edmonton (you can see the full itinerary and travel plan here), Jasper HAD to be added to our plans!
And so off we went to soak up as much of Jasper as possible, in just a few days! (I’d happily have spent much longer here).
The itinerary below is not a full replica of the itinerary we had. It is the itinerary we had planned but we managed to miss Maligne Canyon on the first day and had to rejig a few things and tweak our itinerary slightly.
This did mean seeing Icefields Parkway and exploring part of Jasper National Park (especially around Pyramid Lake and Pyramid Mountain) that we didn’t originally have on our original travel plans so it all worked out brilliantly in the end.
I’ve decided to stick to the original itinerary as I definitely wished we had more time to ski at Marmot Basin and seeing as the first itinerary factors that in, I’m going with that one.
I will include the links to our posts from Jasper below, which will have even more photos and the plan we eventually went with so you get more choice in how you decide to spend your time in Jasper.
Let’s get started, shall we?
DAY 1
Late Morning/Early Afternoon: Check into The Crimson, Jasper – your hotel for you stay here. It’s a brilliant place to be in Jasper (it’s pretty close to everything) and has an indoor pool and hot tub for some much needed defrosting and relaxing after your busy day outdoors.
2:00PM: Go on Maligne Canyon Ice Walk. You’ll be picked up from your hotel lobby so you don’t need to worry about logistics. We did this with Sun Dog (a local tour company) who were absolutely brilliant and so much fun to hang out with.
7:30PM: Head over to Evil Dave’s Grill for dinner. The restaurant was recommended by locals and does a fun take on international cuisine! Plus the owners are really sweet. 😄
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Here’s what we got up to on our first day in Jasper.
DAY 2
Early Morning: Breakfast at hotel.
9:00AM: Go skiing at Marmot Basin. Marmot Basin is a ski destination that’s only 20 minutes from the town of Jasper and is such a fantastic place to go skiing in!
By the time we visited, I’d been quite a few times in Europe and so had very good grounds for comparison and have to say, I absolutely loved skiing here! The slopes are so different to some of the other slopes I’d experienced (in a good way) and the views of the Canadian Rockies from up here are next-level incredible.
6:00PM: Dinner at Jasper Brewing Co. Try to do a beer tour and tasting before dinner. I finally got to try Poutine here (Well, I have had Poutine before – just not in Canada).
READ MORE:
Check out our post here to see what the amazing Maligne Canyon Ice Walk looks like.
AND
Check out this post here to see why you have to go skiing in Marmot Basin.
DAY 3
Early Morning: Breakfast at hotel
9:00AM: Go on a ‘Safari’ and Snowshoeing over a frozen lake with Paula from Walks and Talks Jasper. This is Paula’s own business which she set up after being a Park Ranger here and given her previous career, Paula is understandably so experienced about pretty much EVERYTHING to with Jasper National Park.
12:00PM: Go for lunch at Coco’s Cafe. Another cafe that totally blew my expectation of cafe food out of the water. Cafe food in London tends to be a bit more informal, snacky and more to fill a gap whereas the food here was absolutely delicious and worth spending the extra time to relax and savour. It’s nothing overly fancy but boy is is delicious! Definitely recommend coming here for lunch.
1:00PM: Go Dog Sledding with Cold Fire Creek. This is just so much fun and totally worth doing when you’re here.
2:00 PM: Head back to Edmonton, with a promise to return to Jasper in summer as well when the whole park changes and offers a whole new set of sights to see!
READ MORE:
If you wanna see more about Dog Sledding in Jasper, check out this post here.
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