Photo of the Week: Roaring Athabasca Falls

Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park, Alberta.

On Alberta’s Icefields Parkway, there is evidence of the eponymous icefields everywhere. If you can’t see a glacier perched precariously on a mountaintop, you’re sure to be able to see a glacier-fed river following the road or a brilliantly-coloured lake filling up the next valley over. It’s not surprising that travel publications like National Geographic have named it in their top scenic drives in the world.

Near the northern end of the Parkway there are a few spectacular waterfalls that are well worth fighting for a parking spot over. The first is Sunwapta Falls, which is located just behind the Sunwapta Falls Resort where my family stayed for two nights. I thought the scenery couldn’t possibly get better than the view I had there — mountains in the background with a river raging around a small island before hurtling down a cliff and over the falls — until I got to Athabasca Falls.

While Athabasca Falls may not be the tallest waterfall I’ve ever seen, it was one of the more powerful. Here, the Athabasca River, which had seemed so calm upstream, raged through a canyon much narrower than the river had been, creating a massive din and spray that got all over my camera no matter what angle I tried to shoot from. Fortunately, there were a lot of angles to choose from — either side of the falls or from the bridge between them — because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get my camera wedged in between the tourists (myself included) that flock to the Canadian Rockies in July and August.

Here are a few of those other angles of the falls:

About Kristin
I'm Kristin, and I'm one of the clumsiest people you'll ever meet. I've given myself a concussion by falling into a parked car in England and have broken my leg chasing a bus in Arctic Sweden. Regardless, I keep travelling the world in search of my next adventure (and my next photo opportunity). You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook.
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