Jasper National Park

Jasper National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Jasper is the largest and the quieter of the Canadian Rockies parks, four hours west of Edmonton and three and a half north of Banff along the Icefields Parkway, and it is sold from the town of Jasper in wildlife tours, lake cruises, rafting and the icefield. The evening wildlife searches by van drive the valley roads for elk, moose, bears, bighorn sheep and the occasional wolf with a guide and spotting scopes, and the winter versions are the same in the snow; the Maligne Lake cruise, ninety minutes to Spirit Island, the tiny island with the three peaks behind it that is the most photographed view in the Rockies, is the park's essential ticket and is sold with the drive up the Maligne valley and a stop at the canyon.

The rafting trips on the Athabasca and the Fraser are family floats or whitewater, and the e-bike safaris ride the lakeside trails. The Columbia Icefield, on the Parkway an hour south, has the Ice Explorer buses onto the Athabasca glacier and the glass Skywalk, sold as a combined ticket and as a day tour from Jasper or Banff. The park pass is per person per day or the annual Discovery Pass and is included by the operators; the Maligne cruise, the icefield and the tramway are separate. The private day trips from Edmonton are long but the only option without a car. Independent visitors need a car for the valley roads and the Parkway, and the Jasper SkyTram up Whistlers mountain is the walk-free viewpoint.

Visiting Jasper National Park: what you will see

The park was set aside in 1907 as a forest park and became a national park in 1930, and it covers 10,878 square kilometres of the Rocky Mountains along the Alberta side of the divide north of Banff, part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site, with the Columbia Icefield on its southern border, the largest ice mass in the Rockies, feeding the Athabasca glacier that visitors walk on and the rivers that flow to three oceans. The Maligne valley is its showpiece: the Maligne canyon, a limestone slot fifty metres deep crossed by six bridges, Medicine Lake, which drains through underground channels and empties every autumn, and Maligne Lake, twenty-two kilometres long between glaciated peaks with Spirit Island at its narrows.

The Athabasca falls and the Sunwapta falls on the Parkway drop through gorges, the Pyramid and Patricia lakes above the town reflect Pyramid Mountain, and the Miette hot springs on the eastern edge are the hottest in the Rockies; the Tonquin valley with the Ramparts and the Skyline trail are the backcountry classics. Mount Edith Cavell, with the Angel glacier hanging on its north face, has a trail to the meltwater pond at its foot. Jasper has the wildlife of the Rockies at its most visible, with elk in the townsite, bighorn sheep on the Maligne road, black and grizzly bears along the Parkway in spring, moose in the Maligne valley and the mountain caribou, whose herds have almost vanished, in the high country. The 2024 wildfire burned a third of the town of Jasper and large areas of the valley, and the recovery of both is the park's present chapter; the park is a dark-sky preserve, the second largest in the world, with a festival in October.

Jasper National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open all year; the Maligne Lake cruises run from late May or June to early October, the Icefield tours from May to October, and the Icefields Parkway is open all year but closed in winter storms. July and August are warm and busy, with all the trails and the lake open; June has the bears and the waterfalls at their fullest; September is the best month, with the larches, the elk rut and the clear skies of the dark-sky festival;

winter from December to March is cold and quiet, with the Maligne canyon icewalk, the Marmot Basin ski hill and the frozen lakes. Book the Spirit Island cruise ahead in summer. Allow two days for the Maligne valley and the town, three with the Icefield and the Parkway to Banff. Edmonton is the nearest airport, and Mount Robson across the British Columbia border is the highest peak in the Rockies.