Athabasca Falls Canda

Jasper National Park in the Alberta province is the largest of Canada’s Rocky Mountain Parks boasting broad valleys, rugged mountains, glaciers, forests, alpine meadows and wild rivers. One of the top attractions is Athabasca Falls, a beautiful waterfall that thunders through a narrow gorge. Even when the water level in the upper Athabasca River is low, huge quantities of water pour over the falls. Several viewing platforms and trails where it is safe to photograph the picturesque scene are located around the falls. Motorists can cross over the falls by taking Highway 93A into the town of Jasper.

Athabasca Falls was memorable to us because it featured a pretty mountain backdrop. The falls itself wasn't particularly mindblowing, but it possessed enough power to carve out a bit of a gorge immediately downstream of it. The gorge became deeper the lower into the canyon the Athabasca River went. As for its dimensions, this waterfall was said to drop some 23m.

We were able to experience this waterfall by doing a very short walk along its extensive (and busy) walkways and bridges. These paths skirted and spanned the gorge immediately downstream of the falls. Meanwhile, these walks also afforded us views of the falls' brink from both of its sides as well as its front in addition to some of the interesting geology of the gorge itself.

We didn't do the walk that led further downstream deeper into the intriguing lower canyon. However, when we were at the bridge spanning the gorge beneath Hwy 93A, we were able to see where the watercourse reached a calm area. That was when Julie noted color of the water, which was that pronounced light blue that we normally associate with glacier-fed watercourses. Indeed, that color impressed her much and thus added to the waterfall's scenic allure.

 A protruding rocky island in the middle of the Athabasca River at the brink of the river's drop actually split up the Athabasca Falls. Thus, we were able to observe dual segments from the overlooks surrounding the falls. Then, as we peered further downstream from these overlooks, we saw that shortly thereafter, the segments rejoined and thus retained its power and volume as it continued its cutting action into the gorge below. Given all that turbulence, we were lucky to see a faint rainbow in the rising mist of one of the waterfall's two segments.

To give you an idea of how much time to spend here, we took a total of 40 minutes to meader about the falls and take photos.Athabasca Falls can be reached from a well-signed turnoff just west of the Hwy 93 and Hwy 93A junction. The car park itself had lots of spaces though it was quite crowded anyways, which was saying something considering we were here outside of the peak Summer season

The head­wa­ter comes from the Colum­bia Glac­i­er about 70 kilo­me­ters south. Among the most pow­er­ful and breath­tak­ing falls in the Rocky Moun­tains, The Athabas­ca Riv­er thun­ders through a nar­row gorge where the walls have been smoothed and pot­holes are cre­at­ed by the sheer force of the rush­ing water car­ry­ing sand and rock. Park­ing and restroom facil­i­ties. paved trail and pic­nic sites avail­able.