6000 Mile EV Road Trip - Stay 13
Jasper, Alberta | July 7-10
Written by John Martinson
The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from New Mexico in the U.S. through the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, north across the Canadian border through Alberta and British Columbia. On our road trip, we have transversed some of it—most notably the U.S. National Parks of Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier, and in Canada, Waterton Lakes, Banff, Jasper, Yoho, Kootenay, Glacier, and Mount Revelstoke National Parks. Note: Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We departed Banff for Jasper with a full charge Sunday morning for a long day’s journey through Banff and Jasper National Parks along the awe-inspiring Icefields Parkway, revered as the most spectacular drives in the world. The Icefields Parkway winds 144 miles along the Continental Divide from Banff National Park to Jasper National Park in Alberta, past soaring peaks, dwindling glaciers, winding rivers, broad valleys, and plunging falls. There is no adequate way to describe it. One must see it in-person; the scale of the Canadian Rockies is so massive.
Another thing to see on the route are Wildlife Crossings. These are ecological corridors—bridges over the highways providing safe passage for wildlife to connect ecosystems—essentially mitigating the damage to wildlife movement patterns caused by highway construction.
There are no DC Fast chargers along the route, but there was no necessity either. The drive from our hotel in Banff to our lodge in Jasper was only 187 miles. However, due to the relatively low speed limits in National Parks and the many scenic stops, it took us 5 hours to complete. Teslafi stats for the journey show an efficiency of 110.24%, using 45.70 kWh at 244 Wh/mi, costing just $8.03.
We exited the car into the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in the late afternoon and found that a heat wave had invaded the normally 72º afternoon temperature. The temperature had risen to 94ºF with humidity in the 70% range and would remain that way or hotter for the balance of our 3-night stay. Complicating this further, the lodge had no air conditioning, so dining was uncomfortable and sleeping was nothing short of sweltering. So in order to get any sleep, we had had to adapt. This meant eating late, then staying outside on our porch or on property until about 11:00 PM at which time we would have to take a cold shower, turn on the fans full-speed, keep the porch door to our room fully open, and sleep without bed covers, thus awakening to very chilly room. After 3 nights of this, I came down with a cold. (Apparently, the lodge is getting around to adapting to climate change, as next year they are planning to add air conditioning in all rooms).
For EV charging, the Lodge had L2 Tesla destination charging in a few of the parking lots, and there is a 250 kW Tesla Supercharger in the Village of Jasper.
For our visit to Jasper National Park, we experienced a guided wildlife tour and a boat tour of Maligne Lake. Highlights were two juvenile Bald Eagles in a nest and the adult nearby, overlooking Medicine Lake, and, separately, a Bull Elk, and an adult Black Bear feasting on roadside foliage. It was such a privilege to be able to view these magnificent animals just feet away in their native habitats.
Jasper National Park is also a Dark Sky Preserve—the second largest in the world, and one night we attended a late-evening event at the Lodge where we had the opportunity to view galaxies and star clusters through a variety of telescopes.
