Jasper is a small town of nearly 5,000 residents which is located on the floor of the Athabasca Valley and stands at the heart of the Jasper National Park in the Province of Alberta. It is a popular tourist destination with more than 3 million visitors attracted to the Jasper National Park which is an area recognised for its spectacular snow-capped mountains, glaciers, snowfields, mineral springs, glacier-fed lakes and rivers, and thundering waterfalls. Although the park is stunningly beautiful many visitors are attracted here for the wildlife which includes moose, elk, deer, black and grizzly bears, coyote and bighorn sheep, and many other visitors arrive for the outdoor activities such as hiking, fishing, white-water rafting, climbing and skiing. The township nestles amongst this rugged and unspoiled wilderness and provides visitors with a variety of shops, restaurants and a selection of accommodation alternatives which range from camping to luxury hotels. Jasper also boasts the Yellowhead Museum for those who wish to learn about the area, and for the more active the town provides a golf course, aquatic centre, climbing wall, tennis courts and a skate park, so there is plenty to do in any spare time. One way to enjoy this frontier location and fully appreciate the surrounding magnificence is to ride the Jasper Tramway, the highest and longest aerial tramway in Canada, which rises to 2,277 metres up Whistlers Mountain. The journey provides visitors with unprecedented views of six mountain ranges, glacier fed lakes, the Athabasca River and the township of Jasper, but above all, it offers an insight into this rather remote pristine wilderness
The Jasper National Park forms part of the listed U.N.E.S.C.O. Rocky Mountain World Heritage site which exemplifies the outstanding features of the Rocky Mountains and illustrates the glacial geological processes which created the area. The Jasper National Park features the picturesque Maligne Lake with its iconic Spirit Island, the Maligne Canyon, the spectacular Sunwapta Falls, the unusual Medicine Lake which is actually a large sinking river, and the thundering Athabasca Falls. The Jasper National Park covers an incredible 10,878 square kilometres and is located close to the border of British Columbia, approximately 290 kilometres from Banff and 870 kilometres from Vancouver. Jasper is easily reached from Lake Louise via the ‘Icefields Parkway’, a scenic drive which runs for 230 kilometres from the Banff National Park.
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