Things to Do in Jasper National Park: The Best Tours and Stops

Jasper National Park was established in 1907 and spans 11,228 square kilometres, making it the largest and most northerly of the Canadian Rocky Mountain national parks. In 1990, together with Banff, Kootenay and Yoho, it was inscribed as part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site. Roughly 97 percent of the park, a little over 10,000 square kilometres, is maintained in a natural state with limited infrastructure, which is the honest reason a first visit feels overwhelming: the list of possible things to do is enormous and the signposts are thin.

This guide exists to shrink that list. Every item below resolves to one of two things: a free roadside stop you can drive to with a park pass, or a bookable tour where an operator handles the driving, the gear and the interpretation. If you are arriving with no plan at all, read the sections in order, because they move from the biggest single draw in the park, the Columbia Icefield, through the lakes and valleys, down to the townsite activities you can slot into a spare half day. One warning up front: Maligne Canyon and the Mount Edith Cavell area are closed for the 2026 season, and no tour can legally take you into either while the closures stand.

What are the best things to do in Jasper National Park?

The shortlist for a first visit is the Columbia Icefield and its Skywalk, a Maligne Lake cruise to Spirit Island, a guided wildlife tour in the Maligne Valley, rafting on the Athabasca River, and the Jasper SkyTram up Whistlers Mountain. All five sit within an hour or two of the townsite, and four of the five are bookable tours rather than self-drive stops, which matters if you would rather not plan a route yourself.

The Columbia Icefield is the largest icefield in the Canadian Rockies, more than 300 square kilometres of ice, and its most famous tongue, the Athabasca Glacier, sits directly across the road from the Icefield Centre, 103 km south of Jasper on Highway 93. Parks Canada calls it Canada's most accessible glacier. Maligne Lake is the largest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies, 22.3 km long, and Spirit Island, the postcard view, sits 14 km up-lake with no road or trail access: tour boats or private non-motorized craft are the only way to reach it.

The rest of the shortlist fills the days between those two anchors. Wildlife tours work the Maligne Valley and the Pyramid Lake road at dawn and dusk, when animals are most active. Rafting runs on the Athabasca, the largest river system in Jasper and a Canadian Heritage River since 1989. The SkyTram lifts you to 2,263 metres on Whistlers Mountain in seven minutes. Each of these has a dedicated deep-dive elsewhere on Jasper National Park Tours, and this page is the map that ties them together.

Which glacier and icefield tours are worth booking?

The best-value glacier experience from Jasper is the Ice Explorer and Skywalk combo, from $95.17, rated 4.5 across 3,187 reviews, which puts you on the Athabasca Glacier in a purpose-built vehicle and then onto the glass-floored Skywalk over the Sunwapta Valley. If you want to actually hike on the ice with a guide, the IceWalks glacier hike, from $101.57 for 3 hours, is the stronger choice, rated 4.9 across 422 reviews.

The distinction matters more than most buyers realise. The Ice Explorer ride, operated by Pursuit as the Columbia Icefield Adventure, drives onto the glacier and lets you stand on a prepared section of ice for a short visit. The guided hikes, IceWalks and Tread Lightly, take smaller groups onto the ice on foot for three to four hours with crampons and a guide. They are different products at surprisingly similar prices, and the right one depends on whether your memory of the day should be the view or the walking.

The Skywalk itself can also be bought alone, from $37.01, rated 4.4 across 1,050 reviews. It is a cliff-edge walkway with a glass floor over the Sunwapta Valley, and it is a stop on the combo ticket, not a glacier activity. If you are driving the Icefields Parkway anyway and only want the Skywalk, the standalone admission is the cheaper route. If you want the full day handled, the 7-hour guided tour from Jasper, from $248.08, adds Athabasca Falls and transport on top.

The glacier is receding, and Parks Canada's own LiDAR and satellite programme puts numbers on it: Jasper lost 21.8 percent of its total glacier mass between 1985 and 2024, and the Columbia Icefield lost about 1.5 cubic kilometres of ice between 2017 and 2024. In 2023 the Athabasca Glacier saw more ice melt than in any of the previous 10 years. None of that makes the visit less worthwhile, but it does make it a sight on a clock, and it is the honest reason the glacier tours are the most-booked items on this site. For a fuller treatment, read the Columbia Icefield tours guide and the Athabasca Glacier tours guide.

What can you do on Maligne Lake and in the Maligne Valley?

The headline activity is the 90-minute Maligne Lake cruise to Spirit Island, from $87.45, rated 4.8 across 1,279 reviews, which is the only practical way for most visitors to see the famous island. Around it sit half-day and full-day valley tours that add Medicine Lake and wildlife spotting, from $66.59, and all of them use the same year-round road, since Maligne Lake Road has no seasonal closure.

The cruise itself is operated by Pursuit and runs 27 May to 11 October in 2026, weather dependent. Pursuit advises arriving about an hour before your cruise time and allowing at least 90 minutes for the drive from Jasper to Maligne Lake, and it warns that missed cruises are non-refundable with limited rebooking. The lake's water averages 4 °C, the boathouse survived the 2024 wildfire, and the island view at the far end is the photograph most people come for.

If you would rather fold the cruise into a bigger day, several tours do exactly that. The wildlife and sightseeing tour with cruise and hotel pickup, from $169.04 for 6 hours, adds Patricia Lake, Medicine Lake and the Whistlers summit viewpoint. The 6-hour Maligne Valley tour, from $151.63, adds Sunwapta Falls and Miette Hot Springs. There is also a cheaper valley tour with a guided walk, from $66.59, that skips the cruise, useful if boats are not your thing. Medicine Lake alone is worth the drive: it has no visible outflow, draining instead through sinkholes into a limestone cave system that resurfaces 16 km downstream, and Parks Canada calls it one of the largest known sinking rivers in the Western Hemisphere.

Booking the cruise deserves one practical note before you commit. Because the drive up the valley is long and the check-in window is early, cruise days work best when you stay in Jasper the night before rather than driving in from Banff or Lake Louise that morning. The cruise is also the one item on this list with a hard non-refundable rule for missed departures, so build slack into the morning.

The one thing you cannot do in the Maligne Valley in 2026 is walk Maligne Canyon. The canyon, more than 50 metres deep and only two metres across at some points, is closed to all access from the First Bridge parking lot to the Fifth Bridge junction, and winter access for winter recreation is prohibited too. Parks Canada says it will remain closed for the 2026 season with no reopening date set, because slope stability work is still in early planning. Our Maligne Canyon closure explainer covers the reasoning in detail, and any ice-walk listing you encounter elsewhere should be checked against the closure before you book. Check the Maligne Lake cruise guide for the full cruise comparison.

Where can you see wildlife in Jasper National Park?

The most reliable approach is a guided wildlife tour, and the entry point is the morning or evening wildlife watch, from $68.57 for 3 hours with hotel pickup, rated 4.6 across 1,089 reviews. Jasper's confirmed mammal list includes elk, deer, moose, caribou, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, bears, coyotes, wolves, beavers, lynx, porcupines, cougars and wolverines, but a sighting is never a guarantee, on any tour or any road.

The tours work because they run at the hours when animals move and because the guides know the current hotspots. The Maligne Valley is the classic corridor, and the Icefields Parkway is named by Parks Canada as a place where bighorn sheep, mountain goats, coyotes and deer are commonly sighted in winter. Guides also carry the interpretive layer: why the Jasper caribou herd is a species at risk, why a 20 km stretch of the parkway runs through its winter habitat, and what the rules are when an animal appears beside the road.

Those rules are strict and worth knowing before you drive anywhere in the park. Stay 30 m from elk, deer and moose, and 100 m from bears and other carnivores. Roadside wildlife viewing is a designated restricted activity year round: stay in your vehicle, slow down, use hazard lights, pull over only where it is safe, and move on immediately if a traffic jam develops. It is an offence to entice, pet, harass or feed wild animals, and pursuing animals with cameras counts as harassment. The fine ceiling for offences under the Canada National Parks Act is $25,000. A guide handles all of this for you, which is half of what you are paying for.

For where to actually stand and look, our where to see wildlife in Jasper article goes deeper, and the Jasper wildlife tours guide compares every operator on the roster. If you are driving yourself, the honest advice is dawn and dusk on the Maligne Lake Road, and never stop in a driving lane.

What can you do on the water and trails around the Jasper townsite?

Rafting on the Athabasca River is the most popular water activity, with the Mile 5 morning trip, from $77.22 for 2 hours, rated 4.9 across 466 reviews, and a family-friendly canyon run at Class II Plus, from $93.24, rated 5 across 249 reviews. On flat water, a guided canoe trip on the Pyramid Lakes runs from $449.58, and the SkyTram lifts you to 2,263 metres for the views.

The rafting options are graded honestly, and the grading is the whole decision. The Mile 5 run and the easy 2-hour trip are calm water, no experience needed, and the Athabasca Canyon Run sits at Class II Plus, which is the family step up. The Sunwapta Challenge is the real whitewater option, Class III rapids on the Sunwapta River, from $101.35 for 4 hours, rated 4.9 across 155 reviews. The Sunwapta is a glacial river and cold even in July, which is part of the fun and part of the reason operators supply the gear.

The SkyTram is the townsite's vertical option. The roundtrip ticket, from $58.32, rated 4.7 across 741 reviews, carries you to the upper station on Whistlers Mountain in seven minutes with a flight guide on board, and a summit trail continues to 2,463 metres. It runs 15 April to 25 October in 2026, weather dependent, and the lower station is about a 10-minute drive from town. On the astronomy side, Jasper is a Dark-Sky Preserve, designated by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in March 2011 and the second largest in the world at over 11,000 square kilometres, which is why the SkyTram stargazing and planetarium options exist as evening products.

For hikers, the reopened trail list is long: Parks Canada states that virtually all of Jasper's trails have reopened since the 2024 wildfire, including Valley of the Five Lakes, which reopened in summer 2026 after realignment and resurfacing, plus Old Fort Point, Wabasso Lake, Sulphur Skyline, Wilcox Pass and the Tonquin Valley via Portal Creek. Our Valley of the Five Lakes guide covers the most popular of them.

What does the 2024 wildfire still affect?

The 2024 Jasper Wildfire burned 32,722 hectares, destroyed 358 structures in town, and yet Parks Canada states that 70 percent of the structures were saved, including all critical infrastructure, and that the majority of the park is now open. What still affects a visitor in 2026 is narrow and specific: Maligne Canyon and Cavell Road are closed, a handful of campgrounds remain shut, and burned slopes are visible along the Athabasca valley south of town.

The fire started at 7:02 pm on 22 July 2024 near the Jasper Transfer Station, lightning-caused, and wind gusts up to 87 km/h merged three fires into one running north up the Athabasca valley. The town was evacuated the same night. The fire was declared extinguished on 1 April 2025. In the recovery since, the numbers move every few weeks, so this site does not freeze them on a page: Parks Canada publishes a rebuild dashboard, and the honest summary is that reconstruction is well under way, interim housing is running, and debris has been cleared from essentially all affected properties.

What a visitor actually sees is regrowth. Parks Canada describes fire-damaged slopes that remain unstable for years, hazard trees that stay unstable for several years, and whitebark pine restoration planting under way along the reopened Valley of the Five Lakes trail, where more than 800 people walked on opening day. The burn is visible along the Athabasca valley south of town, around the townsite's southwest edge and up the Maligne road corridor. It is not a ruin, and it is not hidden. The town is trading, restaurants and hotels are open, and 2025 saw an estimated 2,137,000 visitors, below pre-fire levels but firmly in motion.

For planning purposes, treat the closures as the only hard constraint. Both Maligne Canyon and Cavell Road are closed for the 2026 season and Parks Canada has not set a reopening date for either, because slope stability and roadway safety work must finish first. Check the park recovery page and the official bulletins before you plan around either, and read our is Jasper open after the wildfire guide for the full picture.

What should you know before you go: passes, roads and seasons?

A park pass is legally required to be inside Jasper National Park, entry is charged per person, Adult $12.25 CAD per day, Youth 17 and under free, with a Family/Group daily rate of $24.50 CAD covering up to seven people in one vehicle. There is no timed entry and no mandatory shuttle anywhere in Jasper, and the only authorization to travel in the park is the pass itself.

The pass question is the one that catches people out, so it is worth being precise. The Canada Strong Pass free-admission period ended on 7 September 2026 and regular fees apply now. A day pass is valid until 4 pm the day after purchase and also admits you to Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, Mount Revelstoke, Glacier, Waterton Lakes and Elk Island. If your trip is roughly seven park days inside twelve months, the Discovery Pass breaks even: an adult pass at $83.50 CAD equals 6.8 adult day passes. Whether a tour ticket includes the entry fee varies by operator, so never assume it, and check each tour's own inclusions. The authoritative fee source is the Parks Canada Jasper fee page, which raises fees annually.

On roads, do not import Banff's systems into your Jasper plan. Jasper has no Moraine-Lake-style shuttle or reservation corridor. The Icefields Parkway, 232 km between Lake Louise and Jasper, does not close for winter, but from 1 November to 31 March vehicles must carry snow tires or chains, there are no services along it in winter, no cell coverage en route, and it is not salted. Maligne Lake Road is open year round. Seasonal side roads, including Miette Road and the Toe of the Glacier Road, run spring to early October on a tentative schedule Parks Canada says may change without notice. Before you drive, check 511 Alberta and the Parks Canada road restrictions page, because Parks Canada warns that navigation apps are not always accurate for the park.

Seasonality shapes which of the things to do above are actually available. The Columbia Icefield Adventure runs 1 May to 12 October in 2026, the Maligne Lake cruise 27 May to 11 October, the SkyTram 15 April to 25 October, and Miette Hot Springs closes for the season on 12 October, reopening in May 2027. Miette sells admission in person only, first come first served, with no advance or online tickets, a genuinely useful fact if you were planning to pre-book everything. For the full month-by-month argument, see our best time to visit Jasper guide, and for budgeting, what Jasper tours cost.

How do you choose what fits your days?

For a two-day first visit, book the Ice Explorer and Skywalk combo for one day and the Maligne Lake cruise or a wildlife tour for the other, then fill evenings with the SkyTram or a food tour. For a single day, choose the 7-hour guided Icefield tour, which folds Athabasca Falls and the glacier into one handled trip. Add rafting or canoeing only once the anchors are locked, since they are half-day items that flex around anything.

The logic is distance. The Icefield Centre is 103 km south of Jasper, so a glacier day is a full day whether you drive it or a tour does. Maligne Lake is at the end of a 90-plus-minute drive up the valley road, so the cruise plus Medicine Lake is another natural full day. Wildlife tours, rafting, the SkyTram and the food tour all start in or near the townsite and run two to six hours, which makes them the filler items around the two anchors. That is the whole framework, and it holds whether you are staying two nights or a week.

Budget-wise, the anchors are also the two biggest line items, from $95.17 and $87.45 respectively, and the fillers are cheap by comparison, with wildlife watches from $61.94 and rafting from $68.34. A comfortable three-day plan with two anchors, two fillers and a park pass for two adults lands in the low hundreds per person, and the free layer, Athabasca Falls, Sunwapta Falls, Pyramid Lake, Medicine Lake and the reopened trail network, costs nothing beyond the pass. Athabasca Falls, 23 metres high and 30 km from Jasper, is open, as is the Sunwapta Falls day-use area, 54 km from Jasper, and both are easy stops on any Icefields Parkway day.

If you are pairing Jasper with Banff, the drive between them is the Icefields Parkway itself, and our Banff to Jasper drive guide covers how to split it. Whatever you book, confirm each tour's inclusions against your own pass situation, and check the Parks Canada what's open register before you finalise a day built around a specific trail or viewpoint.

Common questions about things to do in Jasper National Park