Can anyone advice me on the likely road conditions on the Icefields Parkway in early/mid January. I appreciate conditions change by the day / hour, but generally.
I want to visit Banff then , and with hire-car, travel to Jasper. Will I be wasting my time planning to do this ? I know the road goes high, and the weather can be fierce, but is the road ploughed and open to cars generally ? I will of course check local weather at the time, but local knowledge is what I’m after.
Cheers in advance for any responces, Fritz

Hi

I am about to do the same drive in Feb 2003. Did you get any info on these issues? Adrian

The Parkway is usually closed during the winter months. It can be bad enough in summer!!!

You certainly can, and no, it's not closed over winter, only if weather causes it to.
The hire cars 'winter' tires far exceeded our expectations - no slippage even on compacted snow/ice - but obviously there are limitations !
If the forecast is good - and the weather has been reasonable beforehand - there should be no prob ! If the weather comes in, it's not the place to be. Easy to check weather and conditions.
Easily possible in clear conditions to set of early from Banff, go to Jasper, and return in a day - but really you don't want to do it that way, spend more time, we couldn't on our timescale. The traffic is very light, some tourist traffic whilst we were there as well as 'locals'
We did 90 Kms north and back after leaving Lake Louise at 2pm.
It is AWESOME ! Well worth it even if not the full route
Having said that Highway 1a (Bow River) is very beautiful too - early and late in day just count the wildlife !
Take our advice - take out the 'extra' insurance if in a hire car. We had a brand new PT Cruiser, almost last day we got a large gravel hit on screen leaving a chip - cracks are very common with the gravel put done on the snow, The £8 I think (or maybe £4?) a day extra is well, well, worth it. Cost us nought extra.
Glad we ventured out there, absolutely fantastic !