Jasper National Park: What Is Open Now 2026

Jasper is open, and it is busy again: 2,392,849 visits in the 2025-26 fiscal year, within a whisker of the 2,407,529 it recorded the year before the 2024 wildfire. What has not come back is the full list of sights. Maligne Canyon and Cavell Road are closed for the whole of the 2026 season, and campgrounds are running at 77% of their pre-fire capacity. Everything else - the Icefields Parkway, Maligne Lake, Athabasca Falls, Miette Hot Springs, almost every trail - is running normally.

The fire that caused all this arrived on 24 July 2024, two days after the town and park were evacuated. It burned more than 32,000 hectares, the largest fire here in a century, and destroyed 358 of the townsite’s 1,113 structures - roughly a third of the buildings, though the hospital, library and fire hall were saved. Recovery has been quick in some places and slow in others, and the difference matters when you plan.

Closed for the 2026 season

Maligne Canyon. The limestone gorge with the bridges and the winter icewalk is listed by Parks Canada as not permitted, and its picnic area is shut. If you have seen an ice-canyon tour advertised for Jasper this winter, check which canyon it uses.

Cavell Road, the Cavell day-use area and the Cavell Meadows trail. That means no Angel Glacier, no Cavell Pond, no meadows hike, for the whole season.

The reason is the same for both, and it is not bureaucratic caution. Both roads run under steep slopes that lost their trees, and bare high-angle ground sheds debris flows and slides. Geotechnical assessments were finished in autumn 2025; Parks Canada says timelines will follow as planning progresses, which in practice means no announced reopening date.

Two campgrounds stay shut: Wabasso and the Whirlpool group campground. Trails 9 and 9C, the link from Old Fort Point to Valley of the Five Lakes, are also closed until further notice while hazard trees come down.

What is open

Almost everything else. Maligne Lake Road, Maligne Lake and its day hikes reopened on 11 October 2024. The Icefields Parkway was back in service on 23 August 2024, so the drive between Lake Louise and Jasper works exactly as it always did. Athabasca Falls, Sunwapta Falls, Miette Hot Springs, Pyramid Beach, Patricia Lake, Lake Annette, Old Fort Point and the Valley of the Five Lakes are all open, along with both visitor centres.

Eleven frontcountry campgrounds are running - Whistlers, Wapiti, Snaring, Miette, Honeymoon Lake, Kerkeslin, Jonas, Wilcox, Icefield, the Icefield Centre RV site and the overflow ground - and every backcountry campground in the park is open, at 100% of pre-fire capacity. Parks Canada’s own summary is that virtually all of Jasper’s trails have now reopened. The Valley of the Five Lakes trail came back for summer 2026 after a rebuild with a realigned section, better surfacing and new rest areas; Wabasso Lake and Curator trails reopened too.

Here is the part that catches people out. Visitor numbers are back at pre-fire levels while frontcountry campsites sit at 77% of what they were. The same crowd is competing for a quarter fewer serviced sites, so book campsites and rooms earlier than you would have in 2023, especially for July and August. Commercial accommodation in town is open but tighter than before, because rebuilding is still under way.

What the burn actually looks like

Nobody selling you a trip will show you this, so it is worth setting expectations. Around the townsite and along parts of the highway corridor you drive through standing dead forest: black trunks, no canopy, snow or fireweed on the ground between them. It goes on for kilometres in places, and it is genuinely striking rather than depressing - you can see the shape of the valley in a way you cannot when the trees are up.

Most of the park is untouched. Jasper covers 11,000 km2, the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, and 32,000 hectares is 320 km2 of it. Drive twenty minutes down the Maligne road or south towards the Columbia Icefield and the forest is unburnt.

Maligne Lake and Spirit Island

Maligne Lake is 22.3 km long, the longest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies, and the road to it climbs past Medicine Lake into a valley that feels a long way from anywhere. The postcard - three spruce trees on a spit of gravel with peaks stacked behind - is Spirit Island, and it sits 14 km down the lake. There is no road and no trail to it. You take the boat cruise or you paddle a canoe for several hours each way.

The lakeshore trails at the near end are free, quiet and open, which is a fair option if the cruise is sold out or the budget has run its course.

The rest of the park

Pyramid and Patricia lakes sit ten minutes above the townsite: two small lakes with Pyramid Mountain reflected in them, an easy loop to walk or cycle, and the closest thing Jasper has to a sunrise routine.

Miette Hot Springs lies about an hour east of town up a dead-end valley, and the drive is half the point: switchbacks, sheep on the road, and a soak at the end of it.

The park has been a Dark-Sky Preserve since 2011, and with the townsite lights so far from most of the park, a clear night at a lakeshore pullout does the rest. Athabasca Falls and Sunwapta Falls, both open, are ten-minute stops off the Icefields Parkway rather than destinations in themselves.

Getting there and when to go

Jasper sits on Highway 16, the Yellowhead, roughly 365 km and four hours west of Edmonton. From Calgary or Banff the scenic approach is the Icefields Parkway, 232 km of mountains that deserves a full day rather than a transit. VIA Rail’s Canadian calls at Jasper station on the Toronto-Vancouver run, which makes a car-free trip possible if you stay in town.

July and August are warm, long and the busiest. September is quieter with better light and no bugs. Winter brings Marmot Basin, frozen lakes and the darkest skies of the year, though the classic Maligne Canyon icewalk is off the table this season. Spring is the awkward one: high trails are still under snow into late June.

Jasper or Banff

If you have to choose, the honest split is this. Banff has the famous lakes, the better public transport and the higher prices; it also had 4.56 million visits last year in a park two-thirds the size. Jasper has almost twice the area, roughly half the visitors, wilder valleys and, right now, two of its headline sights closed. Anyone who wants a quiet week of hiking and driving will get more out of Jasper. Anyone with two days and a list of photographs to take should start with Banff.

How to spend three days

With Maligne Canyon and Cavell out of the picture, a sensible three days looks like this. Day one: the Maligne valley - Medicine Lake, the lake itself, the boat cruise if you booked it, and a lakeshore walk at the far end. Day two: the townsite side - Pyramid and Patricia lakes at first light, Valley of the Five Lakes, Old Fort Point for the view over the Athabasca, and the SkyTram up Whistlers Mountain if the cloud is high. Day three: south on the Icefields Parkway to Athabasca Falls, Sunwapta Falls and the Columbia Icefield, roughly 105 km each way, which eats the whole day if you stop properly.

Add a fourth day and Miette Hot Springs and a longer hike both fit. Anything shorter than two nights is really just a stop on a drive between Banff and Edmonton.

Practical notes

• A park pass is per person per day: C$12.25 adult, C$24.50 family/group, free for under-18s. Admission is free for everyone from 19 June to 7 September 2026 under the Canada Strong Pass - parking and camping fees still apply.
• Elk rut in the townsite in September and they are not tame. Keep 30 m from elk and deer, 100 m from bears and wolves.
• Fill the tank in Jasper before heading south, and expect to be off the grid. Parks Canada is blunt about it: “cell service is available on each end of the Icefields Parkway but not on the Parkway itself”, and much of the rest of the park has no coverage either. Download offline maps before you leave town; a Canadian SIM or eSIM does not help where there is no tower.
• From 1 November to 1 April your vehicle must have snow tires or chains to drive the Icefields Parkway. Snow clearing runs 7 am to 3.30 pm, so a winter crossing belongs in the middle of the day.
• Book campsites and hotel rooms further ahead than the old guidebooks suggest - the same number of visitors is now sharing 77% of the campsites.
• Check the Parks Canada “what is open” page before you drive to anything specific. It was last updated at the end of June 2026 and it is the only list that gets corrected.

Read also

• Its neighbour to the south: Banff National Park
• The drive that links them, stop by stop: Icefields Parkway
• All the parks we cover: national parks hub
• The province around it: Canada by province