Is Highway 93 open today?

The Parkway is a national park road, and Parks Canada's rule is blunt: your vehicle must have snow tires or chains when you are driving on the Icefields Parkway from November 1 to March 31, or any other period during which the Icefields Parkway is covered with snow and ice.

The practical version: fill the tank in Lake Louise, leave after the plows start at seven, be off the road before they stop at half past three, carry water, food, a blanket and washer fluid, and do not stop in a signed avalanche zone for the photograph. The Columbia Icefield centre and every other building on the road are closed in winter, so a breakdown means waiting for the next car.

Not for the season. The Icefields Parkway has no scheduled closure and is open all year. It shuts for two reasons: a storm that outruns the plows, and avalanche control afterwards, when Parks Canada brings the slopes down deliberately with explosives from the road, from an Avalauncher, or from a helicopter, and keeps the road empty while it does.

A storm closure usually clears within the day. A control closure after a big cycle can hold for a day or two, and because the Parkway is cleared after the Trans-Canada, it reopens last. The closure appears on Alberta 511 and in the status block above. If you are in Lake Louise when it drops, the village has beds and fuel; if you are in Jasper, so does Jasper. Nobody waits at the gate.

Highway 93 South leaves the Trans-Canada at Castle Junction, climbs to Vermilion Pass at 1,680 metres on the provincial boundary, runs 94 kilometres through Kootenay National Park, and drops through Sinclair Pass to Radium. It holds snow later than the Bow Valley and it has no services between the two ends.

Past the boundary, road reports come from Drive BC rather than Alberta 511, so a clean status here covers the Alberta end and the park's reporting; check Drive BC for Sinclair Pass and the Radium side.

Two side roads share the confusion. Highway 93A is the old alignment of the Parkway near Jasper, a scenic loop past Athabasca Falls, and part of it is closed to vehicles for the winter. It is a Jasper matter, not a Lake Louise one, and it has no bearing on whether the Parkway itself is open.

The Bow Valley Parkway, Highway 1A, is the slow road between Banff and Lake Louise. It is not Highway 93, but its closures land in the same 511 list. From 1 March to 25 June no travel is allowed on its eastern section between 8 pm and 8 am, and during the spring and fall cycling windows that eastern section is closed to public vehicles entirely. The Banff page has the dates and the reasons.