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By Shane Clausing

jasper national park

Jasper National Park officials expecting busy summer season

Mar 24, 2021 | 5:30 AM

Officials with Jasper National Park say they are expecting a busy summer in 2021.

Steve Young, the Public Relations and Communications Officer for Jasper National Park says people are eager to get out and explore, especially those who live near the area.

“Last year was amazing. The East Gate, which is basically where people from Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Edson come from was about 95 per cent of what it is in a regular year,” said Young. “We didn’t really have a drop, they just used the park differently.”

According to Young, many tourists last spring and summer would go to the park just for the day, have a picnic, go for a hike and use the area in a socially-distanced way.

“We’re expecting the same thing to happen this year and we’re preparing for that’s how it’s going to look.”

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The unofficial start of the summer tourism season in Jasper begins May long weekend, where many families kick off the camping season.

Camping in Jasper National Park is one of the most popular activities to do and during the May long weekend, it’s one of the busiest weekends of the year for the town.

For those planning on going camping this year, Young asks families and groups to bring their bikes, to help get what is expected to be a large number of vehicles off the road.

“Parking (in Jasper) becomes a problem. The days where two or three families would pile into one vehicle and come to Jasper kind of ended with COVID,” said Young.

“You usually have one family tops in a car, or you might have two people by themselves in the car and parking spots become a premium because everybody’s trying to be safe.”

Young tells EverythingGP that last year park officials saw growing examples of more vehicles in the area.

“Everybody wants to be in the same spots. Lake Annette is a very popular spot and we’ve always had the same size of parking lot, but now it gets full way faster. The ski-hill’s parking lot is usually full by 9:00 a.m.”

With all the campgrounds within a short distance of some of Jasper’s premium attractions, Young says it makes sense for people to bring their bikes.

“With Whistlers (campground) being only 2.7 kilometres from Downtown Jasper and Wapiti only being 3.1 kilometres, it’s all trail linked,” said Young. “You can bring your bike, get to all of these places around the townsite on your bicycle, which is a lot less stress and you can park your bike pretty well anywhere.

“You put that together and it really works well.”

Reservations for camping at Jasper National Park (Wapiti and Wabasso) open on April 9 at 8:00 a.m. mountain time.

Any updates on Jasper National Park can be found at their website.