We have done a couple of road trips since our last post about Istanbul over Thanksgiving, but nothing to really write about.  That all changed when work announced that we would have Friday, July 5th off.  Upon hearing the news, I immediately started chatting with Jaime about going out of town for the long weekend.  I suggested a few destinations within driving distance and Jaime responded simply “Banff”.  We have often come across pictures of the area and were determined to go at some point, so why not now?  A few years ago we went to a Buddhist country for Christmas and a Muslim country for New Years, so it makes perfect sense that we’d flee to Canada during America’s Independence Day!

Within a couple hours, we had everything booked.  We would depart only a couple weeks later, so we didn’t have much time to plan.  I had done some research of the must-see sites but the best find was the GyPSy Guide Android apps.  They were perfect because they solved a couple problems — showing us the sights around town and through the parks, but more importantly they used your phone’s GPS without a data plan so we didn’t need any maps or to pay much attention to the signage.

We flew into Calgary, Alberta on the morning of Thursday the 4th and rented a car at the airport.  It’s about a 2 hour drive up to Banff northwest from there, which was pretty uneventful.  One thing Jaime noticed was that Canadian highways didn’t have gas stations and/or fast food at every exit.  We had hoped to pick up food on the way but didn’t want to get too far off the highway to find it so we ended up waiting until arriving in Canmore.  It’s a small town a little bit away from Banff that I had recommended to me by a few people.  After a delicious lunch at The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company, we snapped a few photos and got back on the road to Banff.

Crossing into Banff National Park (the town is inside the park, which interestingly means homeowners actually lease the land from the park system), you must pay a ~$20 fee at a gate right on the highway, without much warning.  I knew it was going to happen at some point, though it seemed like a strange spot to have the entrance gates.  I thought we’d have to pay every day, but we never left the national parks during our stay so we didn’t have to.  One spot had a sign that said you must have a valid pass, but there was no where to pay even if you wanted to!  One cool thing they have in Banff is animal overpasses on the highways.  There are fences running along the entire highway and every so often a bridge which you’d normally expect to be an intersecting road was there but it was all grass for animals to migrate over the highway without crossing the road — it was genius!

We arrived in Banff, the town, at around 2pm.  There is one main road through town, not so surprisingly named Banff Ave.  The first half of it is all hotels lining both sides of the road.  Then the second half is all shops and restaurants.  Luckily for us, our hotel, the Mount Royal Hotel was in the middle of the second section.  We loved being in the middle of the action!  There are a few extra blocks in each direction with more places to shop/eat in this area too.  Banff is your typical tourist town with old-timey photos, shirt shops, local swag, etc.  We didn’t do too much shopping — we did have some great dinners and ice cream though!

We decided that we should head back to Calgary Sunday morning to give us a buffer before our flight since the customs agent warned us that the recent flooding may cause extra traffic on the roads.  This only gave us 2.5 days in Banff so there was no time to waste — we dropped off our bags in the room and headed out to start seeing the sights!  Our first stop was the famous Banff Springs Hotel.  It’s a massive hotel that was built in the park’s early days to draw in tourists via train.  The hotel is stunning from all angles, and from various high points we viewed it at around town throughout our trip.  It’s quite expensive to stay there and they seem to have a nice conference center built in now too for business trips.  We just drove around it and then went off to Lake Minnewanka.

The lake is gorgeous and surrounded by mountains, which is a theme for nearly all lakes we’d see over the next couple days.  The map showed a trail to a canyon so off we went!  We christened a backpack carrier that I got for Christmas too.  Lydia loved it!  She almost didn’t want to get out at the end of our hike.  At the canyon a strange man that showed up out of nowhere took a picture of us and we turned back.  It was a great introduction to the Banff area without ruining the sights we’d see the following day.

Our last big stop of the day was a trip up Sulphur Mountain in a gondola!  The tickets were pretty expensive (~$35 each) but I couldn’t pass up the views.  There were mountains in every direction as far as you could see.  The town looked tiny below and you could see the Banff Springs Hotel on the way up too.  At the top there’s just a small cafe and then a trail that takes you down a little bit and back up the peak of a neighboring mountain.  We went down to the middle section and turned back to the top of Sulphur Mountain.  While walking around the building at the top we ran into a family of wild mountain goats!  After that excitement (and lots of pictures of baby goats), we headed back down the mountain.  For some reason Banff didn’t have a lot of tourists over this weekend so we didn’t have to wait at all on either end of the trip.  They had huge roped off areas so you could tell it generally gets pretty busy.

Back at the hotel, we noticed a rooftop restaurant across the street and decided it was the perfect night for it, so we tried it out.  It was quite good though Lydia’s bedtime cut it a little shorter than we otherwise would have stayed.  While Lydia was going to sleep, Jaime ran out for some ice cream at a place on the street that was in the same building as our hotel.  It was so good that we ended up there every night of the trip!

The next day was the big journey into Banff National Park and Yoho National Park.  We had never heard of Yoho but it was part of the GyPSy Guide app we bought for this day’s activities and we enjoyed the extra scenery/sights.  The first stop was to the famous Lake Louise!  It was quite impressive and lived up to the hype.  The color of the lake is a glacial blue and directly on the opposite side is a beautiful mountain.  There are several trails that depart from the entrance to the lake and we opted for the one that followed the coastline of the lake.  It’s a nice easy path that starts to get a little more difficult near the backside of the lake.  After taking in all the views, we headed back and went on to the next stop.

We arrived at Moraine Lake a short time later and Lydia was passed out.  After attempting to nap with her for a bit, we decided to take turns going to the lake and if it was worthwhile to wait for Lydia to wake up.  After about 30 minutes (we had to park quite a ways away from the lake), Jaime returns wide-eyed and out of breath.  She says it’s somehow better than Lake Louise and we all must go back asap.  Lydia woke up shortly thereafter and we went back as a family.  The lake from ground level is about equal to Lake Louise and the path along the coast is a little more difficult, but where Moraine Lake shines is the climb up a rubble pile near the entrance.  Blink and you’ll miss the path so you may have to look for it.  Jaime had already done the climb so she stayed back and I took off down the trail with Lydia on my back.  After a relatively steep climb, you are awarded with the most stunning views you can imagine.  Ten distinct peaks surround the lake and the scene is just surreal.  I snapped so many pictures and took in the views for a while before joining Jaime for a quick snack from the cafe near the entrance.

The next stop on the app tour was the Spiral Tunnels.  Lydia was back asleep so Jaime just ran up and couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.  It was just a train tunnel into a mountain.  Surely a feat at some point in history but not impressive these days.  The busloads of other tourists waiting for a train to come through may think otherwise.  We then diverged from the tour for a bit to go down Icefields Parkway.

I had read and was recommended to drive down Icefields Parkway, known as the most beautiful drive in the world.  How could we say no?!  It’s the road a lot of tourists take all the way to Jasper (~3 hours) and spend a night but we didn’t have time for the full journey.  There was another park checkpoint and our pass from the previous day was still valid for an hour.  We asked the park ranger what there was to see within a short distance and she gave us a map and circled the highlights for us!  The main two attractions we stopped at were Crowfoot Glacier, which sadly is half melted away, and Peyto Lake where a glacier has receded long ago.  Quick tip: at Peyto Lake, the ranger advised us to go to the handicap parking lot to quickly walk out for the lake view.  We (read: I) didn’t go there though and we regretted it because the non-handicap route is a pretty steep and exhausting climb.

On the way back down Icefields Parkway to continue the tour, we came across about 30 cars pulled over to the side of the road.  Surely something must be going on so we pulled over and started asking questions.  Apparently there were a couple grizzly bears in the meadow just beyond a small hill.  Jaime took our new zoom lens and walked down to snap some great pictures!  It was a highlight of the trip and was totally unexpected.

Back on the main road, we continued the app tour into Yoho National Park.  The first stop there was a natural bridge.  It was a quick stop as one of the great things about these parks is that the main attractions are very close to the parking lots.  There were very few tourists at the Yoho stops which made us appreciate them a little more.  The natural bridge was formed by some white rapids pushing under the rock.  It was still at the water level so it’s not what I was picturing we’d see.  Next stop was Emerald Lake.  It’s mainly for kayaking so we just snapped a few pictures and went off to the last stop: Takakkaw Falls.  Jaime was jonesin’ for some waterfalls and Takakkaw delivered!  You could see the falls from the road and we geared up and hiked the trail all the way up to the falls.  The last 100 feet or so was extremely cold and wet from the falls’ mist.  Lydia was giggling the whole time and we snapped some great double rainbow pictures!  Back in Banff, we attempted to eat at Wild Bill’s but were turned away because for some reason their liquor license doesn’t allow kids??  We ended up picking up some pizza and eating it in the room while Lydia was falling asleep.

We started off our last full day in Banff by going to the breakfast buffet inside the Banff Springs Hotel.  The buffet was quite extensive (and quite expensive) but getting a mini tour of the hotel while finding the restaurant was well worth it.  It is full of large decorated empty rooms at every turn and the ambiance throughout is amazing.  Afterward, we followed a different app tour for sites in and around the Banff city area.  We had already done a couple of the stops the first night and had gotten familiar with the area so we didn’t follow the directions as strictly on this tour.  We had a several quick stops including Bow Falls, Cave and Basin (which we ended up skipping because Lydia was sleeping), Surprise Corner with incredible views of Banff Springs Hotel, the quick Hoodoos trail, and an overlook of Bow Valley from Mount Norquay.  We then took a longer hike at Johnston Canyon along a narrow metal catwalk to the Lower Falls where you can get very close and wet (again).  We then drove around the Vermilion Lakes just west of Banff before Jaime took a dip in the Upper Hot Springs to relax at the end of our great trip!

Dinner was also eventful on our last night.  We went to a Mexican place but Lydia was well past her bedtime and made it clear she wouldn’t make it through dinner so we asked for the food to go and I waited outside.  No exaggeration, we waited 45 solid minutes for two entrees!  We brought it back to the hotel and ate it there before retiring for the evening.

Our last morning we had a full breakfast in Banff and hit the road to Calgary.  We didn’t end up hitting any traffic but we also didn’t have as much time as we thought in Calgary.  We will have to go back and spend a little more time there.  In the 90 minutes or so we did have, we stumbled upon a hip pedestrian street lined with restaurants, shops, and the occasional food truck.  One thing that did make our experience a little more unique than normal was that Stampede was going on in Calgary.  It is a massive 10 day annual festival that draws tons of people to Calgary and everything we saw had a Stampede theme to it — be it drawings in windows, bails of hay, wooden plaques and gates.

That’s it for this trip!  All the pictures we took can be found at this link.  We had a great time and would love to go back in the winter to see more snow on the mountains and when Lydia is older to take advantage of kayaking in the lakes or boating in some white water rapids.  We are currently working out details of our next couple trips, so stay tuned!

Categories: Travel