Banff, Alberta
From Calgary we headed to Banff. This is such a beautiful area and place to visit. Put it on your bucket list.
On the way to Banff, I stopped in a town called Canmore. It was recommended as a place that had a nice quilt shop. I stopped to get some items for my sister, and I was pleasantly surprised what a lovely town this was. With the architecture of the buildings and the huge mountains in the background I almost felt like I went to the Alps. The downtown area had shops and places to eat. I would stop here again.
In order to drive through a National Park in Canada, you need to have a National Park Pass. These were provided to us through our tour. We needed to display the pass on our vehicle window each day that we were driving through the park. If there were two people in the vehicle, they needed two passes on their window.
We camped at the Tunnel Mountain Campgrounds. The view from my campsite was the best the first day. There would be fog and we also had haze from Canada fires, but the views were still spectacular. Within an hour of arrival, I went over to a lookout area not far from my van and shortly after got a cool photo of a fox carrying it’s freshly caught dinner. There are marmot holes all around and you see them scurrying about. I also saw a deer when I was walking from the town shuttle bus back to my van.
While in town I visited Cascade Gardens. It is located not far from the Fairmont Springs Hotel.
The photos of the bear which was in our campground. I did not take these photos.
Our group went on about an 8 hour bus tour which included lunch. I saw a lot of great scenery.
The first stop was Johnston Canyon. I went with some others and hiked the 1.5 mile to the Upper Falls. We had to travel pretty quickly because our time was limited. If I had to do it over again, I would stop at the lower falls. There is a cave like area there that you can go into.
Spiral Tunnels. Due to the steep incline of the mountains the spiral tunnels were built so that the trains can pass through the mountains.
We were very lucky that a train happened to pass by can s while we were there.
In the first photos you can see the tunnel.
Wildlife Bridges and underpasses. Because wildlife were having a hard time getting across the highway without being killed, they built underground underpasses. With trackpad counts and cameras they were able to tell that the larger species such as elk, deer, moose, anything with a rack on its head didn’t prefer to use the animal underpasses.
Therefore, they installed 6 wildlife bridges. They have cameras and motion sensors on these bridges and underpasses and can tell how many animals cross over and when they do so.
Kicking Horse Valley
The Kicking Horse River is a glacial river that creates a nice little waterfall through a natural rock bridge.
This trip has been amazing so far. Sorry for delay in any posts. I have not had any Wi-Fi and poor internet.
I leave tomorrow for points further north where it will not be getting dark at night, and connections to cell and Wi-Fi are not going to improve for a while.
I’ll post when I can, so keep a look out as there are Bears in my future! Thanks for tagging along!