She Says: Banff, You Beauty — #amandrewontour

Aug 15

Aug 15 She Says: Banff, You Beauty

I will always remember the first time I saw a photo of Lake Moraine. It was on my first day of work in Canada, and it was set as the desktop default image. Something like this shot, and I immediately decided we had to go.

It might have taken 2+ years, but we got there.

Banff was Canada’s first national park in 1885, after a natural source of hot springs was found. Originally, you could only get there by rail… the Canadian Pacific Railway built flash hotels (and golf courses!) at Banff Springs and Lake Louise, and it became a popular summer destination. These days, over 4-million people visit Banff each year to enjoy the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

We camped near the actual town of Banff, in the Bow River Valley. On reflection, we probably should have stayed as far away from the town as possible… but it meant we had somewhere to hide and things to do when it rained.

Our rainy day camping set up. Thank goodness for the tarp!

The forecast looked pretty good for our first day in Banff… so we decided to venture out to the lakes. This meant a 4am start to beat the traffic, when we arrived at Lake Moraine at 5.30am the car park was ¾ full. Insane! Some people hike the surrounding mountains for sunrise, so got there much earlier than us. It was definitely worth the effort to get up that early though! The sunrise was magical, sitting lakeside for an hour watching the mountains light up.

At daybreak, we went for a walk around the lake and in the nearby hills. Back at the car we made breakfast and coffee and contemplated our next move. We were pretty pooped due to the lack of sleep, but we decided to try our luck on a carpark at Lake Louise. What a joke. We ended up 20 minutes away and in a queue for an hour to get the shuttle!! Luckily we were so tired we didn’t really care. Again, the effort was kinda worth it. We, and the thousands of other tourists, really liked Lake Louise.

We spent the rest of our time in Banff wandering around, finding random trails, and giving it a go. Tunnel Mountain was a great hike (and we can say we summited a mountain while we were there, not usually so easy in the Rockies!) and the views of the town (and golf course) were spectacular.

The town of Banff, nestled in the Bow River Valley

The Banff Springs Hotel. Add that to the list of hotels we’ll never stay at (we looked… $700-900 per night)

The weather really wasn’t in our favour though, so we packed up and left a day early coz everything was damp and we were getting grumpy. There’s only so much scrabble you can play (especially when Andy beats me every time!), and there were two cuddly doggos eagerly awaiting our return in Cochrane.