Banff National Park is huge and full of incredible scenery. There is so much to see and explore even just via short day hikes. Unfortunately, it’s also very busy in the summer months and there are always crowds of people at the more popular sites, much like many US national parks. Some locations are so popular that special planning is required. For example, Moraine Lake Road is closed to personal vehicles year-round and the parking lots at Lake Louise fill up at sunrise in the summer months. It’s even difficult to secure time slots on the required shuttle buses a day or two in advance because they sell out so quickly.
We ended up spending two five-day stretches in the park over two weeks (visiting Yoho National Park in between) before continuing north on the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. Wild or dispersed camping isn’t allowed in any of the national parks and we didn’t have any advance reservations so we just had to grab spots here and there as they showed up online. We managed to snatch up a few consecutive nights at one of the large campgrounds near the town of Banff, another few nights near Lake Louise and then some first-come, first-serve sites further north at Waterfowl Lakes. We also stayed in a hotel in Banff when we couldn’t get a campground site (like Friday and Saturday nights) to avoid having to drive all the way out of the park. It was probably even more difficult than usual this summer because the Canadian government had granted free access to all the national parks along with discounted camping fees.
We explored the town of Banff by bike and on foot, visiting the Cascade of Time Gardens, the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum, the river walk and Bow Falls, hiking up the Sulphur Mountain Trail and riding the Banff gondola back down. We also rode the Lake Louise gondola up to the ski area for lunch and to go hiking and enjoy the ultra wide views of Lake Louise and the surrounding mountains. It was kind of freaky to pass through the big gates of the electrified fence that protects the top of the gondola visitors area from grizzly bears.
A major highlight was visiting Moraine Lake for sunrise and hiking from there up towards Wenkchemna Pass on the Eiffel Lake Trail. Afterward we briefly visited Lake Louise itself but never ended up doing any of the classic hikes up from the lake. Another favorite was the gorgeous Peyto Lake viewpoint and hiking up the valley from there. We enjoyed hiking through Johnston Canyon despite the crowds and the insane lines for photo ops at the waterfalls. It is impressive but admittedly still cooler to see the canyon iced over in the winter (without crowds of people) as we’ve done in the past.
We enjoyed still more hiking from Bow Lake up towards Bow Glacier Falls on a cold wet morning, a late afternoon hike from our campsite to Chephren Lake and a short hike to more stupendous views at the edge of Hector Lake.
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