Alberta: The Rockies

29th Aug – 12th Sept

Ah! To the mountains!

Think Canada and images of snow capped, pine clad peaks spring to mind. We have been in the country for forty days and seen barely an undulation in the land and finally there they were. The Rockies. In fact we have crossed the Rockies twice already on our travels. Once through northern USA in 2017, and earlier on this trip in Colorado. Somehow they are more impressive up here. Crisper, pointier, more beautiful. Perhaps that is seeing them through our prairie saturated eyes. 

From the East there are three entry points into the National Parks of Banff & Jasper which cover most of the Rockies mountain range in Canada. The most popular ones are the northerly entrance that comes from Edmonton into Jasper and the southerly one from Calgary into Banff town. The road through the National Parks that connects these two towns is one of the most scenic drives in the world. The third road comes from the town of Red Deer, entering at a junction about halfway along the scenic parkway. This road is called the David Thompson Highway, named not for a French fur trapper for a change, but for a British-Canadian fur-trader, surveyor and cartographer who beat a path through the mountains here.  Overall, David Thompson travelled over 90,000 km throughout North America, mapping 4.9 million square km, making him one of the greatest ever land geographers who ever lived that you’ve never heard of. This was the road we were on, a beautiful, deserted highway, far from the madding crowd. 

Our next campsite, the thematically named David Thompson Resort, was about 40km from the National Park gates. Stopping here was not due to any great distance travelled but due to the logistics of trying to find a campsite at short notice over the Labor Day weekend.  For all the non-North Americans amongst you, this is a three day weekend at the start of September which is summer’s last hurrah. Campsites in the National Park are booked months, if not a year, in advance and we were lucky to find a roost for these few days at this privately owned park on the park outskirts. It was wooded, spacious, on the edge of a turquoise lake and would be a very fine place to sit-out the melée of the holiday weekend.

This is bear country and there are strict rules about managing rubbish, not storing food or coolers/chilly bins outside and generally keeping a tidy campsite. Even a barbecue with meat remnants on it is a bear magnet. This apparently had been a bumper year for sightings, and we could believe it. I took this photo from the campsite entrance one late afternoon. He was massive for a black bear, and happily for us, stayed the other side of the road.

Our main adventure from here was to drive up into the National Park and north to the Columbia Icefields, an area covered in ice and glaciers about an hour and a quarter away. We had made a booking to do a tour on the Saturday, but having looked at the weather forecast (good Friday, poor Saturday) and having spoken to the campsite owner about how much busier it was going to be at the weekend, we hurriedly re-booked for later that day, Friday, did a rapid off-load of Tin Can from Big Dave and hit the road. It was a stunning and sunny drive up to the icefields, which span the Continenal Divide and have feet in both the Banff and Jasper National Parks. Covering about 325 square km, the ice is between 100 and 365 m in depth and feeds six major glaciers. One of these terminates close to the parkway road and is called the Athabasca Glacier.

This is the one onto which you can take a tour in a fleet of custom ‘snow coaches’. Now the road to get here here was not busy, but when we arrived at the visitors centre where the tours start, it was bedlam with seemingly thousands of people milling around. This is a ‘must-do’ on the Rockies Tour Trail, and it seemed that everyone ‘was-doing’. If this was a quieter day, I was glad that we had rebooked. The tour up onto the glacier involved a normal coach ride up to the glacier edge, then a change onto one of the impressive glacier-going snow coaches. This crawled up over the lateral moraine (massive pile of rock debris along the side of a glacial retreat path) and onto the glacier where it stopped for 20 minutes for us all to get out, take pictures and get cold. We then got back on the bus and retraced our steps. It was interesting. We found a Kiwi flag to pose with. We learned some glacial facts. It was overpriced. What we hadn’t realised, due to the lack of information on-line, that it was possible to just park and walk the 2km to the glacial terminal face. Same view. Fewer unsatisfactory encounters with other humans who have a complete lack of social awareness. Free. Never mind. We have had so few disappointing experiences on our wanderings that we were happy to suck it up. The second part of the tour was a bus transfer to a cantilevered ‘sky walk’ platform that is suspended out over a ravine. Impressive engineering, disconcerting wobble, nerve wracking glass floor. Nick decided he didn’t need to experience it. I probably didn’t either, but did it anyway.

On our other few days here we did a couple of amazing walks from the campsite. One was along the shore of the fantastic lake nearby, and another was up along a river gorge about 2km down the road. In both cases the signposting was very characteristically Canadian, ie non existent, and we navigated by a combination of verbal directions from locals and optimism. It was a little off piste in parts but we made it home successfully both days and we didn’t have to contend with any bears. Which is always a good thing.

The campsite had a mini-golf course. We played. I won again. 3:0 winning streak for me.

From David Thompson Resort we headed into the National Park and south to Lake Louise Village, a very, very lovely two hour drive through the mountains. It was busier, but not tediously so, and we did not get held up in one of the road’s notorious ‘bear-jams’, where a wildlife sighting stops traffic. However, our taste of crowds to come came when we tried to stop at a picturesque lake along the route. Our plans were thwarted by the huge volumes of like-minded tourists. The carpark was full and overflowing with people parking all the way down both sides of the access road. We had to squeeze our way through the tight carpark to turn around, navigating some epic pot-holes that threatened to kill our suspension on the way, and then we drove on. Being able to enjoy this popular part of the world was going to involve some better planning on our part and possibly being more relaxed about being a part of the hoards.

Lake Louise needs little introduction. It is the jewel in the crown of the Rockies National Parks and has been luring people here since the first little hut was built on its shores in 1890. Visitor numbers jumped soon after when the Canadian Pacific Railway was built through the Rockies with a station at the bottom of the hill, in Lake Louise Village. Over the years the hut morphed through several incarnations into the current monster 548 roomed iconic, but honestly a bit plain, Fairmont Chateau Hotel and now the Lake can see up to 15,000 visitors per day in peak season. The village of Lake Louise is about 5km away, down a winding road, and is home to a Visitors’ Centre, a couple of smaller hotels, a few cafés, a bike shop, a small grocery store, petrol station and an enormous campsite.

The campsite had two parts. The ‘hard-sided’ camper section and the ‘soft-sided’ section. Because of the number of grizzly bears in this area, it was compulsory for anyone with a tent, or a camper with any canvas walls, to stay in an area surrounded by a six foot tall, bear-proof, electrified fence and electrified cattle-grid. It was a bit like a reverse a Jurassic Park. This dangerous wildlife issue does add a layer of adventure to camping trips in this part of the world. Getting cold and wet is not the worst that can happen during a night under canvas in bear country. Our stay here was an unusually long six nights. This area is understandably on the well-beaten path of the rental motor-home trail and most folk only stop for a couple of nights. Our site was o.5km away from the shower block and 1.5km from the village (which was the only place that we had access to internet) so the bikes came in very handy. We had five full days here and for a couple of those we did very little in the way of sightseeing, catching up with admin instead. We treated the bikes to a long overdue service at the bike rental place. They have been strapped to the back of Tin Can and carted around a whole continent over the past three years so they were desperately in need of some TLC. We now have smooth gear changes and functional brakes again. We spent more than several hours sat in the visitors centre using the wifi and, with the invaluable assistance of Nick’s brother Mike, managed to buy a car in the UK, ready for our arrival. The internet (when wifi is available) is amazing.

The traffic situation at Lake Louise is dire at this time of year and parking is at a premium. Everyone tries to drive up to the lake, but the car park up there is usually full by 9am. There is a shuttle bus system, but it only runs from the overflow carpark about 5km the other side of the village and queues build up quickly with some people having to wait 1-2 hours for a seat on a bus. The only sensible option was to walk up there, which is how we got our first glimpse of this utterly gorgeous lake. There are two trails up from the village: a steeper walking trail which is about 2.8km long and a less steep biking trail which is about 4.5km and follows the old tram line route. This was a trolley that ferried the train passengers of the late 19th and early 20th century from the railway station up to the lake shore. We walked up in near solitude and arrived at the lake shore to where the crowds were. Having dodged the selfie takers, the tripod wielders, the slow wanderers, the ‘walking four-abreast-ers’ and the ‘posing-for-a-pouty-Instagram-photo-takers’, we took our place on the shore and marvelled. It really is a special place. The water is glassy calm, aquamarine, enclosed by steep rocky mountain sides and dotted with people cruising around lazily in red rental canoes. The view is up into a glacial plain.

It is obvious why so many people make the effort to come here. The Chateau rises up at its downstream end and although it is statuesque, I don’t think that it is a building of any great beauty. We followed the human traffic along the flat, 2km lakeside walk to the top end of the lake which is fed by a glacial meltwater stream. Here we found a quiet-ish rock on which to perch and eat our picnic. Our lunch-time entertainment included watching a strapping young man peel off (most of) his clothes in order to dive into the freezing lake so he could have his photo taken with the Chateau in the background. He was out pretty sharpish, but probably still slower than the time it took his lady-friend to upload the shot to Instagram .(Sorry, too bitchy??) That, and the cheeky ground squirrels who invited themselves to lunch and weren’t taking ‘no, go away’ for an answer. They freaked me out. We turned around and headed home, taking the longer route on the bike trail this time, having trundled a respectable 15km in total.

Lake Louise Ski Area is the second largest in Canada (apparently) and sits on the opposite side of the valley to Lake Louise. Its gondola runs in the summer for hikers and sightseers and there is a jolly nice restaurant at the top too. We caught the free shuttle from the village to the base station and went up the hill. This is also grizzly bear country and there is another electric fence protecting the gondola upper station, the restaurant and the wildlife interpretive centre that is also situated here. Hiking involved letting ourselves out of the protected area without electrocuting ourselves and doing a short but steep hike (partly up the Mens’ World Cup downhill ski slope) out to a lookout point. The view was amazing, across back to the lake and I built the obligatory Inukshuk.

This may be a bit of cultural appropriation, but I love making them in places like this, looking over epic views. I named this one Louise. One very fine meal and some very fine sangria cocktails on the sunny deck of the White Horn restaurant later we headed back down the hill. No bears had been seen, but we didn’t really care by this stage.

We had gorgeous weather during our stay in Lake Louise, but we knew it wouldn’t last long. Our last day here was the final beautiful day forecast for a while and I talked Nick into another trip back up to the lakeshore to walk to up to a lookout overlooking lake and chateau. Unfortunately, the only realistic way to get there was by bike, a hot 45 minute slog up the 3% grade of the old tramline. This was followed by a 30 min steep walk up to the lookout. The view was good, the ride down the hill a dream! Dinner earned.

The old railway station of Lake Louise Village is still functional for the dropping off and picking up of passengers travelling on some train tours to the area but is mostly now a restaurant in a museum. We cycled the 3km out to it for a meal on our last night, and sat out on the deck right by the tracks. Adding hugely to the ambiance -but perhaps not so much to the peace and quiet of the evening -a couple of beautifully restored old passenger trains stopped at the station whilst we were there.

The first was a tour train which disgorged enough passengers to fill four waiting coaches, but the second was a very special, privately owned, luxury, Orient Express style, eighteen cabin train that stopped for about half an hour. We discovered from the staff that is available to charter for a mere CA$300,000 per day. Bargain. Apparently it was hosting someone famous but no-one was talking and we couldn’t see anyone through the windows. The food and wine were good, the excitement of the trains got us talking to nearly all of our fellow diners on the deck and we rode home in the dark with head torches strapped to our handlebars and fingers crossed for no bear encounters. It was bear-less, but freezing.

Apropos of nothing, this rig pulled into camp whilst we were there. He was taking the ‘toy collection on the trailer’ to the next level. It could have been very cool, but unfortunately it was a shame that he was a miserable b@#$%@&d with no sense of humour. Sir, if you insist on dragging a helicopter around behind your RV, please be prepared for people to be interested, want to engage with you and take a couple of photos…

After leaving Lake Louise we had a long and arduous journey to the town of Banff. Just kidding. It’s only 40 minutes away. Here our camping trip was going to have a four day suspension and we were going to be staying ‘on dry land’ in a hotel condo with our friend Lori travelling from Washington to join us. After the obligatory trip to the laundry and the supermarket we checked in, found space for Big Dave and Tin Can on the edge of the carpark and we ‘packed’ for our stay. What I mean is that we carried armfuls and shopping bags full of what seemed like half the total contents of the camper into the condo in about fifty-three trips across the aforementioned carpark. Staying in self catering accomodation whilst having access to all your worldly possessions a 30 second walk away is both very handy and a bit counterproductive. The condo was lovely. We had an enormous bed in a bedroom four times the size of TC and there was even a bath. Not a very big bath, granted, but that’s not the point. The pièce de résistance of the place was a real open fire with free access to all the firewood we needed. What a treat. Needless to say, we lit it early each evening and kept it raging whether needed or not. That’s what opening windows are for, right?

Our accomodation was about 1.5km up the hill out of Banff centre. An easy walk down, and an even easier bus ride back up. The hotel gave us complimentary transit passes for the duration of our stay, meaning that Lori’s hire car didn’t need to move for a couple of days. The first day we dodged the occasional rain and walked into town. We cruised the ‘strip’, checking out some of the plethora of clothes and outdoor gear shops, walked up to the far more impressive Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel to be nosey, walked back along the river walk and then had lunch at Banff Ave Brewing Company.

The bus took us home. The next day was a bit wetter, but we dressed appropriately and headed out on foot from the hotel and did a lovely trail walk, mostly downhill, back into town another way. On this walk we came close to a fantastic 7 point bull elk who seemed particularly unfazed by us or the nearby road. We gave him a wide berth as it is rutting season and we didn’t want him to get his knickers in a twist (North American: panties in a bunch) over us. We got the bus back up the hill again.

On our last day we got an early start and went back to Lake Louise in the car. We wanted Lori to see it and we had saved one of the good walks to do with her. The sun was nearly shining after a couple of rainy days and we were quietly hopeful that we would be able to snag a coveted parking space near the lake shore We were and we did, but it was one of the last spots, so we were lucky. The weather perfect for our planned hike – an 4km trip up from the top end of the lake into the Plain Of Six Glaciers – it was cool and dry with clouds moodily hugging the gullies and peaks.

This was one of two walks from the chateau which boasted a special destination: a tea shop. The other, at Lake Agnes, was shorter and apparently much more popular, making our choice for us. The walk started with the same 2km lakeshore stroll, dodging the meanderers, then we hit the hill.

It was a slow, steady, moderately travelled route and we got warmer and warmer as we climbed, the sun making an appearance on and off. About an hour and a half later, weary and hungry, we arrived at the most beautiful sight to behold – a Swiss chalet style log building nestled in some trees. It was built in 1927 by Swiss guides and was a rest stop for mountaineers heading up into Abbots Pass.

It has been in the same family since 1960 and is run with no modern amenities of electricity or running water. Dry supplies and propane are flown in once a season by helicopter, otherwise fresh goods are hiked in by staff who stay up at the nearby huts for five days at a time, hiking out the rubbish with them on the way down. The menu is simple hearty, vegetarian fayre and it was fabulous. What a spot! We headed back down to the rumble of an ice avalanche across the narrow valley.

We finished our Banff sojourn and our time with Lori with a fantastic meal at a steak restaurant called Saltlick. Our server was a Kiwi with a very dry sense of humour so we had entertainment as well as excessive sustenance. We have actually eaten out quite infrequently this trip, but this week had seen three blowout meals. Back to home cooking next week. Lori headed off in the morning, we ferried our many possessions back into TC, put everything away and then embarked on our last day of mountain roads, a drive back up past Lake Louise to follow the Trans-Canadian Highway west. This road took us out of Banff National Park, seamlessly into Yoho National Park and out of Alberta, into British Columbia. With this came another time change as we re-entered Pacific Time Zone and we cruised on, climbing into, and rolling down from our last big climb through Glacier National Park. Next stop, Revelstoke.