Calgary Trans Canada Highway Clarion Hotel & Conference Center Lake Louise Lake Louise Inn Icefields Center Glacier View Lodge Jasper Tekarra Lodge Banff Tunnel Mountain Resort Calgary Airport Delta by Marriott

Another September when we are leaving 100 degrees and vacationing at half of that temperature. We had a short flight to Atlanta on Delta and then a longer flight to Calgary on Westjet flying as a Delta codeshare. We bought two cheap one way tickets so we are going home on Air Canada. We did not depart Tampa until 2:30 and had a nice dinner at Café Columbia before heading out as we are arriving Calgary about 8PM which is 10P with the time change. We are picking up a car in Calgary but sleeping in Calgary tonight as it is cheaper than up in the Rockies. We will do the last night at the Delta Calgary airport (again to shave a few bucks) as most of our hotel rooms up in the Rockies are close to or above $300 a night even after the favorable exchange rate. We are hoping to do a grocery store run tonight to get some breakfast goods as we have kitchenettes in a couple of places and a couple bottles of wine figuring all that stuff will be more expensive in Jasper and Banff.

Day two will be Lake Louise, day three will be spent at the Glacier View Lodge which is located at the Athabasca Glacier. We have an all-inclusive night there with cocktails and appetizers, a glacier trip on the ice cat, dinner, accommodations, breakfast, and a trip up the new Glacier Viewing Platform. That is one of those viewing platforms that hang off a cliff that has a glass floor. Day 4 & 5 will be in Jasper National Park, day 6 & 7 at Banff National Park and night number 8 will be at the Calgary airport. We are excited to see this part of the world as we sell a lot of Canadian Rockies. We sell escorted trips to this region on Globus, Tauck, Trafalgar and Rocky Mountaineer. We also sell a trans-Canada train trip every other year that involves Rocky Mountaineer connecting to Via Rail so clients can go all the way from Vancouver to Toronto by rail. We use Rail Bookers and also Globus for these types of trips. Rocky Mountaineer runs from Seattle/Vancouver up to Banff or Jasper. Once you finish the train trip, you usually stay in Banff, Jasper and/or Lake Louise to spend some time in the Rockies as we are. We are doing some shorter trips this year as we are very busy at our travel agency. Canada is a great 1 week (we did eight nights with six Rockies and 2 Calgary to cut costs) trip for Americans as the flights are short and right now you are buying a Canadian dollar for about 75 cents. We already have some day hikes identified. We will drive the Icefields Parkway up to the Glacier and Jasper and then return a few days later to Banff. We are walking on the glacier and the 1000’ clear view Glacier Skywalk over the valley. We will be attending a luncheon buffet at Maligne Lake Historic Chalet followed by a boat ride on Maligne Lake. We will return to Banff and ride the Gondola (hopefully) for a sunset. We’ll stop in Canmore to buy a couple of park passes which are good for all of the Canadian parks for one year from the date of issue. We are thinking of Canadian Maritimes next summer. Summers in Florida are getting hotter so these summer breaks up north seem to be needed when you live for three months with a heat index approaching 100. To our Canadian customers, we love visiting Canada and sending our US Clients to your country.

Impressions of the Canadian Rockies… WOW! As the plane takes off from Calgary and the Canadian Rockies appear in the distance, we are discussing how great this week was. The Canadian Rockies that we visited was Calgary, Canmore, Lake Louise, The Athabasca Glacier, Jasper and Banff. The Canadian National Park System is beautiful in this area. Kudos to the park system employees as bathrooms were clean, trails were well maintained and all facilities were spectacular and inviting. I should start this blog also with a nod to Brewster Tours which has recently been rebranded to be called Pursuit! These are the descendants of the young Brewster teens who headed west in 1897. Brewster has almost a monopoly on tourism in this small region from Banff to Jasper and everything in between. We got a chance to speak with some of their employees who were working on 2 year “holiday” visas. Everybody was happy and helpful, but one employee said they were paid pretty well for seasonal work and we could see with our experience that they had an awesome training program and rigid procedure manuals to keep everything running smoothly. Also hats off to their environmental responsibility watching their practices with boat refeuling, etc. The reason we took this particular familiarization trip is this is the area of the Rockies that is featured by most of our escorted tour companies. We were confirmed in that we saw Tauck, Globus, Cosmos, Trafalgar, Scenic and even Contiki (youth tours) busses by Wednesday. The Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff is included in all of these tour companies Canadian Rockies programs. Some companies even include Waterton Lakes/Glacier National Park (USA) to round out the trip. This is also the beginning and ending point for Rocky Mountaineer and the junction point on the Trans-Canada railway odyssey. With Rocky Mountaineer you can start or end in Calgary and go one way, even though they offer round trips. The “land” is a nice combination with the train and most people stay in at least Jasper and Banff when they traverse the Canadian Rockies by train on our Rocky Mountaineer program. Lastly, weather changes by the minute up in the Canadian Rockies. We had all our layers on and off during the week and sometimes hourly. When we departed Tampa, it was a pretty bad forecast for our week. We joked that the vacation fairy was traveling with us as all the worst days forecast-wise were pretty good overall and we really only had two rainy days even though those were not all day rain but patches of scattered showers that could form in the mountain above you at any time as there are a lot of micro-climates in the Canadian Rockies. Calgary We bookended Calgary with a stop at Tim Hortons. On the arrival, it was the only thing open at 10:45 PM near our hotel. It was either the 24/7 Denny’s or Tim Hortons, so we stopped for a sandwich which we would describe as mostly life sustaining on a travel day. On the return, it was the only thing in our airside for breakfast (besides Chili’s) so we reluctantly gave it a second try. Honestly, we did not understand the Tim Horton experience all across the country of Canada, even though we do recognize he was a beloved hockey player for some Canadians. Maybe if I was a donut person, I might understand. We stayed about 15 minutes from the airport at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center. We were glad we stayed in Calgary as it was 9P by the time we left the car rental and the hour to Canmore looked like it would be very dark at night. It was being refurbished and our room was not but it was clean and did the job for about $60 US. Calgary to Lake Louise We departed Calgary in a light rain and it was straight out of town as our hotel was on the Trans Canada highway that runs right through the heart of Calgary. As a travel agent, my hotel selection is not all about Tripadvisor, but also location, price and suitability for the days plan. It was a Comfort Suites and very old, going through a renovation (no problem on a Saturday night) and very clean. At about $60 US it was also a good bargain. It stopped spitting as we got into Kananaskis county so we stopped at the Bow Valley Provincial Park for a short hike before breakfast. This is the foothills of the Canadian Rockies with a backdrop of mountains. After the hike, we arrived in Canmore and stopped at The Hogshead for a great breakfast. We learned about pea-meal ham which was a lot like Irish or English bacon. The place was packed on a Saturday morning so it was about an hour for breakfast but it slowed us down from our type-A world. After breakfast we stopped at the information center and bought 1 year park passes as we plan to head up to the Canadian Maritimes next summer. We turned off The Trans Canada highway for the Bow Valley Parkway which is the scenic route between Banff and Lake Louise. We are actually staying in Lake Louise tonight. You may be tired of this admonishment if you read my blogs regularly but the extra money to stay in a super busy tourism destination may be worth it if you can check it out after the “day trippers” have left. Bow Valley Parkway has a slower speed limit than Canada 1 so we enjoyed the last hour of the drive up to Lake Louise through mountain scenery. Our first stop was Muleshoe which was a picnic area with beautiful scenery. Parks Canada has a tradition of plastic red Adirondack chairs that are placed at places of beautiful scenery. We sat for a while in the afternoon sunshine overlooking the lake. A little further along the route was Johnston Canyon. This was a beautiful 1.5 km or 2.5 km hike up to falls with 6000 of your closest friends. I joke as over-tourism is also evident in the Canadian Rockies from day one. If you are doing this trip as a fly/drive, we really suggest off season as it was very busy to us, yet employees along the way told us tourism had dropped off last week. We decided to hike to the top but elevation kills us since we live at sea level. Johnston Canyon is pretty steep, but a well paved path with steps and a series of catwalks where you are actually walking over the river in some places. On day one, you realize that some of the over tourism is the abundance of Chinese tourists that have flooded the market. They are usually traveling in groups but many are fly/driving. By the end of day one, we had heard many of the world’s languages spoken as everyone wants to come to the Canadian Rockies. The afternoon has cleared out is warm and sunny as we ditch the coats in the car. The Bow Valley Parkway has really beautiful scenery and you can drive 40-60 km per hour so you can really see it. When we arrived in Lake Louise, we realized why the tour books said to visit either before 11A or after 5P. We checked into The Lake Louise Inn which was beautiful and clean. It was a long walk to Lake Louise so we took the car up and parking was easy. Judging from the people directing traffic, cones and flashing signs we are guessing peak season was nuts. Lake Louise is beautiful and we spent about an hour at that site. Every tourist site in the Canadian National Parks had paved walkways that made it easy for most folks to take a walk around the lake. This is also the site for the Fairmont Lake Louise. After our visit to Lake Louise, we headed up to Moraine Lake with the remaining daylight. It is a pretty windy road that is about 10 miles in and back out. It is also very pretty and less crowded than Lake Louise. If you do not want to drive, Brewster offers transfers to these places, it is possible to go as far as Lake Louise on the Banff Roam bus system and these sites are included on many escorted tours and they drop you at the gate. This was a really long day so we head back to the hotel. It is raining and cold so we decide to eat in the hotel bar tonight but surprisingly our selection of finger foods are pretty filling and tasty. Lake Louise to the Columbia Icefields It is raining in the am so we are lazy today. We are only driving about two hours up to the Glacier View Lodge at the Columbia Icefields. My design for fly/drives is less driving more time in the destination. By the time we check out, the rain is clearing so we walk across to the Lake Louise Village to look around. We stop for a breakfast wrap and coffee plus we pick up a sandwich for lunch. I stop at the mountain store and I score a cool pair of hiking pants with some birthday money I acquired recently. By about 11:30 we are on the highway in a light sprinkle and cold wind as we head up towards the Columbia Ice Fields. Immediately we are starting to see glacier lakes and glaciers up in the mountains. In the Canadian Rockies many of the overlooks are right off the highway but some of them are a little hike for a quarter or half a mile to see the attractions. To even think about fly/drive you have to have some pretty decent mobility and be able to walk a quarter or half a mile up and down a mountain to see everything. Plus you still need to be pretty adept at driving as driving the Canadian Rockies is mountainous with windy roads and a lot of elevation changes. If not, choose one of our escorted tours where you will see all the major sites without a lot of walking. We wore hiking boots all week and frequently needed that kind of shoe for some of the paths. We stopped at Peyto Lake viewpoint along the way and this lake was as beautiful as the few we had seen already. We are climbing towards the highest point on the Icefields Parkway so we keep climbing up to a gap through the mountains. We stop for lunch at an empty campground and enjoy the view but the winds are picking up and we both don coats. After lunch it is a short drive to the Glacier View Lodge which is our stop for the night. This is a strange but neat facility run by Pursuit! that is located on top of the day use facility that holds up to 4000 tourists per day. We have been upgraded to a glacier view room which is nice as we kill the quiet hour sitting in the warm room looking at the glacier. At 5PM, they host a champagne and charcuterie reception where we are introduced to our guide. At 6P we board a bus to ride up to the Ice Explorer. The hotel has been refurbished and we again will be staying the night at the attraction when the rest of the day tourists depart for Banff, Jasper and Lake Louise. As we are checking in at 4PM, the last Ice Explorers are heading up the hill and most of the busses are departing the lot for Banff or Jasper. We have purchased the all-inclusive package that includes an exclusive evening ride on the ice cat up to the glacier. We are the only people up on the ice and hot chocolate is served after that we will head back down for dinner, sleep, breakfast and a ride up to the Glacier Skywalk which is one of those glass platforms. The Ice Explorer is included on most of our tours of this region as it is between Jasper and Banff. The vehicle is almost as cool as the glacier as it weighs 5 tons, costs a million dollars and the 16 pounds per square foot pressure tires cost $5,000 dollars each. You wonder how you are going to get down to the glacier from the staging area as you are pretty high up off the ice floor. This thing ambles up to the edge and down a steep hill while the driver explains the evolution of the vehicle since the early 1900s. Once you get out on the ice they ask you to stay in the turn around area as going off that can be dangerous with the crevasses and holes in the ice. We are up on the ice for about an hour and the winds have died down this evening so it is a beautiful evening on the ice even though we are at about 7000’ above sea level. As we depart the bus, we are greeted with metal mugs and given a choice of hot cider or hot chocolate. It was pretty cool walking around the Athabasca Glacier with a mug of hot cocoa! Take a look at my video of the Ice Explorer from my night on the ice. The only disappointment of the night was there was too thick a cloud deck to do stargazing as they pull out the telescopes on a clear night for star gazing. Brewster is making the transition from bus company specializing in logistics and trying to diversify into an Pursuit which is an “upscale experience” company. The have sold their Canada a la Carte tour division and invested the money in some of their assets including Glacier View Lodge. The Glacier View Lodge was recently refurbished to 5 star standards. We enjoyed our stay at the Glacier View Lodge as the room was very nice. We had good internet and full services in the middle of nowhere. The Pursuit! staff was very good, mostly New Zealanders and Aussies but we even met somebody from Negril, Jamaica which was our old stomping grounds as tour operators. It seems everybody up here is on one of those 2 year holiday visas. Breakfast was good but the marketing and product did not quite meet the “experience” level as all-inclusive was sold and practically delivered a little differently. The marketing shows people sitting and chatting with charcuterie boards at the table where the actual experience was a mob scene as they delivered large boards that worked like a buffet. Champagne was served by only one employee who was told to “interact” with guests so there was a line to get the complimentary glass of champagne. Before the ice flow, we made menu selections at check in and were seated immediately for dinner when we got back to the lodge. While the food was pretty and used local Alberta ingredients, it was also pretty bland. To be fair, we are well traveled foodies but we both agreed our dinner at Takerra Lodge the night after Glacier View was far superior to the gourmet lodge food this night. We started with a wild mushroom soup as it is that season in the Canadian mountains. It was very nice with a mix of wild mushrooms but not much taste. The waitress that was pretty bubbly from Brisbane Australia came by a second time with the pepper grinder as we had sent her away, initially. She was an experienced waitress and knew some people needed more spice after tasting the soup, so we were glad for a second chance at the pepper grinder. Gina ordered the garlic veggie pasta and my Italian girl likes garlic. I had the Alberta steak which was served with mashed potatoes and veggies. After the large bowl of cream soup, she was picking at the pasta so I asked is dinner ok? We eat a couple of garlics a week when we eat at home but it was too garlicky but bland, so I asked our waitress “Do you have salt and pepper shakers?” I reassured Gina my reduction over the steak did not have much flavor either. She was reluctant to ask for a salt shaker but salt and pepper improved the pasta to the point where she ate some and steaks are one of the few things that I eat with salt, so that improved the steak reduction (gravy). Bus tours are always geared to 40 or 50 passengers so there is a certain mindset in that business but the Lodge rooms were very upscale and the view of the Athabasca Glacier is spectacular. Breakfast was a decent buffet and we are loaded on a bus afterward for a 15 minute ride to the Glacier Skywalk. We are delayed about 15 minutes as they opened a little late but on the trip we see the rock scalers are blasting so avalanche rocks are brought down without hitting cars and busses. While we are stopped, we see a demolition with huge boulders crashing down the hill into the guardrails. We are the first group out on the Glacier Skywalk and this experience is cooler than we expected. Gina is brave and steps out on the plexiglass platform while some of the Chinese guys in our group have to be coaxed out on the platform which is 1000 feet below the valley floor. The do have a chicken platform with a steel floor but nobody from our group uses that. By now all of us staying at the Lodge are on our second daytrip together so everybody is cordial and shooting group selfies for each other. Gina is our animal spotter and picks out the mountain goats grazing on the valley floor below. The 180 degree view is very pretty with mountains and remnants from the back side of Athabasca Glacier along with the river below. Overall, we agreed Glacier View Lodge was a good value for the money considering room/food prices and the advertised retail price of the attractions that were included. Again, the whole Pursuit! staff at Glacier View Lodge were very attentive, professional and friendly. As I travel, I am more convinced that irreversible damage is being done to our planet from Global Warming. In the 1890s the ice was so thick that there was no steep climb down to the ice. I have seen historical pictures of this area and people were standing on the ice about where the ice cat headed down a 100 foot hill. The guide explained the glacier still adds ice each winter but adds about 15 feet of ice each winter while losing about 25 feet of ice each summer. This would mean that the Athabasca Glacier will seek to exist in about 2100. Gina joked that these Brewster guys were so entrepreneurial that it will be the huge zipline where the glacier used to be. She joked that they will call it the Glacier Valley Zipline. This glacier has to be really important to the earth in general as the water from this point flows to three different oceans (Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic). We all must realize Global Warming is real and a threat to our civilization plus detrimental to our business as the “bucket list” destinations in the world are disappearing. Columbia Ice Field to Jasper National Park We got back to the hotel and checked out late at noon because of the rock scalers. We are in no hurry as we only have about 1.5 hour drive today. I design a lot of fly/drives and the secret to a good fly/drive is not too much driving each day. Remember when you used to ask your dad… “Are we here yet?” Less driving allows more exploring which is what you want to do on vacation. Our first destination of the day is Sunwapta Falls. This is where we first start seeing people with death wishes taking selfies in stupid places. We will see more of this over the next week or so. Same as Iceland last year. Sunwapta Falls is a pretty good volume waterfall with a pretty steep drop. On the way in, we noticed an Indian lodge also named Sunwapta Falls Hotel. This was a great stop for lunch with homemade chicken soup and a biscuit that we enjoyed. Right after lunch, we have our first animal sighting a white tailed deer eating by the side of the road. Not too far up the main road, we turned off 93 to 93A which is the old road to Jasper before the Icefields Parkway was built. We turn in to visit Athabasca Falls. This is one of the largest waterfalls on the Icefields Parkway so it has an extensive system of sidewalks and steps so you can see it from many vantage points. More selfie idiots risking their lives on slimy rocks over a waterfall that would certainly kill you. Not sure I understand that kind of death wish to get a good picture plus you are in everybody else’s way as they try to get a decent picture of the falls plus it takes away from everyone else’s enjoyment as nobody wants to see you die in front of them. Signs are all around not to climb on the rocks, it is dangerous but they walk right past the signs. Athabasca Falls had carved a deep crevasse into the rocks and we see many places where the water whirl pooled for so long it has cut a round hole into the granite rock. We turned north on 93a and we are only about 30 minutes from here to Jasper. We have one more stop on the way to Tekarra Lodge in Jasper. We turn up a road towards the Edith Cavelle mountain and glacier. It is about a 20 minute drive, but very pretty into this site but we decide we are not hiking into the glacier as we are running out of time and our sea level legs are sore from all the elevation we have conquered the first days. On the Edith Cavelle main path, we are laughing as a chipmunk is very friendly but we follow the rules and don’t feed him. Pretty soon he has drawn a crowd who are feeding him peanuts and chips. I remark to Gina that this is his 4PM show. After Edith Cavelle, we continue into Jasper on the back road 93A which is an uncrowded drive into Jasper. The devastation and brown trees from the Pine Beetle is pretty dramatic in the Jasper area. At first we thought it was from forest fires as the tree trunks were black. Again, the scientific literature I reviewed upon my return points to the fact that the pine beetles can reproduce even at a higher elevations because winters are warmer. It seems as slight differences in tempurature make a huge difference as a cold spell took out a lot of the pine beetles last year and we are talking about a place where temperatures in the winter can run 5f degrees. Again as I travel the world, I ask why are half of the trees brown and the scientists tell me its partially due to global warming. Link to an article about the Pine Beetle Epidemic We check into Takerra Lodge which looks like the cabins might have been built in the 40s. We realize no tv and the internet is not good so we are back to the old days in Jasper. I had realized no tv when I booked, so I have a good play list for these nights already loaded on the computer. It is nice to be without constant news for a change. It is still light and we don’t have a dinner reservation until 8:15P so we head out to hike the Five Lakes site in Jasper National Park. Our waitress at the Glacier Lodge suggested that as she had done it a few weeks before. Five Lakes is a lovely loop trail that can be four miles or two miles if you take the cut-off trail. We choose the shorter trail and luckily it covers 4 of the five lakes in this system. It is about half a mile into the lakes and then the trail runs right along the shoreline for a while. Jasper National Park is beautiful. We are seeing signs warning us about bears but we haven’t seen any as of yet. I am hoping for a bear sighting but Gina is not too keen on the idea. We hike back to the car as the sun is setting over the mountain but people have passed us who have just started the hike. You need to keep in mind that the sun sets early over the mountain so you need to time your hikes to allow for that when you hike into the woods. We are back at Tekarra Lodge for a quick shower and we are not sure what to expect with dinner as Tekarra is one of the highest rated restaurants in Jasper but it looks very simple as we enter the dining room. Alberta is a very meat based culinary culture which makes sense since the land was conquered by fur trappers, Indians and traders. Alberta also grows a LOT of beef and even bison. The signature dish at this restaurant is the bison short ribs, so I ask a few questions and throw caution to the wind. Gina has beef tips on skewers that mentions no veggies but comes on top of a mound of Arugula, green beans, carrots served with a warm red potato salad. My bison a cut from the short ribs and is interesting as it is braised, slow pot roasted as it is a tougher meat than beef but does not have any type of strong flavor. The bison is cooked in a sauce with tomatoes and molasses. We both agree this is the best meal of the trip so far. For a simple restaurant, they have a decent wine list and the 2015 Portuguese red is the bargain on this menu. It is a departure from the British Columbia wines we have sampled the last few days. We like a wine with a Cabernet Franc blending grape and almost everything from the Okanagan Valley in BC uses Cab Franc as a blending grape with merlot or pinot noir. We even had a couple of pretty good 100% Cab Francs along the way. Funny that the simple things can be best sometimes and we sleep well in our 1940’s cabin even with the squeaky electric heat. Jasper National Park – Canadian Rockies Today we have pre-planned/prepaid activities in the Maligne Lake area. We ran out of time yesterday so we are on our way to the grocery as we have kitchens for the next four days. After breakfast of coffee, oatmeal with British Columbia blueberries, Canadian cheddar cheese and Canadian apples, we head off to the Maligne Lake area. We have prepaid vouchers from Pursuit! for lunch at the Historic Maligne Lake Cabin and a boat ride later in the afternoon on Maligne Lake to Spirit Island. In the morning, we stop to hike the bottom of the Maligne Canyon. Maligne Canyon has five bridges across the river so we hike from bridge five almost to bridge six and back. Again the trails were pretty crowded in slow season so we cannot imagine the crowds in peak season. This is a nice flat trail but it is kind of muddy in spots from the previous days’ rain. We are on our way to the end of the road at Maligne Lake. We find out later that this road that takes about 45 minutes took 3 days for the first tourists that came to this spot. I’ll bet it was less crowded at that point. Maligne Lake is beautiful and lunch at the Historic Maligne Lake Cabin was great. We picked the 1:15 seating which avoided the bus tour that was finishing up from the noon seating. We are given the best seat in the house and soon realize we are the only ones for the late seating today. Lunch included prime rib, great gumbo, and multiple choices of entrees, salads and desserts. At $49 dollars Canadian (about $37 US), it seemed like a great value including the picture window in front of us featuring the mountains of Maligne Lake. After lunch, we walk for an hour and then head out on the 3:45 boat tour to the end of the lake. Most boat tours I have taken are putt putt boats but this has powerful engines as it is a 22km lake and we are going all the way to the back to Spirit Island. Scenery is beautiful along the way and you get about 15 minutes at Spirit Island to take the picture of the day. On the way back we saw Bald Eagles and the guide explained the history of the area. As we got back to the car about 5P, we took a couple of hours to work our way out of the area with stops along the way. This was a pretty drive and the overlooks allowed us to see Medicine Lake and other viewpoints along the road. We stopped off at Maligne Canyon and hiked the top 3 bridges. It was one of those short hikes that is straight down and straight back up so the flatlanders should not have left that for the end of the day but the waterfalls were spectacular. It is amazing over thousands of years that these rivers have cut so deeply into these canyons in many places including round spots where the river circulated over thousands of years. As we were heading back to Jasper there was the most amazing rainbow over Grissette Mountain. Sometimes you get home and look at pictures to see if you really saw that amazing thing you remembered and the rainbow over the Canadian Rockies is commemorated in digital. We stopped in Jasper for a pizza and Caesar salad that we took back to the cabin with a bottle of BC wine called “The Great One” and that is not Jackie Gleason in Canada but the famous hockey star Wayne Gretzky who now owns a winery in the BC. Interesting that in the morning, we were talking about the fact that parks are similar and was it worth it to come all the way up for a couple of nights in Jasper? By the end of this day, we were eating pizza and agreed it had been the prettiest scenery so far and agreed our conclusion of the AM was premature. Jasper to Banff We need to top off the gas tank before departing for Banff. Petrol is few and far between in the mountains so you are always suggested to top off the tank before heading onto the Icefields Parkway. We have been advised that many trains that run through this area are long so we head to the other side of the town of Jasper to take the underpass into town. We see many cars on the side of the road which one of the rangers later told us they coined the term “animal jam” instead of traffic jam. We stop carefully and immediately see a heard of elk down by the river. This ten-point buck has a fine group of females and juveniles drinking water down by the river. He is very protective of them and calls out to the group fairly often plus he turns to watch the group’s back as they all cross the river. It is almost an exclamation point on our conversation about Jasper being the prettiest stop so far as they are just down the hill from the cars and blasé about all of us stopped to watch. We make a bathroom stop and buy some sandwiches at Sunwapta Falls Hotel. All of these places along the Icefields Parkway have everything you need along the way but prices are expensive as you are in the middle of nowhere. Two sandwiches and some chips run about $37 Canadian (about $28 US) but they are very good sandwiches when you are looking at Bow Lake later on. We have started packing a very small folding cooler for the car when taking fly/drive trips. We have almost 4 hours driving today but we purposely skipped some scenic points so we could break the trip. We figured it would be best to make some time in the morning since we had seen many of the highlights of Jasper National Park on the way north. We broke the trip initially at the Icefield Center and then stopped for a short hike into Mistaya Canyon which is about a mile roundtrip. We make the turn for Bow Glacier but the full parking lot scares us away. We stop half a mile down the road at the Bow Lake day use area which is not crowded and we can still see the glacier off in the distance. Before we know it most of our journey is done and we are crossing over to the Bow Valley Parkway for the trip from Lake Louise to Banff. Towards the end of the Bow Valley Parkway, we come upon a group of mountain sheep crossing the road which results quickly in another animal jam on the highway. They too are munching grass in the median and they mostly ignore us as we shoot pictures. We are staying up on Tunnel Mountain so we take the Trans Canada Highway to the 3rd Banff exit and head up the back way to Tunnel Mountain. Before we get to the resort, we stop at the Hoodoos Viewpoint (Hoodoos are strange shaped rock formations) which overlooks all of the Banff Valley and we see a moose way off in the distance. We check into Tunnel Mountain resort which was a good pick as our unit had been refurbished and had all the comforts of home. All of these cities are within the National Parks so there is a loop trail behind the tunnel mountain campground that we take for an hour hike to stretch our legs after the car. Tunnel Mountain Resort offers a free bus pass for the Roam public transport into town. We opt to leave the car at the resort and ride the bus into town which is only 10 or 15 minutes down the hill. It was about 9P and the town was beginning to shut down in off-season. We were surprised that the Cajun Restaurant TooLouLous was still seating people at 9:30 so in we went. We had the best barbeque shrimp north of New Orleans and they were huge Pacific prawns served over rice with fantastic fresh green beans on the side. The house wine was served in a creepy skull pitcher that kind of added to the motif. It was a nice break from the meat culture we had been living since we arrived in Alberta. Banff National Park We woke up for the last full day in the Rockies to a pouring rain. Radar looked like it might be a morning thing and sure enough by the time we left the apartment the sun was shining. Today’s itinerary is a hike at Johnson Lake along with the scenic drive to Lake Minnewanka. Just across the highway, we had our first impromptu stop called Cascade Pond. It was just out of town but really pretty. We took a short hike along the river and around the lake. Our intended first stop of the morning was Johnson Lake where we took a 1.5 hour loop hike around the lake. This really consisted of two separate trails with one branch right along the lakefront and another branch into a pine forest above the lake. After Johnson Lake, we continued around the Lake Minnewanka Scenic Drive and visited Lake Minnewanka. After we completed the loop, we took the road up to the ski resort which had a turn-around at a scenic overlook of the town of Banff. We had read about the Juniper Bistro and we had skipped lunch today so we headed up to the Juniper Hotel where the Juniper Bistro is highly rated and very busy during season. People say it’s hard to get a table in season but we are the only patrons today. Appetizers started at 4P so we stopped for some mussels that were just flown in that morning from Prince Edward Island and an heirloom tomato salad with candied walnuts and Canadian Stilton (blue) cheese. We are overlooking Vermillion Lakes and Sulphur Mountain in the distance with another great glass of British Columbian Cab Franc. After some expensive (but very, very good) appetizers we headed back into Banff. Uh oh, it’s ANIMAL JAM time, again, as cars are everywhere near the main Banff highway. Just a couple of deer but we stop for a shot and park police lights go on at the back of the car pack. Everybody jumps into their cars, throwing cameras into the back seat and we laugh all the way to Banff. Later a friendly park ranger (who originally quoted the term animal jam to us) told me we break those up right away or we get 300/400 cars blocking the main road in the summertime. We are heading into Banff and the sky is clearing for sunset. We had been ambivalent about riding the Banff Gondola as we had experienced our share of clouds today, the bright sun and sky convince us that it’s ordained we spend $115 Canadian (10% off after 5P, about $87 US$) to ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain (8100 ft.) to finish our Canadian Rockies trip. Again it is more than we expected and the fear factor was not as high as we imagined. It is cold and windy but clear when we get to the top. We head to the observation deck as sunset will be within the hour and it is Ansel Adams’ moment with the sun on the mountains. Once outside, we add the extra layers but spend 45 minutes watching the sun set behind us which is illuminating different mountains in different ways over Banff and the entire Bow Valley. The view from the top of Sulphur Mountain is spectacular, if you get a clear day. I want to say again that Brewster has a great crew as they also operate the Gondola attraction. Up top there are restaurants and bars but they are too crowded to get a seat at sunset and fire pits are spread around on the observation deck so you can warm your hands. When we first arrived the wind was howling but it has settled down enough to see the backside view and sit in the setting sun for a while before we head down to town. Being that Alberta offered an abundance of meat cuisine we end the vacation with a stop to Tommy’s for an Alberta beef hamburger and a couple of craft beers. Interesting tidbit, ground meat can only be cooked well in Alberta Province even though you can order a steak medium rare. The town of Banff offers a nice selection of restaurants and shopping and Tunnel Mountain where we are staying gets you up above the city. Banff to Calgary After check out we head into Banff for a while to see the Cave and Basin Historic site. This has an extra charge with a 45 minute guided tour, so we decide to keep moving this morning as the day will end down the road in Calgary. We stop at the Cascade of Time Garden in Banff which is a very nice stop on a sunny day. We make a stop at the Bow Falls lookout and shoot some pictures of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. We head into Banff for one last look around downtown but we have to park half a mile down the Bow River. There is a nice path along the river to walk back into town. After some shopping, we stop at the grocery for a sandwich and the ladies working the deli counter are Indian. They have Samosa pastries which we have never had so we added the tandoori chicken and another with veggies to our picnic order. We’ll save the picnic until we get out of town but we eat the hot samosas sitting on a bench by the Bow River. We stop by the Surprise Corner Viewpoint which has a better view of the Fairmont Banff Springs for one last look at the Bow River. This takes us out of town on Tunnel Mountain Road so we stop at Cascade Pond one last time for a picnic in the sun. From Canmore, we drive the 1A which is also part of the Bow Valley Trail. This area near Canmore is the Bow Valley Provincial Park which is also very pretty foothills of the Canadian Rockies. We cross over the Highway 40 and make one last hike at Canoe Meadows which seems to be some type of training facility for whitewater kayaking. We make our way into downtown Calgary for a few hours. There is a nice pedestrian walkway between the TD Building and the Calgary Tower. We stopped for a beer at an Irish pub and the barman was actually from County Meath in Ireland. He was on a 2 year holiday visa. I inquired as he poured the perfect pint and had a strong Irish brogue. The hostess was Chinese and a native of Calgary we asked for a recommendation in Chinatown. She sent us where she had always gone with her parents since she was a kid to a restaurant named Silver Dragon. We had d inner for two but wondered if it should have been dinner for four but anytime you are eating in a towns Chinatown, you are eating good. The car has to be back at the airport at 9PM, so we can keep it to seven days. We are staying at the Delta Calgary Airport Hotel so we can walk to our flight in the AM. Airport hotels can be worth the extra cost if you have to drop a car before check in. We got an extra hour of sleep and walked across the street to check in for home. Overall Canadian Rockies offers really spectacular scenery. Every corner is prettier than the last. Hotels are expensive and space is tight during season. We saw every one of our escorted tour companies and Brewster Transport also had a lot of equipment on the highway. They carry Rocky Mountaineer people on the “land” (hotel) portion of the tour and our escorted tour companies use private motor coaches to see the same sites we saw by car. I would say that you need to be ambulatory at many of these national parks as you have to be able to walk from the bus up or down hill to the attractions along the way to get the maximum benefit of overlooks and attractions. Our fly/drive was what I would describe as medium hard driving. Roads were well maintained but there were a few times Gina was looking over the edge of the mountain on some of the narrow approach roads getting to overlooks or attraction stops. You are way out in the country once you leave Banff for Jasper so we topped off the gas tank in Lake Louise and again in Jasper. We tried not to leave ourselves a long day of driving, but that was unavoidable as we tried to piece together hotel rooms in the different park towns as some nights were completely sold out even though I used multiple booking tools. Jasper is always the hardest space to nail down whenever I try to map out this trip for people. I had tried to design the tour to “break” the Icefields Parkway driving but this was impossible given room availability a month before departure in off-season. The available nights at Tekarra Lodge in Jasper dictated the schedule as we could not afford $650 a night at the Fairmont. This was the second year in a row that we tried to plan this trip and finally got all hotels in all the cities we wanted to go so our suggestion is to plan early if you are doing independent travel. We visit these places because we sell these places and want to know the lay of the land. It is helpful for agents to see the attractions, understand how the vendors work and enjoy the same bucket list destinations as our clients for first-hand experience. Our whole life has been one long working vacation so we continue to grow Vacation Tour & Cruise using these blogs and our actual travel experiences.

NEW! Click above to see video of the Glacier Explorer.

NEW! Click above to see video of the Maligne Lake Boat Cruise.

Click above to see video from Sulphur Mountain Gondola Viewpoint.