Banff

We arrived in Banff this afternoon. We’ll be visiting the parks for 2 weeks. The good news is how we arrived—we did not drive through Calgary. Every time we come up here, we try to find ways to avoid the Calgary traffic and this time we succeeded. Instead of taking the Glenmore Trail to the Sarcee Trail to the Trans-Can we took Highway 22x south of Calgary to Highway 22 which connected us to the Trans-Can west of Calgary. It was the perfect path to avoid the Calgary mess.

There’s more good news too. We have a full hookup campsite at Tunnel Mountain Campground. In the past, the campgrounds in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks have been first come-first served. That meant that it was almost impossible to get a full hookup site. But this year Parcs Canada started an online reservation system. The portal opened the first week in April and I was there the first day making reservations. We have all the conveniences of home at our campsite in one of the prettiest places in the world.

The mountains that circle Banff are similar to the Swiss Alps. They are massive, imposing cliffs of granite. For the next 2 weeks we’ll walk among these giants and gather in some of their beauty. We’ll wander by the Bow River, walk on the Columbia Glacier, paddle in the turquoise waters of Lake Louise, gaze in wonder at Spirit Island on Maligne Lake, hike some mountain trails and completely immerse ourselves into this corner of the universe.