Vacation To Banff

This past week I went on a vacation with my family to Banff National Park in Canada. I just wanted to share some of the things we did.

First, the weather there was amazing. In Utah the weather is super hot in July. Going so far north was a great reprieve from the heat. It was worth it just for that, even if it was kinda rainy for the first few days.

Two Jack Lake

Here are some of the things we did.

Tunnel Mountain

Top of Tunnel Mountain

This hike was pretty funny. It was advertised as one of the most popular and easy hikes in Banff since it is so close to the town. Popular it was, easy might be a bit misleading though. The hike is quite short, but also steep. So, while it wasn't too difficult, I might not call it easy for the sake parents who think their 3 year old is going to make it too the top.

Lake Louise

Lake Louise

Lake Louise a is super pretty lake nestled in the mountains. The main attraction is the pretty blue water.

It was completely packed though. It reminds me of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. Literally hundreds and hundreds of people crowded around the viewing area. There were so many that even on the other side of the lake you could here the rumble of the crowd. Also I think the chemicals that make the water blue also kill most of the life in the lake as I did not see very many plants or fish in the water. It was pretty though.

Athabasca Glacier (Columbia Icefield)

Athabasca Glacier

One of the main attractions advertised around Banff was the Columbia Icefield. It is one of the biggest in the world, and all the advertising will make you think that it is a must see.

The only problem is that you can't really go and see it. The best view we got was when we were driving to the visitor center. On top of the mountains was probably a hundred feet of ice. But there is no easy way to get up there and see the whole icefield. All you can really see is the Athabasca Glacier which is a very small section of the icefield that flows down the mountain. It was still cool to see. But we noticed that even all the agencies advertising trips to the icefield just take you halfway up the glacier.

It was also cool to see how much the glacier had receded over the past 100 years. But overall there needs to be a little less advertising for the Columbia Icefield until they establish a visitor center where you can actually see the icefield.

Banff Park Museum

Banff Park Museum

This museum was actually surprisingly good. I was expecting it to cost money (more on that later), and that when I got in it would be a basic national park museum.

Instead, it was free, and it actually had a lot of rich history to it. The museum was founded over a hundred years ago and as such many of the display cases still had very old glass in them.

The museum itself was mostly full of taxidermy animals. This was apparently a very popular way for people to come and experience the wildlife of the national park back in the day. It had all sorts of animals and bird eggs. Since taxidermy is no longer popular, many of the animals were very old, with the oldest dating back to the 1860's.

I would definitely recommend this museum.

Cave and Basin Historic Site

The Cave and Basin

Not much to say here, it was a cool little cave with a hot spring in it, and apparently some tiny little snails found nowhere else in the world.

It has some significance as it was part of the reason Banff became Canada's first national park. It is definitely worth swinging by.

Ski Lift

View From Top of Ski Lift

My family wasn't super keen on hiking any mountains, so we took some ski lifts up a mountain. Of course it was expensive, but it was the best view we got of the park. The little hill you see towards the right of the picture is mount tunnel.

Finals Remarks

It was great to have a vacation. And Banff is a fine place for a vacation. There is a decent amount of wildlife, the mountains are beautiful, and it was nice and cool.

But the persistent thought I had was: Is this the best Canada can do? People always sing praises to Canada's National Park Program, and with Banff being their first national park I was expecting something closer to Yellowstone. Unfortunately, it just wasn't that good.

One of the pain points was having to pay for everything. If you don't want to just hike in the mountains, you are likely paying to do something. We were hesitant to go to both the museum and cave and basin because they advertised entry fees (on top of the park entry fee). Luckily this year Canada is experimenting with free admission to a lot of things like this, so we didn't have to pay. They did not make that clear on their websites, and some things probably just wouldn't have been worth the price. In my experience American national parks include a lot more with the base ticket price, and I think that is the better system. Hopefully Canada keeps this experiment up.

It was also a really long drive to get there from Utah, and realistically, I could have found the exact same experiences much closer.

Still, it was worth visiting, and I had a great time.