7 Final Days in the Canadian Rockies
Cruising down Icefields Parkway and exploring Banff National Park.
The final leg of our amazing 3-week-long Canadian adventure.
If you thought Jasper was a sight for sore eyes, these next few spots will not disappoint. We’ve got wonderful waterfalls, crazy canyons, and glistening glaciers.
The Canadian Rockies are really something else.
Icefields Parkway
Our route to Banff started with one of the highlights of our trip: Icefields Parkway.
This 300km long highway between Jasper and Banff has a scenic spot every 15 minutes or so. Just look at our Google Maps map with some of the viewpoints:
Let’s talk about our favorite spots!
Athabasca Falls
Our first stop was Athabasca Falls, a powerful and breathtaking waterfall.
The force of the water crashing through the narrow point was incredible to see. There are several viewpoints along the waterfall and its impressively carved canyon, so take your time to soak up the sights here. It was our first stop that felt more touristy and busy in the Rockies, but rightfully so!
We loved learning about and spotting different potholes in the canyon walls (it’s when the water carves a circular or whirlpool-like cavity in the rock). Nature is so cool.
Sunwapta Falls
Next up was Sunwapta Falls, another gem along the Icefields Parkway.
These falls have Upper and Lower sections, with the Upper Falls being the most impressive. The water flows down from the Athabasca Glacier, painting a beautiful landscape against a towering mountain peak.
Toe of the Athabasca Glacier
One of the most unique stops on our journey was the Toe of the Athabasca Glacier.
Standing at the edge of this ancient ice field was both surreal and inspiring. As you walk along the path up to the beginning of the glacier, you can feel the air getting colder - did you know that glaciers create their own climate? We felt it first-hand!
Along the way, there are signs pinpointing the glacier’s previous size and the effects of climate change. Every step you take on the hour-long walk was once covered by the glacier, which is crazy to imagine.
After our windswept hike - which ends with a short, icy climb - we walked back and enjoyed lunch from our campervan with a perfect view of the glacier.
Core-memory unlocked for sure 😊
Bow Lake
Our final highlight of Icefields Parkway was Bow Lake, a spacious and serene spot.
Normally, this lake has crystal-clear, turquoise water reflecting the surrounding mountains, creating a picture-perfect scene. And even, though this is what drew us here, our version of Bow Lake was completely covered in ice and snow.
And, we kind of loved it.
The lake is truly massive and you can walk along the water’s edge for a quite a while. Some people were even walking over the icy surfaces, but we didn’t trust the first cracks of spring and summer that we could see.
But even from the sidelines, Bow Lake did not disappoint.
Banff National Park
After enjoying the spots along Icefields Parkway, it was time to see what Banff National Park had to offer.
With our campsite of Tunnel Mountain Village 1 as our base, we set out to explore the wonders of Banff.
Overall, we found Banff to be much busier than Jasper, but it also offered a greater concentration of viewpoints, hikes, and natural wonders. We discovered many favorites, but also found a few to be overrated.
Let’s start with the ones we loved!
Two Jack Lake
On our first morning, we enjoyed the peace and quiet at Two Jack Lake.
When we arrived, the water was super calm and reflected the surrounding mountains, creating a stunning view. This lake was probably one of the less touristy lakes we visited during our stay in Banff, so we made the most of it and enjoyed a slow start to our day.
Two Jack Lake also proved to be a hub for lots of other activities. We spotted people canoeing, paddle boarding, and even a small group preparing for a dive.
We can only imagine how cold that must’ve been, so we were very impressed!
Silverton Falls
After enjoying a very touristy hike to Johnston Canyon (which we’ll get into later 👀), we randomly hiked to Silverton Falls.
Funnily enough, it ended up being one of our favorite hikes.
The hike was short but sweet and took us through a lovely forest before we reached the very tall waterfall. We loved this hike for a few reasons: we hadn’t planned it, so we had no expectations; there was nobody on the trail, which is rarity in Banff; and we enjoyed the satisfaction of putting in some effort (the hike) and getting rewarded (the falls!).
So yes, Silverston Falls is a hidden gem in Banff!
Castle Mountain
Our last stop of the day was Castle Mountain - a crowd favorite in Banff.
Apparently there were talks about changing the name to Eisenhower, but public uproar put a stop to it. And we get it, because you can spot Castle Mountain a lot whilst driving around in Banff National Park. We also loved staring at the proud and uniquely shaped mountain.
Because yes, it does really look like a castle 😉
Tunnel Mountain
Our next day was a big hike day.
We hiked from our campsite, along several viewpoints, up to Tunnel Mountain - a small mountain with a big view!
Tunnel Mountain’s summit is very doable due to its switchback trail (it zigzags all the way up the mountain). This also makes it the most popular summit in the area of Banff.
Considering its name, how many tunnels do you think go through Tunnel Mountain?
5?
10?
Nope, none :)
Apparently, when the Canadian Pacific Railway was exploring the area for a new train rail, the engineers assumed that they would need to dig a tunnel through this mountain for their train tracks, so they named it Tunnel Mountain.
However, after some time they found an alternative route, which meant the idea of the tunnel was scrapped, but the mountain kept its name.
Emerald Lake
When we had to leave Banff to drive back to Vancouver, we made one last stop - Emerald Lake.
And like the turquoise green gem its named after, what an absolute beauty!
Surrounded by lucious trees and sparsely covered in bright-red canoes, we couldn’t stop looking at the beautiful sights. A true cherry on top of an amazing trip through the Canadian Rockies.
Overrated places around Banff
We really loved Banff National Park, but not every stop lived up to their hype.
The following two spots, unfortunately, didn’t meet our expectations.
Johnston Canyon
Johnston Canyon is beautiful to hike along and has a total of seven waterfalls, with two being shockingly tall.
And even though the scenery here is incredibly beautiful, the paths are overly crowded with tourists. The two most famous waterfalls have viewpoints to get up close, but we couldn’t even get there due to the crazily long queues leading up to them.
Yikes.
Our tip is: don’t waste your precious time in the queues. Simply walk to the next viewing spot and enjoy the waterfalls from above. You’ll have more than enough space as well the majority of your patience in tact.
So yeah, we would still go back here, but perhaps a lot earlier to avoid some of the crowds.
Lake Louise
Lake Louise gets hyped up A LOT.
And we don’t really get why?
It’s the most famous and busiest place in all of Banff, and you cannot get there by car (after 5AM at least), so you have to book bus tickets which are sold out weeks in advance.
When we arrived, we had very high expectations considering the effort it takes to get here and how much everyone raves about it. But we were genuinely underwhelmed. We didn’t feel like it was prettier or more impressive than Two Jack Lake, Bow Lake or Emerald Lake for example. And you can get to those for free, with less stress and less hassle.
So yeah, it’s fun to see Lake Louise and the hike up towards Mirror Lake was enjoyable (as well as icy), but we honestly expected more.
There were some details that didn’t help: Lake Louise was still frozen, the surrounding tea houses were still closed, and the bus route to Morraine Lake was also not operating yet. It might’ve been better to come between July and September, but then it would’ve probably been even busier…
Special shoutout - Banff City Centre
In between our nature adventures, we took some time to explore Banff City Centre.
Sure, it’s touristy, but it has its charm.
The town is nestled in the heart of the mountains and here’s our favorite thing about it:
All of Banff’s street names are named after animals!
You can spot Beer Street, Deer Street, Squirrel Street, and many more. Once we discovered this, we made sure to find as many as we could 🤓
Thanks for reading!
Which of these spots would you like to visit? Let us know in the comments!
This post concludes our Canada series and next week we have a bit of an update about the future of Mapping Memories.
We’ve appreciated all your support until now.
Until next week ❤️