Canadian Rockies!

July2nd-7th

Canadian Rockies

There are 7 national parks in Canada that reside in the Canadian Rockies. Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, Jasper, which all touch; Glacier and Mount Revelstoke to the west along highway 1; and Waterton Lakes in the south which connects with the US Glacier NP. The most well-known is Banff, but honestly it is simply the well-traveled option due to Lake Louise becoming famous worldwide. There is so much to love about Canadian parks. They differ greatly from the American National Parks in several ways.

They have many towns and even ski resorts inside their national parks. Imagine visiting Park City, UT with the shops, dining options, ski lifts for hiking, etc, while staying at Glacier National Park. That is what you get when you visit either the Banff or Lake Louise areas. Full towns with all the amenities, bus systems that take you around town or even for a small fee to another town. It gives you the true feel of a National Park without the sheer isolation. There is cell signals in the towns, which is wonderful. The closest we get to that is Jackson Hole near the Grand Teton National Park, but it isn’t ‘inside’ the park.
They have the highways fenced off with very high wire, but also have wildlife overpass crossings every 10 miles or so along the highways. This does several things. It keeps the wildlife off the main drives and it keeps people from stopping to view wildlife and potentially causing wrecks. The area between the 4 parks is VAST, so having a dedicated highway with decent speed limits helps you cover ground.
Canadian National Parks are dog friendly and allow the use of a 10 foot leash on trails. This is a massive benefit for pet owners and one of the major drawbacks to US National Parks. It was so nice being able to take long day trips, 10 mile hikes, etc and never have to worry about Cody stuck back at the trailer.

We drove through 6 of the 7 parks during our trip in Canada, leaving only Waterton Lakes to be hit while we visit Glacier National Park in the US if we make it up that way. The parks are all incredible, but unless you do a major road trip across Canada, likely you will want to focus on the big four. We decided to make Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court our home base while in the Rocky Mountain region. It is in the city of Banff and the campsites were extremely roomy. The problem with selecting Banff city as a home base is that it is on the south end of the park, meaning we had to drive 2.5 hours one way to view the Columbia Ice Fields in Jasper NP, and even farther to hit some spectacular waterfall hikes. Was it worth it? To us, absolutely. Someone else might think staying in Lake Louise, about 45 minutes north of Banff, a better option as it puts you right near Yoho, Kootenay, and closer to Jasper. Maybe even splitting time between each would be a good option, or even making the long 3.5 hour drive up to Jasper city and staying there for a few days. We didn’t make it up that far, but I can’t imagine it would be a waste of time. Really, the area is spectacular you probably will be happy with whatever you chose. Just understand the parks are not close and the speed limits in Canada as a hole are much slower than the US, so it does take time to cover distance when visiting the north.

Most of our time in the Banff area was rainy. Did that stop us from having fun? NO! We did the drive to Jasper and hiked waterfalls in the rain. By the end of the day the mountains were peeking out. We hiked up to the glaciers behind Lake Louise with it raining most of the day. We geared up and enjoyed our time no matter the weather. It was some of the best experiences of our trip.

I wrote this post more like a review, because I know so many people think about going up to the Canadian Rockies. You are truly missing out if you don’t venue up into Canada and experience these sights for yourself. We loved every single soggy second and we will return, hopefully for a longer stay.