Canadian Rockies Trip, July 2019

The Canadian Rockies is the most beautiful place we have seen. It has the best that nature has to offer with amazing lakes, snow-capped mountain peaks, great waterfalls and rewarding hiking trails.

Seny Sengupta

Credits: This trip was planned and executed entirely by my wonderful wife, Mallika Rai Sengupta. My role has just been to document this amazing trip.

Disclaimer: The ratings for each of the spots indicate our likes and/or dislikes, and as such should not be used as general criteria for planning your trip.

Tips

• Install GypsyApp on your phone. Very helpful for tips as you are driving through. Once you are inside the park, it is recommended to keep it on in the background. The apple store for the iPhone has a bundle deal for 4 apps together, Banff, Lake Louise, Icefields and Jasper which is what we did. It also gives a free Calgary to Banff app if you install the bundle, although we did not use it. You can also have multiple of these apps running together on your phone which is helpful at times.
• When visiting Banff downtown, a good parking place is between Banff Avenue and Bear Street at Buffalo Street. This is on the other end of Banff Avenue. So, after exiting on Banff Avenue, drive down all the way on Banff Avenue and take a right on Buffalo Street. Walking from here you can cover entire Banff Avenue. You can check out Caribou Street and then Bear Street as well.

• Going towards Jasper from Banff/Lake Louise, best to have a full tank of gas. Also, no cell service for most of the way until you are close to Jasper.
• My advice would be to pay attention to the posted speed limits. They change a lot (specially in Jasper) to make sure that animals are safe and at times they cross the highways. The police are alert around here, and I have seen quite some folks stopped by them. The speed on highways at times goes as low as 50 km/h. In Jasper there is some construction going on as well and hence the reduced speeds.
• Try to get in a few hikes/trails in your trip. We did not do so many, but the ones we did were worth it. The trails around here seem to have good rewarding views. The one that we should have done was Johnston Canyon lower falls, which is probably around an hour round trip.
• Try to start your days early. For us our days would usually start late between 10 AM and 11 AM. This is the reason why we missed out on some of the trails. Also, if you start early, chances are that you will get access to parking for some of the most popular spots (Lake Louise, Lake Moraine).
• If you have kids, it works out better if you have a hotel with complimentary breakfast (or where they serve breakfast). That way you don’t have to stop some place to get breakfast. This also is a lifestyle choice, as some folks want to try out the local cafés. For us having breakfast in the hotel works out the best as we are not early risers, so we have a heavy breakfast and then can either skip lunch or have a late lunch/snack.

Banff

Day 1

Banff Sign (***)
The first thing we did was to take pictures at the Banff sign. Directly to the left of the sign is a parking lot for the Banff Recreation Centre. You can park here and then cross the street to take pictures at the sign. Nothing to do at the Recreation Centre unless you want to compete in Curling at the next winter Olympics!

Vermilion Lakes (****)
After lunch we went to Vermilion lakes. It’s a nice area where you can drive by. There are 3 lakes and each one has view points and small piers. It is very beautiful and picturesque.

Mount Norquay Viewpoint (*****)
Next, we went up Mount Norquay Road (towards skiing). The GypsyApp recommended a view point under the ski resort and it was worth the trip for the views and we got to see a BEAR!

Banff Gondola (*****)
We drove through downtown with the GypsyApp in the background which gave us good tips around the areas that we drove through. We took the Ultimate Explorer pass that has 4 activities, Gondola, Lake Minnewanka Cruise, Icefields Parkway and the Skywalk. You have a choice of picking your days and times for the other activities, but we did not want to be locked in with specific days and times, so we did not do that. We did the Gondola that day. Once on the top, they have an observation deck on the 4th floor, restaurants on the 3rd floor, a small theater on the 2nd floor (5-minute movie on rotation) and a gift shop and the Sulphur Mountain deck on the 1st floor that has a trek up to the top most point. We did the trek (about 15 – 20 minutes). The Sky Bistro was already completely booked for that day, so we went to the Northern Lights Cafe for dinner. It is recommended to book the Sky Bistro in advance. The Northern Lights Cafe with good views, was good as well and has a buffet.