Banff, Alberta, Canada - Day 2

Friday, September 13, 2024

Our day began at Tunnel Mountain Campground in Banff National Park. Andi, Laura, Shaun, and I decided to get our caravan moving early this morning because our goal today was to see Lake Louise, and parking spots near the popular turquoise-colored lake fill up quickly.

Andi wanted to fill up with water, so we stopped by the dump & fill station before we left the campground. Yesterday when we checked into camp, the line was a mile long here so early morning was a good time to do this.

As we were pulling away, an Asian woman jumped in front of our RV to flag us down. “Can you help? Can you help?” she asked in a frantic voice. “Sure, of course,” Andi said, and pulled our rig over to the side of the road to see what he could do for her.

There are tons of RV rentals driving all around Banff National Park; I’d say 70% of the campers we’ve seen are rental RVs. This couple was in a truck-camper setup and had no idea how to dump their septic or fill up with water. Andi said the man was in a straight-up panic, and they’d clearly pushed every button trying to figure out how to make things work.

One of the things I love about Andi is what a good samaritan he is. He is always the first to stop and pull someone’s car out of the snowy ditch, or in this case teach someone how to use their RV’s gray and black tanks.

Andi returned 15 minutes later wet and chilled from standing in the rain on this 38-degree morning. He said the people rented this truck/camper setup, and had been camping without water because they didn’t know how to fill the tank. Therefore, their black tank was thick with sludge because there was no gray water to help wash everything out of the tank.

Andi also said this dump station had the highest-powered water pressure that he’s ever seen, which was awesome because it filled our RV’s water tank super quickly, but he said people who weren’t used to dumping and filling their RV tanks were getting sprayed left and right. What a sight! It was like watching couples work together putting a boat in the water at a boat landing. Lots of bloopers.

After all that, we were on the road toward Lake Louise around 8:15 am. Lake Louise is about a 40-minute drive from Banff along the Highway 1 Trans-Canada Highway. Parking at Lake Louise is very limited so in addition to driving your own vehicle, there are shuttle buses that take visitors from Banff to Lake Louise, and a third option of taking the ROAM city bus line to get there.

Maybe it’s the RVers in us, but Andi and I hate being stranded somewhere without a vehicle. Plus, the Lake Louise shuttle cost $11/per person and needs to be booked in advance. Tickets were booked until Tuesday of next week, so we would have needed to plan ahead (which we never do) if we wanted to use the shuttle option.

Before seeing the lake, we needed to secure camping for tonight. Given that it’s the weekend, we knew first-come, first-serve camping spots would fill up quickly. As I mentioned, we had been lucky to snag two last-minute cancellations at Tunnel Mountain Campground last night as reservation campgrounds also book out months in advance.

“Would you rather drive to Mosquito Creek Campground to see if we can snag two open campsites? Or, would you prefer to park in an overflow parking lot close to Lake Louise that allows overnight camping, where our Starlink would work because there’s no tree cover, and we could park right next to Laura & Shaun?” That was a no-brainer for me —Parking lot camping all the way. It’s not like we’d be hanging out at our campsite today anyway; we’re going to be out & about exploring Banff National Park. Plus, once we’re in the RV for the night, we could be parked anywhere and it all feels like the comforts of our own space.

It was settled then. Laura & Shaun also agreed that parking lot camping was the way to go. We drove to the Lake Louise Overflow Lot and found a wide-open gravel lot that cost $12 to park overnight. Andi parked our RV on the backside of the lot, furthest away from the highway noise, and Shaun dropped their camping trailer beside ours. Then, the six of us hopped into Shaun’s pickup truck to drive to Lake Louise.

Parking was crazy around Lake Louise. There were orange cones and park employees directing the stream of traffic. Of course, the parking lot was full by the time we arrived there around 9:30 am. Shoot! Now what were we going to do?

Luckily, Andi and Laura are the type of people who never take no for an answer. “There has to be a better way,” Andi said. We all remembered a tip we heard while watching one of our favorite travel shows on YouTube, Keep Your Daydream. In the Banff episode, Marc and Trish paid $30 to valet their vehicle at the Fairmont Hotel which is located on the shores of Lake Louise. “Let’s try to valet!” Laura exclaimed.

“Act as if,” Andi leaned over and whispered to Aden sitting next to him in the truck.

“Hello, we’d like to use the valet and have breakfast at the hotel,” Shaun told the gatehouse worker when we pulled up to the hotel’s entrance.

“I’m sorry, breakfast is only for guests.” the employee responded in a friendly manner. “But perhaps I could call to see if there’s room for you to park in one of our day-use parking spots.”

“That would be great!” Shaun said.

Yes, there was a parking spot available, the employee confirmed. We paid $55 Canadian Dollars ($40.45 USD) to park in front of the Fairmont Hotel for the day. Sweet! “I’ll pay $55 to park at the hotel any day,” Laura said. “Maybe we can have lunch here later.”

We used the restrooms at the hotel, and then made our way down to the lake.

Wow, what a gorgeous scene! The stunning turquoise waters of the lake contrasted by the Canadian Rockies in the distance was a sight to behold.

Of course, we had to be very strategic about the angles in which we took our photographs because there were a lot of tourists here. A LOT. I can’t imagine the craziness of this place during peak summer months.

What’s crazy is that there are a dozen other lakes around this area of Canada that look exactly like this without all the people, but for whatever reason Lake Louise is the number one place to visit in all of Banff National Park. I guess it’s because this lake is easy to get to without any hiking which is probably the reason for its popularity. Even with all the parking hoopla, I’m glad we came and saw it. It really is a breathtakingly beautiful place on Earth.

The six of us took some time to enjoy the lake by strolling along a lakeside path. Once we started walking away from the main overlook, the crowds thinned out greatly. We had plenty of opportunities to chat with Laura and Shaun as we walked the path, and stop for photos on the way. It was a perfect morning.

Around 11:45am, we made our way back to the Fairmont Hotel and asked an employee standing at the entrance to see a lunch menu. Truly, I have to compliment the Fairmont Hotel staff at both the Banff and Lake Louise locations for their exceptionally friendly staff. This man was so kind, letting us know that he could make a reservation for us to have lunch as soon as the restaurant opened at Noon.

“Could we sit on those patio chairs and wait until the restaurant opens?” Laura asked.

“Of course you can,” the hotel employee said, and opened the stanchion rope to allow us onto the hotel property. Now, this was the life! The bright sunshine warmed our chilled bodies as we sat in VIP chairs overlooking the lake view.

At Noon, we were seated on the hotel’s outdoor patio with stunning views of Lake Louise and the Victoria Glacier in the distance. It was a bit chilly on the patio, but Laura assured us the sun was about to move directly onto our table. “Give it 15 minutes, I bet we’ll be directly in the sunshine.” Sure enough, the sun moved in the sky just enough to fall directly on our table. Once we were in the sunshine, it felt like a beautiful fall day in Canada.

Andi ordered a charcuterie platter for the table, and then we each ordered from the lunch menu. It was a little pricy, but honestly not bad considering this was a high-end hotel and restaurant. I selected a prochetta sandwich with a side salad. Andi, Laura, and Shaun all ordered the meatball sandwich with a side salad. Tory and Aden ordered from the kids menu — grilled chicken breast with asparagus and chicken tenders with fries, respectively.

It appeared from the menu that dessert was included in the kids’ meal price, so Andi inquired about ordering ice cream for them after we’d finished our meals. “I believe it’s just a fruit plate that’s included, but sure — why not? I’ll bring out ice cream for the kids instead,” our server agreed.

There’s no way this big bowl of ice cream was complimentary, but our server never charged us for dessert. Wasn’t that nice? Seriously, the staff at the Fairmont Hotel was so pleasant and accommodating.

All of our food was delicious, and our service was excellent. Total price = $220 Canadian ($165 USD). We could have rented a canoe to take out on the lake for an hour for $105, or we could have eaten this fabulous meal with good company and an awesome view for roughly the same price. Glad we made the choice we did. Highly recommend!

After lunch, the six of loaded into Shaun’s pickup truck and returned to our camping spot in the Lake Louise overflow parking lot. We took a few minutes to regroup, and then ventured out again for Round 2 of our Banff National Park tour. It was too sunny of a day today to waste any time sitting around in the camper.

Our afternoon adventure was a drive along the Icefields Parkway. The Icefields Parkway runs north-south between Lake Louise, Alberta and Jasper, Alberta, and is known as one of the most scenic drives in the world. It takes about three hours to drive the entire length of the highway to the town of Jasper. We only planned to see about half of the distance today, and then we’ll do the rest of the drive when we make our way to Jasper National Park next week.

There’s a series of lakes, glaciers, and camping along the highway so we took our time stopping at pull-offs to take pictures, and checking out possible camping for future days as we drove. Many of the campgrounds are starting to close for the season, so we have to strategically think about where we want to be & what we want to see in the next few days.

Our first stop was to Bow Lake which is fed by the Bow Glacier. This is also the lake where Bow River begins as it snakes its way through the area around Banff.

Next, we continued north along the Icefields Parkway to Peyto Lake. As we drove, we listened to “talkie guy” through our truck’s audio speakers, which is our family’s nickname for the GypsyGuide (Guide Along) audio tour we always listen to when we visit national parks. This audio guide is a great way to learn facts and historical stories about a place we’re visiting, and at a perfect time — when we’re all in the car driving to the next site to see.

The trail to get to Peyto Lake was quite a steep incline (Talkie Guy forgot to mention that when he suggested we pull in to see the view). Quite a few tourists of all ages and stages were struggling to make it up the paved path. There was a sign for a longer, easier path to get to the overlook, but we noticed most people took the steeper one. Why? Our group thought it would have been a fun social experiment to see who out of each group would have opted for the longer, easier path given the choice, and who would have taken the shorter, steeper path no matter how difficult it was. Tory said, “Steeper path, no question.” Aden responded, “I probably would have taken the steeper path because I didn’t even notice the sign for the easier option and would have walked right past it!”

Peyto Lake was incredible, and worth every labored breath it took to get to the overlook. Wow! I loved its unique shape, and the color of the turquoise-blue water contrasted by the dark green pines. The shades of blue of the mountains in the distance were breathtaking. Dare I say Peyto Lake was even more beautiful than Lake Louise? Yes, I’m saying it. Truly, WOW.

The overlook for Peyto Lake was busy with tourists, but not nearly as crowded as Lake Louise. The walk up to the overlook might deter some people from visiting, or the fact that visitors have to drive there themselves vs. taking a shuttle or city bus.

As RVers, it’s amazing to us how many rental RVs we’ve seen around Banff National Park. At least 70% of all the campers are rentals. Also, Andi and I thought it was funny that most of the campers that are parked in the Lake Louise overflow lot with us are people who own their campers; not rentals. It’s probably because all of us who camp regularly 1) don’t plan ahead (so we don’t have reservations in the national park campgrounds) and 2) can’t stomach paying $45/night for a campsite without any hook-ups when we could just park in a parking lot instead.

The Peyto Lake parking lot looked like a rental RV sales lot!

Back in Shaun’s pickup truck, the six of continued to drive north on the Icefields Parkway. We made it to Waterfowl Lakes campground to check it out for tomorrow night, but it had already closed for the season.

We decided we’d gone far enough on the north-south highway, and should probably turn back toward Lake Louise. It was fun driving back the same way we came because we got different views of the lakes and glaciers. I’ve truly never seen so many glaciers in one geographical place! There are so many glaciers in this area of Canada that not all of them have names.

This one is called Hanging Glacier because it looks like it’s literally “hanging” off the side of this rock face.

Once we reached Lake Louise, our next stop was to the small grocery store. Sadly, there wasn’t much to buy there and it was pretty expensive. None of us were sure what we were going to make for dinner tonight, but certain we could cobble something together between our two fridges.

Next door was the Lake Louise Visitor’s Centre, so Tory, Aden, and I popped inside to redeem their Xplorer park booklets. United States National Parks have a Junior Ranger program; Canada Parks have the Xplorer program. Tory and Aden weren’t pleased that I made them complete the park booklet (they think they’re too old to do this activity anymore), but I think it’s a great way to learn about the national park. Bonus that they earn a rewards after they complete it!

The three of us waited in line for 10 minutes or so to speak to the next available customer service person at the visitor’s centre front desk. “We’re here to turn in our Xplorer booklets,” I said to the man behind the desk. “OK, great, let me get your rewards.” He returned a minute later with two plastic dog tags that said ‘Banff National Park Xplorer’ on them, and said “Here you go!”

“That’s it? No pledge? This is the best ever!” both Tory and Aden squealed as we walked away from the counter. “Wahoo!” They were both elated that there was no public embarrassment of reciting a pledge to be good stewards of the park.

The six of us met back at Shaun’s pickup truck to drive back to our camping spot in the Lake Louise overflow lot. Except, none of us were very hungry for dinner after our big, filling lunches at the Fairmont Hotel so we decided to go for another drive and hopefully see some animals at dusk.

This time, the six of us drove the Bow Valley Parkway which is a 48-km scenic winding road between Banff and Lake Louise. Supposedly, this is a great place to see wildlife as its a quieter alternative to the Trans-Canada Highway. “Talkie Guy” filled our ears with facts and stories about the history surrounding Bow Valley Parkway as we drove.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see any animals during our drive, but it was still pretty scenery nonetheless.

Afterwards, we returned to our RVs for the night and were surprised to see how much the overflow parking lot had filled up with other campers. “It’s going to be loud night,” Andi said. Good thing we always travel with ear plugs.

Tomorrow, our plan is to continue exploring Banff National Park. Unfortunately, the weather doesn’t look promising with a forecast for rain and cooler weather. More to come of Banff National Park …