For the next leg of our journey, we crossed over into Alberta to explore the world-famous Banff National Park. Now I must warn anybody reading this post, ours was not a typical Banff vacation. We didn’t hit any of the “must-sees” like Johnson Canyon, Lake Louise, or Banff Hot Springs. In fact, we opted to stay in Canmore, and only spent a couple hours total in the town of Banff itself. Instead, our time in Banff/Canmore was really dominated by two things: excellent food and natural water.
Now, for those of you who love any of the skipped visits mentioned above, don’t be offended. I do believe all of those things are worth seeing if you have the time. But we were only there for a couple days, and when time is limited in a place, you don’t want to waste it standing in line or looking for a place to park. So a lot of our adventures were driven by the goal of going places without so many people, which I totally recommend. Banff is an amazing place–vast and wet, with more trees that I could ever have imagined–and finding little corners of the park to enjoy in solitude made the experience even more magical.
Our Highlights from Banff Town
Our crowd avoiding mission aside, it really would be unfair not to spend a minute talking about Banff itself, which is a cool place with lots of interesting things to see and do. Known throughout the world for its ski hills and hot springs, not to mention its international film festival, this resort town has options for everyone, especially history buffs and outdoor enthusiasts.
We spent some time in Banff walking through downtown (this was to some degree a necessity, because the closest parking we found was blocks from anything). Banff is full of shops and restaurants of every shape and size ranging from souvenir stores to outdoor apparel and providing just about every type of ethnic restaurant available. Pete and I were not feeling fancy, so we stopped into Eddie’s Burgers for a burger and some poutine, our new Canadian favorite!
After lunch, we went to take a look at the Banff Springs Hotel, which looks like a castle from a fairy tale. If I ever win the lottery, I would love to stay there some day. From there we took a scenic drive on which we were lucky enough to see a big bull elk, and wound up at Bow River Falls (not to be confused with the Bow Falls discussed later in this post) which was very pretty.
Excellent FoodAlong with Eddie’s Burgers in Banff, we also found some amazing food in Canmore. Some of it was last minute good luck, but we were also fortunate enough to run into some Canmore residents while we were hiking Stanley Glacier earlier in our trip, and we picked their brains for good places to eat in Canmore, which is how we heard about St. Lucia’s, a place we never would have found otherwise.
St. Lucia’s
As you might have guessed from my earlier post about Kansas City, I absolutely love good Italian food. So when our fellow hikers told us about a small hole-in-the-wall Italian place with excellent food, I was excited to try it. We would never even have seen it if we had not been specifically looking. It was just an unassuming glass door in amongst a bunch of much more decorated shops in Canmore’s downtown.
Once we were inside, however, it was clear that the place was a favorite with the locals. A line of nearly a dozen people was crammed into the tiny entry way (it had gotten pretty chilly and no one wanted to wait outside). While we were in line, we got a good chance to look around. The atmosphere was somewhere between fancy and casual, with white tablecloths and candle centerpieces and soothing jazz playing in the background, although the diners were in fairly relaxed attire, and we did not feel at all out of place having just come from a day of exploring the park.
We stuck out the wait, and boy was it worth it! We shared some bread dipped in aged balsamic vinegar and then I had spaghetti with bison bolognese and Pete had a panzarotti (aka a fried calzone). Everything was delicious. Throw in my nice red wine and Pete’s local beer, and we both left full and satisfied.
Grizzly Paw Brewery and Pub
Our other great food find in Canmore was also a stroke of luck. We had set out to go to the Canmore Brewery, as that was the one recommended to us by the local hikers, but unfortunately, it was closed. Not to be deterred, we looked up the name of the other brewery–Grizzly Paw–and headed over to it. And while I am sure that the first brewery was also good, we had such an excellent experience at Grizzly Paw that we were not too sorry to have missed it.
We liked nearly every beer we tried there, except the stout, and it’s only real failing was that it was bland when compared to the others, but still drinkable at the end of the day. I particularly liked their rich nut brown ale, and was again surprised–although I have never been a huge fan of wheat beers and have always opposed fruity beers–to find that I really enjoyed their raspberry wheat.
As for the food, the service was fast, and there was an abundance of tasty sounding options. We had a kale salad with goat cheese and grilled peaches, as a fairly delicious nod to health, and a big bowl of pulled pork pirogies with cheese curds and gravy, a creative and very yummy marriage of the Eastern European dish and the local poutine.
*Note: we stayed at Canmore Inn and Suites, which had a very comfortable bed and a cozy little kitchenette and sitting area. We had actually picked this one because it had a water slide, but unfortunately it was closed for repairs while we were there.
Natural Water
As usual, Pete and my’s hiking choices tended to gravitate to hikes containing the words “lake” or “waterfall” (sometimes both), which I really can’t apologize for. I simply love being near water, whether it’s peacefully lapping at the shore of the lake or making an epic plunge over a cliff edge. The good news for us was that this was a particularly wet area of the world, and we had way more options than we even had time to explore. Still, we managed to find a few good ones.
Copper and Smith Lakes
These two small pristine mountain lakes are easily accessible by a short hike. The trails are also lightly trafficked; in fact we had the place to ourselves all morning.
To visit these lakes, you start at the Twin Lakes Trailhead (in Banff) just off the highway. Twin Lakes is a much longer hike; you can do Copper and Smith Lakes together in 3.6 miles. Follow the trail just a little ways until it splits; then you can decide which lake you want to visit first. We opted for Smith Lake (to the left) because it was a little longer and steeper and our inclination is always to get the hardest work out of the way early (while others may prefer to use the short walk to Copper Lake as a warm up to the slightly harder Smith Lake).
The trail to Smith Lake is mostly uphill (at varying degrees of steepness) until you reach the rim around the lake, which offers a lovely view. From there, you have the option of a short, fairly steep trail down to the lake, which we obviously took!
Once you have finished enjoying Smith Lake, take the trail back to the fork and this time follow the right-hand trail. The walk to Copper Lake is under a mile and fairly level. Interestingly enough, Copper Lake is only a hundred feet or so from the Trans-Canadian Highway, but the trees are so dense that you can’t see it (although you can hear the cars going by). We were able to enjoy a few serene moments there watching an osprey hunt for fish. It was so easy to imagine we were out in the middle of the wilderness instead of a stone’s throw from a major highway.
Tessa Falls
Tessa Falls is the cutest little waterfall hike that no one has ever heard of. The trailhead is on the Lake Minnewanka Scenic Loop (which is worth exploring in its own right), but it is unmarked and not on any of the park maps. We only found it by using our AllTrails App, which is our go to guide for hiking and we heartily recommend it (Pete even stops to tell people about it while we are hiking)! It provides a brief description of the each hike and uses GPS to provide directions–very useful in this case–and to track your hike. We have also found many of the reviews left by other hikers to be helpful. The app is free, so check it out.
The trail to the falls is about a mile, with two options for getting down to the falls. Being curious, we took both! One goes pretty much straight down, and provides a nice head on view of the waterfall. The other is a little gentler, but there were several fallen trees across the path (I’m guessing it is not regularly maintained). This trail ends with a view of the falls from the side. If you have time and energy, I definitely recommend doing both.
*After hiking Tessa Falls, we only had a little daylight left to enjoy Lake Minnewanka, but we will definitely be back. They have a beer cruise we would love to try!
Bow Lake and Falls
Bow Lake/Bow Falls was one of our very favorite adventures of the trip (tied with Stanley Glacier), and we actually found it entirely by fluke. We had considered trying to visit Lake Louise if it wasn’t to busy (we were hoping the fact that it was a week day would work in our favor), but when we saw the sign saying that we would have to park in the backup lot and shuttle in, we decided to turn and head up toward the ice fields looking for a place to picnic and make a new plan.
While driving, we were impressed by Crowfoot Glacier (I made Pete pull over so I could take pictures!), so we decided to pull into the next turnout, which happily for us was Bow Lake. The Bow Lake parking area is large and well stocked with amenities: lots of toilets, picnic tables and the beautiful log and stone Num-Ti-Jah Lodge with a restaurant and gift shop, as well as rooms.
But amenities aside, we were much more impressed by the scenery. Bow Lake is a moderately-sized glacially fed lake, which means its water is a beautiful deep turquoise color because of the rock minerals dissolved by the glacier. It’s the same effect as you can admire at Lake Louise, with probably a quarter of the crowd. Across the lake you can see parts of Bow Glacier at the top of the ridge, and the small silver trickle of Bow Falls from a distance.
Once we discovered this awesome place, we had to explore it!!
After a quick picnic out of the hatchback of our car, we headed out for our hike. Our timing was perfect, as it was a 5.8 mile round-trip hike and we had just enough time to finish it in the daylight, but it was late enough in the day that hikers were becoming sparser, and we ended up having several sections of the trail–and the waterfall itself!–all to ourselves.
The trail first meanders in gentle (but muddy) ups and downs along the edge of the lake (so I had lots of opportunities to stop and take hundreds of pictures trying to capture the amazing color of the water). After that, it headed up through a moderately steep canyon with large steps cut into the trail, and a decent drop off to the torrent of stream below. (For extreme adventure junkies, there is a side trail to Bow Hut that actually involves scrambling over a large boulder wedged between the canyon walls high above the stream. Not for me, thanks!)
Once through the canyon, you pick your way across the glacial moraine, aka the rocky deposit left by the the receding glacier. The trail is not always visible, but it is easy to find your way, since you are still following the stream and the waterfall is clearly visible up ahead of you.
And then you come to the waterfall.
Bow Glacier Falls (to keep it separate from Bow River Falls in Banff) is about 400 feet tall, and you can walk right up to the base of it. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. I could have stood there all day, but unfortunately it was getting closer to sunset, and we had to head back. Still, it is one of my favorite places that I’ve ever been, and I’m oh so glad we happened upon it.
Conclusion
Sadly, that was about all we had time for in the Alberta portion of our trip. Touristy atmosphere aside, we really enjoyed it, especially as we were able to find some very cool places without a whole lot of crowds. If you haven’t been there yet, the Banff area really is a must-visit.
What are your favorite things to do or see in Banff?