Banff National Park
Canada's First National Park
Aug 10, 2024
I got up earlier than usual this morning. It was nice sleeping on a bed but I wanted to spend the better part of the day at Banff, so I had to press on. Getting out of Calgary was a little chaotic. It's a Saturday and a lot of people were heading towards Banff. It's only a ninety minute ride, and in the first 30 minutes I saw two crashes and was tailed by two cars.
When I was sitting in my Airbnb last night with nothing to do, I really should have planned my day out in Banff better. I went up and down the park a couple of times because I hadn't planned the route. First, I went to the town of Banff and walked around the small city. I looked at the paper map I got with my admission and decided to go Lake Minnewanka. It was also recommended by a friend. After visiting Glacier National Park, I wondered what could even come close. Well, the answer is Banff. Neither is better than the other, and while both share similarities, they are also very different in how they present themselves.
Glacier has more flair. It has Going-To-The-Sun road and even without that road, it has long curvy roads that open up to gorgeous views. I felt like I was _in_ the mountains climbing up and down them when I was there. If Glacier was a person, it would make an entrance and everybody would pay attention. It's also remote and harder to get to. I can't remember what the nearest airport to Glacier is. Banff on the other hand is a lot more accessible. Calgary is a short drive away. As you head west, the mountains start to appear slowly in the horizon. It's very unassuming and suddenly you realize you are looking at this amazing view straight ahead of you. It doesn't have any fanfare, it doesn't have a fancy road with hairpins and a cliff on one side cutting through it. The admission is less than a third of Glacier's. But it has some amazing lakes framed by towering mountains. When I went to Lake Louise, the mountain tops still had snow. It was beautiful.
I went on a short hike from Lake Minnewanka to a wooden bridge connecting two sides of the canyon. There was a serene moment when no one else was there and I stood in the middle of the bridge. There was a threat of rain in the skies, but the sun was still shining and it was hot. There was a cool breeze. I shut my eyes, took a few deep breaths and tried to be mindful. My mind is often racing, oscillating between daydreams and day’s options, always trying to get to the next thing, the next pit stop, the destination for the day. It takes effort to wind down but for a few moments the stillness feels nice. The air smells a bit like campfire but there was a fire ban, so it might have been the fire in Jasper. When I open my eyes it feels like I had just woken from an untimely nap. I start hurrying my way back to the parking lot — the skies were getting darker and the dark clouds were unlikely to be bluffing.
It starts raining when I'm on the road. The weather is very hard to predict here. There were a few times when I thought the rain was gone, but it came back again. As I made my way up to Lake Louise, I saw a sign that the road to Columbia Icefield was open. This wasn't open when I had checked the day before. I stopped by Lake Louise and tried to think through the best course of action. I decided I could go there on my way out of Banff. Lake Louise was gorgeous. I didn't know lakes could have such majestic backdrops. I thought Michigan lakes were the prettiest, but I was dead wrong.
After Lake Louise, I went to check out a hot spring. When I had first heard about hot springs in Banff, I imagined a natural hot spring. But through some engineering marvel they've turned it into a pool where the water from the hot spring gets filtered and flows into the pool. The hot spring was very, very nice. It was a little chilly and the water was the right temperature of hot. I stayed longer than I thought I would.
On my way to the campsite I had to go through Banff (the city) again and I picked up some Korean street food. I got into my campsite just as the sun was setting. I'm enjoying the vibe in this campground. There's an Asian family right next to me cooking something amazing and torturing my senses. Their young kid is playing Diary of Jane. Two sites over there's a Punjabi family playing Bollywood music.
