• Part 1: What Happened to Scott?
• Part 2: This is my {Bison} Jam
• Part 3: There are still a few glaciers left…for now
• Part 4: Tons of Water in Waterton
• Part 4a: , Pikas, Marmots, Bison, and More!

When we left off, we had just arrived at our campground in Banff. We stayed at Tunnel Mountain Campground 1 and it was one of my favorite campgrounds of the trip. The guidebooks will tell you that it’s overly crowded, yada, yada, but honestly, you don’t notice that from the site. Are you alone? No, but it’s a campground, not wilderness camping. The sites are big, and we had a nice one near the edge of the loop so nobody was walking by our tent. And the bathrooms even had showers, no extra cost and not limited, and somehow they weren’t even that busy! Plus, you got unlimited firewood.

Day 13: We wanted to do the hike to the Lake Agnes Teahouse and the Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse at Lake Louise. I’d been to Lake Louise as a girl and remembered how beautiful it was (also, internet pictures), but Lake Louise was an hour drive from our campground, and word on the street was that the parking lot filled up early. Like, really early. So we decided to get up to get there by six am with the hopes it wouldn’t be an issue. We woke up at 4:45 am (horrors) and got on the road—we even made coffee the night before and put it in a thermos. We got to the parking lot just before 6 am and while the signs said “parking lot full” that wasn’t true, and we got a lovely spot. We took our time getting ready to hike, drank coffee/ate breakfast/bathroom and such, and then headed out. It was crowded right at the Lake, as it was just past sunrise but the mountains were covered in fog still—I guess people were waiting for the sun to rise over the mountains and tons of people were set up with serious photographic equipment. We started hiking instead.

We first hiked up to the Lake Agnes Teahouse, which was just over 2 miles. When we got there, the mountains were still covered by fog.

Anyway, we had a pot of teas, some scones and jam, and a bowl of veggie soup (random, I know but it looked good and came with bread).

The teahouse gets all its supplies by either helicopter or by foot. While we were there a helicopter arrived, which was kind of fun.

Do you see the helicopter? And the mountains are appearing!

At this point in the day it was still chilly outside, but by the time we left it was warming up. Our next step was to hike around Lake Agnes and up over the Big Beehive.

I had a few instances during that portion of the hike of being terrified of hikes, but I made it. At the top, Louie had a little issue and we hurried along and so didn’t get pictures up there. Off we went to the Plain of Six Glaciers!

The next part of the hike was less busy as I think more people choose one or the other hike, and as a result was my favorite part of the hike. Once we got to there part of the hike that was the more direct route to the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse it was more crowded, and the sun was high in the sky and it was a tough part of the hike!

But we made it! And ordered more tea and scones. Then we hiked back down, which was crowded, but beautiful. As we got closer to Lake Louise, the crowds were overwhelming, and the last hour or so of the hike we were just dodging people and ready to be DONE. The views were spectacular though—the lake is an unbelievable color and the mountains are just, well, words don’t do it justice. And neither do pictures!

That’s the Hotel Fairmont at Lake Louse—very fancy.

We thought this canoe with a Canadian Flag was just great.

Anyway, we finally made it back to the car, and we were exhausted

This was the hike as recorded on Louie’s Apple Watch. Just over 11 miles.

We got back to our campground around 4:30 and were exhausted! We showered and then made a campfire and relaxed all evening.

In Canada, they call it Kraft Dinner. We enjoyed this with a can of tuna and peas added.

Day 14: We decided today would be an easy day and we would just visit the town of Banff. We started with breakfast at Evelyn’s coffee—the cappuccinos were good but the breakfast muffins were “eh”. We walked along the Bow River then, and around the Fenland Loop, which was in the trees and super full of bugs.

The town of Banff is in the National Park, but is full of shops and restaurants and everything you might need…well, almost. Louie kept trying to find a new pair of shoes but everything he liked was sold out in his size.

We got lunch at a place called “Block”. We had our first poutine, and enjoyed a tofu bao and a delicious salad called the “Zen” salad.

After lunch, we walked the other direction along the Bow River, towards the Falls, and then up to the Fairmont Hotel Banff.

After visiting the hotel we headed back to our car, first making a stop at a grocery store for supplies for the next few days. I was worried about how long we’d been parked—we found a garage for 8 hours, which seemed like a long time when we’d parked there that morning, but then we didn’t remember exactly when we’d arrived! In any case, it was no problem.

Next we decided to drive the Lake Minnewanka Loop and follow a suggested tour in the guidebook I was using at the time. We stopped at a place called Lower Bankhead, which used to be a place where people lived and worked in a mine, and we were walking the loop when an animal trotted right past us, and we think it was a fox..or even a coyote?! Lower Bankhead was also full of mosquitoes.

Maybe it’s a kangaroo?

We next stopped at Lake Minnewanka and looked around for a few minutes.

You can buy tickets for various boat rides, as well as rent kayaks and such.

Then we continued along to Two Jack Lake, and then Johnson Lake. It kept looking like it was going to rain, so we kept moving along.

We saw some bighorn sheep around the lake, but it was too crowded with cars to take any pictures. As we were getting back to our campsite, we saw some elk.

Then we did the usual, fire and dinner, and just after dark, I was headed to brush my teeth and realized there were some elk walking nearby. I went back to get Louie’s attention, and we realized there was a whole herd of elk, dozens and dozens, walking by and through the campground, bugling, and grazing, and just passing through slowly. It was amazing! We didn’t get any pictures, as it was dark, but we just stood then in the dark (at one point moving further away) and enjoyed their presence. That’s one of the reasons we camp—you wouldn’t get an experience like that in a hotel as you wouldn’t be outside! It was one of my favorite moments of the trip, honestly. It was magical.

Later that night there was a storm, and the rain continued into the early morning.

Day 15: We had thought we might get up early, but it was raining, so we waited until after 7 to get up. We decided to hike Johnston Canyon Falls and Ink Pots Trail. The trail was nice, but very crowded! Once you got past the Falls it wasn’t as bad, but yeah…Banff is a busy place.

Did I know my picture was being taken? Questionable. We had lunch in the Ink Pots area.

After the hike, we decided to drive the rest of the Bow Valley Parkway. We saw a bear, then another bear, and then after we turned back around, we saw a third bear that might have the same as the first bear! We did get told by a ranger not to stop alongside the bears and take pictures—they prefer not to have the bears get too comfortable with cars. It’s hard—you want to take pictures and see them, but you know that the bears live here and you want to respect that and help keep them safe. We ended up driving slowly by one of them, then doubling back and doing that again.

I think Louie got some good pictures here of that bear!!

After that, it was late in the day, so we headed back to the campsite for our last night there. We made a huge fire (using up all the wood we’d taken—you get a fire permit, and then you can use unlimited wood—except the wood needs to be chopped generally, and we bring a hatchet with us but not an axe so it was a real adventure) and just enjoyed the evening and the cool weather.

I should say, Banff wasn’t as cold as Yellowstone either, though the evenings were cool enough that the fire was definitely helpful. Oddly, we had internet service at the campsite, so while on the one hand we wanted to live in the moment and enjoy the solitude of the camping, on the other hand it had been two weeks of vacation and it was good to be in touch with the world and neither of us can really go that long without responding to emails and such. It’s also nice to be able to easily keep in touch with family and friends.

The next morning we would be packing up our tent and hitting the road again, but for the moment, we sat, enjoying a drink, perhaps some popcorn, and a fire. (We did do a jiffy pop one night!) It was nice to spend 4 nights somewhere, because it really started to feel like home! And we could have stayed longer because there was so much more to do in the area, but we had our itinerary, and next up was the Icefields Parkway and Jasper National Park.