IgoUgo

Banff Journals

Winter in Canada's Rockies

Best of IgoUgo

A December 2008 trip to Banff by callen60

Across the River Photo - Cave and Basin National Historic Site, Banff, Alberta More Photos
Quote: Celebrating 25 years, via dogsled, snowshoe, sleighride, and other wintertime fun.
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Overview

Marble Canyon Photo - British Columbia, Canada
Quote:
We were married on a cold Michigan night 25 years ago, trudging through snowdrifts and road salt to the rehearsal dinner, our wedding, and the reception. Back then, it seemed appropriate to head south for a honeymoon, and we woke after a few brief hours of sleep to board a freezing cold plane for a week in Cancun.But for a silver anniversary celebration, we thought it would be fun to indulge our long-time delight in mountain landscapes and head west, fulfilling an idea that we’d first had while exploring the wonders of Yellowstone: spend a week in the mountains in wintertime.We thought about returning to Yellowstone, and exploring that amazing but somewhat familiar landscape vi...Read More

Outdoors

Snowy Owl Sled Dog Tours Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Highlight of our Trip"

Nearing home Photo - Snowy Owl Sled Dog Tours, Canmore, Alberta
Quote:
Before planning this trip, I never thought I’d go dogsledding. Not that I’d considered it and said no: I’d never even thought about the possibility, since it seemed such a part of a separate, foreign existence. In our increasingly homogeneous world, mushing seemed one of the few things firmly bound to its own distant, somewhat forbidding place in the Arctic and near-Arctic. But when we decided to head for a winter climate to celebrate our anniversary, I quickly learned that several firms were happy to provide that experience to complete novices. We both agreed that mushing was one of those things we just had to do: certainly, we wouldn’t get the chance to steer our own sled through...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on February 15, 2009

Snowy Owl Sled Dog Tours
#104-602 Bow Valley Trail
Canmore T1W 2T8
(403) 678-4369

Banff Sulphur Mountain Gondola Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Mountaintop Experience"

Grey Skies Clearing Photo - Banff Sulphur Mountain Gondola, Banff, Alberta
Quote:
On the morning of our anniversary, the grey skies were clearing, and Castle Mountain was easily visible as we left the drive from Storm Mountain Lodge. That boded well for the day, and 25 minutes later the skies were perfectly blue as we entered Banff. After a quick breakfast at Cake Company on Bear Street, we headed for the Banff Gondola, figuring we would take advantage of the nearly clear day and the relatively early hour.Not many people are moving at 9 am on a winter’s day in Banff, even when the weather is gorgeous. We headed down Banff Avenue, crossed the Bow River, and headed left on Mountain Avenue up into the foothills of Sulphur Mountain.The Upper Hot Springs is also ...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on February 28, 2009

Banff Sulphur Mountain Gondola
Hot Springs Road
Banff, Alberta T0L 0C0
+1 403 762 5438

Holiday on Horseback Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Sleigh Ride? So-so"

Our ride Photo - Holiday on Horseback, Banff, Alberta
Quote:
It seemed so romantic: a private sleigh ride in the mountains at sunset, the two of us tucked under a warm blanket, sipping liqueurs, and gazing at the purple mountains and red skies. Both of us were attracted by that winter vision, imaging the stillness as horse and driver took us along the edges of rivers, lakes, woods and ridges, the quiet broken only by the jingling of bells and the shushing of runners on snow. That wasn’t quite the way it worked out. I first read about sleigh rides at the website for the Chateau Lake Louise, where we initially booked a three-night stay but then canceled after fiscally-inspired second thoughts. Options there were to join one of the large 15-passenger s...Read More

Member Rating 2 out of 5 on February 17, 2009

Holiday on Horseback
132 Banff Avenue
Banff, Alberta T0L 0C0
+1 403 762 4551

Our destination Photo - Banff, Alberta
Quote:
When we settled on spending three nights at Storm Mountain Lodge, switching our reservation from the stratospherically priced Chateau Lake Louise, we thought we’d have an equally special stay and save nearly $900 in the bargain. Nonetheless, given the $270 CDN nightly price tag, I thought I’d ask if they had any packages. Not over the holidays, they said, but we do take our guests snowshoeing every New Year’s Eve. At no charge, I asked? That’s right, she replied.That sounded fantastic. Even though it wasn’t perfectly free (the $8 rental per shoe set was added to our tab), heading out under the stars with someone who knew what they were doing seemed like a great way to experience ano...Read More

Marble Canyon Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Short Canyon Trail in Kootenay"

Mountain behind Marble Canyon Photo - British Columbia, Canada
Quote:
Marble Canyon lies over the Vermilion Pass, just four miles inside Kootenay NP and British Columbia on the north side of Highway 93. It’s a much different experience than Banff's highly popular Johnston Canyon, but even better in some ways. We drove up from Storm Mountain Lodge right after breakfast, arriving about 9:30 (not long after sunrise!). The parking lot held over a dozen cars, but evidently those folks were all off skiing or snowshoeing on other trails, as was true of the only other people we saw here. Kootenay is a long, lightning-bolt shaped park that's bisected by Highway 93. If you drive far enough, you arrive at Radium Hot Springs at the southern end, after about 100 km. Ther...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on February 14, 2009

Johnston Canyon Hike Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Even in Winter, a Must-do"

Trailhead... sorta Photo - Johnston Canyon Hike, Banff, Alberta
Quote:
This is the most popular outdoor experience in Banff National Park: a million people will visit each year. Although most will obviously come in the summer months, you quite likely won’t be completely alone here during a winter visit, unless you arrive early. Frozen canyons like this are a popular cold weather outing up and down the Rockies, but even so, chances are that you’ll have this pretty place to yourself for healthy stretches of time. The canyon runs nearly straight north, and the trail heads up the far side after a short jaunt west from the parking lot. Johnston Canyon Resort lies right on this edge, and we passed their souvenir store and shuttered ice cream stand, both of which mu...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on February 26, 2009

Johnston Canyon Hike
Banff National Park, Bow Valley Pkwy.
Banff, Alberta

Touring

Banff Park Museum Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "A Museum of Museums"

Banff Park Museum Photo - Banff Park Museum, Banff, Alberta
Quote:
It’s hard to imagine now, but this small, attractive wooden building was both on the cutting edge of park museums, and nearly all alone here in the mountains. It now sits surrounded by parking lot, but pictures available at the nearly Museum of the Rockies show it nearly neighborless, with only the mountains for a backdrop. Today, it feels like a sideshow on the edge of ‘downtown’ Banff, well removed from the central hotels and commercial activity, a drive-by destination as people head across the river to the Banff Springs or the Gondola.It reminded me of The Little House, Virginia Lee Burton’s 1943 Caldecott Medal winning book for children: that pink house began life on an apple-t...Read More

Member Rating 3 out of 5 on February 17, 2009

Banff Park Museum
92 Banff Avenue
Banff, Alberta T0L 0C0
+1 403 762 1558

Cave and Basin National Historic Site Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Might as Well..."

Across the River Photo - Cave and Basin National Historic Site, Banff, Alberta
Quote:
Canada is obligated to preserve the Cave and Basin, given its significance to the nation's impressive park system. Without that distinction, it might well have closed some years ago, when the interest in bathing dwindled and it fell into disrepair. Nonetheless, it's worth a short stop during your stay in Banff.Well removed from the current center of attention in Banff, this small site is where both ‘Banff’ and Canada’s National Park system began. Disputes over control of the hot springs in this area eventually led the national government to deny all competing claims, and set aside a small rectangle centered on the Cave as Canada’s first national park. (Curiously enough, the entire national...Read More

Member Rating 3 out of 5 on February 22, 2009

Cave and Basin National Historic Site
Cave Avenue
Banff, Alberta T0L 0C0
+1 403 762 1557

Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies Best of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Unique Mountain Museum"

Whyte Museum Photo - Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, Alberta
Quote:
Peter and Catharine Whyte fell in love during Art School. They came from very different worlds to meet at Boston Museum School of Fine Art: Peter from Canada’s remote, barely settled Bow Valley; Catherine from one of Boston’s leading families. In 1930, the newlyweds left the east coast for Peter’s home in the mountains, where they settled for the remainder of their lives. Over the next forty years, they hiked, painted, and promoted the arts, while celebrating the mountains that they loved and called home.Peter died in 1966, but even then they had already made plans for a museum that would bear their names. They established a foundation to support such an institute in 1958 and 10 years late...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on February 27, 2009

Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies
111 Bear Street
Banff, Alberta T0L 0C0
+1 403 762 2291

Reflections & Advice

Morning in the Mountains Photo - British Columbia, Canada
Quote:
The U.S. invented the national park in 1873 to protect Yellowstone’s fairyland of thermal features, although you might say that ‘reserving’ the Hot Springs of Arkansas in 1820 was the precursor to this landmark decision. Either way, Canada followed in those steamy footsteps by establishing Banff National Park in 1883. The three rail workers who’d discovered the hot springs had visions of a fortune built around the warm, sulfurous waters, but in the end the national government denied their petition to withdraw the area from the public domain and instead set aside a modest amount of land as Rocky Mountains Park.Today, an impressive amount of spectacular landscape forms one of the world’s pre...Read More
Quote:
Canada’s Rockies are more accessible in winter (or other seasons) than you might initially suspect. It’s quickest to approach from Alberta, although it’s a longer but beautiful approach from Vancouver and the west. Calgary and Edmonton share the same longitude, four hours apart and directly east, respectively, of the towns of Banff and Jasper. The northwest slant of the Rockies means that while Calgary is slightly more than an hour from Banff, the drive from Edmonton to Jasper is closer to three. This makes a large loop possible, but there’s little between Alberta’s two largest cities to justify the trip along Canada 2. If weather permits, why not backtrack through the fabulous mountains?B...Read More