Waterton Park, AB to Banff, AB

Banff National Park     Wednesday July 18th  2001           237 miles     

We could have driven the main drag (Highway 2) up through Calgary to Banff, but decided to take the more scenic road through the Kananaski mountain range. This was a beautiful drive through majestic mountains. I always thought it was wierd that they called them the "Canadian Rockies", as if Canada had something different in the Rockies than the US did. Afterall the entire range is "The Rockies", and we don't call our the US Rockies, but driving through the Kananaski's I noticed a definite difference. The mountains in the Canadian Rockies seem much bigger than in the States. If you look on relief map, the width of The Rockies narrows as they enter Canada. So from Waterton up to Jasper you are on the edge of The Rockies, vs. being in the middle of them at the same latitude in the states. Consequently your right on the edge of the mountains and they all seem like they are half again as high as the mountains in the States.

All along this drive we saw very little cars, almost no people. We stopped at a rest area.

We stayed for 2 nights at the Buffalo Mountain Lodge. Probably THE nicest property that we stayed at. The bathroom was tiled with heated floors and had a claw tub.

The fireplace was great.

And the mountains around Banff were beautiful.

We visited park headquarters.

and the infamous Banff Springs Hotel

Then we detoured and instead of going to Yellowstone we headed up to Jasper.