Day 4 Canadian Rockies Road Trip

Day 4 of our road trip at the end of June:-

While at the information centre at Lake Louise, we booked two nights at The Rundlestone Lodge at Banff. If we come to this area again we will book well ahead of time as there were not many choices for accommodation left by the time we got there. In saying that, The Rundlestone Lodge was fine. It is named after Mt Rundle which is situated behind the lodge. It was expensive, but with limited choices it was the best we could do. The view was next door hotel, so not so good, but everything else was fine. 

We had a standard two queen bed room, 

with free parking and free wifi.

Bumpers is the restaurant, ...

 

... but we ate in the bar. Great food. 

 

 The township of Banff was full of tourists. Banff township is located in the Banff National Park, which is world heritage listed.

Banff Avenue is the main street and has many historical buildings

This photo was taken at 7.30pm

We did some exploring the first evening, and some on the last day.

But we missed so much, we will have to go back.

 Photos of Banff in winter look so beautiful, 

maybe we'll go back to see all the snow scenes.

We went to Bow Falls on the Bow River

This is the view of the falls from the other side of the road.

On our full day in the area, we did a drive north  on the Trans Canada Hwy that runs beside the Bow River to Lake Louise, then beside the Bow River along the Icefields Parkway to the Columbia Icefields. On the way we past many rest stops with views.

It is the scenery that is spectacular here.

At this rest stop between Banff and Lake Louise, there is a fence and an 'English' type step up and over bridge to keep the bears off the highway. Still, didn't see any bears!

We had to pay National Park fees for driving through the Icefield Parkway. it was just under $30 for the 3 of us. We asked where we would see bears, and were told all along the side the of the road!

Guess what - didn't see a bear!!

Did see spectacular scenery!

 

 

Our first view of the Columbia Icefields and the Athabasca Glacier.

The Columbia Icefield is a surviving remnant of thick ice that once covered most of western Canada. It is the largest icefield in the Canadian Rockies, and has snow falls of up to 7 metres a year.

We parked in the lower carpark near the river running from the glacier, and Peter and Jonnie walked up the hill to the glacier.

 

The Athabasca Glacier is the most visited glacier in North America.

We wanted to stay here across the road at Glacier View Inn at the Columbia Icefield Discovery Centre, the view would have been perfect, however they didn't even bother to reply to our emails sent months before.

 We had some pre-made lunch and drove back along the spectacular parkway.

 

The traveler sees what he sees. 
The tourist sees what he has come to see.  
G.K. Chesterton