My wife and I were fortunate enough to spend our 15th wedding anniversary in Banff, Alberta Canada last week. This place is truly amazing and really the best of the Rocky Mountains in my opinion. We hiked over 50 miles, 100k+ steps, drove 1700 km ( I think that’s about 1k miles), went to 3 national parks, 2 providences, and still didn’t scratch the surface. We didn’t see any grizzlies, but we did see 7 black bears, big horn sheep, elk, mule deer, and several different types of birds. The scenery, the food, the wildlife is fantastic and highly recommend to anyone looking for a mountain vacation. If you’ve considered going and have questions, shoot me a pm..

All of these were taken with the phone, no filters.

Love it. Went for our honeymoon last year.

Wow, gorgeous country, and I love the flag! Congrats on the 15 years.

Love that area in the Summer, was in Calgary for work in mid August 1997 and took a few days extra to spend some time enjoying the sights.


I saw the critters you listed plus one Griz, Moose and Mountain goat. The griz was crossing the road between Lake Louise and lake Moran. Lake Moran is my favorite of the glacier lakes

There were several grizzlies spotted during the week, we just weren’t in the right spots at the right times. Moraine lake was great but a little disappointed in Louise. Summer just started and the recent snow melt really stirred the water making it a milky color, but the lakes north of there over to Jasper were top notch!

It's on my short list of places.

Great place, we stayed a week at the fairmont

Waldhaus was actually my favorite restaurant followed by bear street tavern/pizza.

I didnt like Louise either, we took a trip fishing across lake minnewanka. It’s eye opening from ecology standpoint, especially concerning old grow timber, and virtually dead forests.

Wish you would of brought back the cool temps with you. Thanks for sharing

Ah, I see you recognized the Waldhaus. Honestly, I could have sat there all week, but one to many beers makes for a long hike back to the car.

Yelp it’s a hike back to top, hard to forget the great food and views though, I watched some great bulls feed out on the Golf course

Great photos, your phone is much better than mine, mine only gets a few Texas and some Colorado photos so far

Great pics, I see not much has changed since we went in 1977.

looks like a good trip! congrats on the anniversary

Looks awesome

I’m kicking myself for not taking a good camera. We used our phones and a GoPro so hoping to put a good video together over the next few weeks

Looks like a great trip to go on.

We did the same trip last summer. Stayed in Lake Louise. Just incredible. Agree, only saw 1%.

Bucket list for me also but I'll have to settle for Estes & Salida this year. Awesome pics & congrats on the anniversary

Estes has been our go to since I was a kid. That’s my happy place and will return next summer. We try to do something different every 5th anniversary without the kids but really missing it this year.

I’ll add that the elevation is lower in Banff so it was easier to acclimate but I’d bet the crowds were worse than Estes, and that’s saying something..

That’s cool you got to see a grizzly. Fortunately we didn’t see any bears on the trail.. all were while driving but there was definitely signs of bears everywhere we hiked. Kind of hair raising at times.

On that note, our hotel loaned us bear spray for the week and only charged you if you used, which I’d been happy to pay.

Where did you get the Tech flag. I need a new one to fly at my house here in Alabama.

Amazon. There’s quite a few to choose from but here’s the link for that specific one.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00DTW183O?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

My great, great grandfather was one of the original explorers in the 1850's. There are several things named after him. Mount Hector, Hector Lake and a couple more I can't remember. Also Kicking Horse Pass got it's name when one of the pack horses kicked him in the chest, they thought he was dead. His name was James Hector, he was a Geologist and a surgeon.