Tuesday, June 23
We flew from Nashville to Calgary at 7:00 pm.
We landed at 10:15 pm local time (11:15 Central time) and took the hotel shuttle to a nearby hotel to spend the night.
Wednesday, June 24
This morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and then went back to the airport to get our rental car. We stopped at a Tim Horton’s and then headed towards the Vrbo in Canmore that we were staying in all week.
We enjoyed seeing views of the mountains on the way in!
Our first stop today was Kananaskis! You need a provincial park pass, so we stopped at the visitors center to purchase this. We had picked up lunch at a Subway on the way and ate at picnic tables by Upper Kananaskis Lake.
We walked around the lake for a while and then drove back up to the Troll Falls hike. On the way to Troll Falls, we stopped at the Peter Lougheed Discovery Center to get a map & some information about the hike. There are restrooms there if you need to stop (so much better than just the pit toilets😬).
After we got to Troll Falls, we continued on to the next waterfall – Marmot Falls:
There are two more waterfalls past these but we decided not to keep going further. As we walked back to the parking lot, instead of returning on the same trail, we made a loop by going on the Hay Meadow trail because it goes by the river.
We saw several sheep on our drive today….
After this, we left Kananaskis and headed to Canmore. We checked in to our room around 4:00 and then went to the grocery store to get snacks & lunch stuff for the week. We grilled hot dogs & enjoyed the hot tub at the condo and then walked next door to the ice cream shop for dessert! We went to bed early because we had an early morning coming up the next day!
Thursday, June 25
Our alarms were set for 2:30 this morning! This is 3:30 central time, but still incredibly early! We had a shuttle van picking us up at 3:00 to take us to sunrise at Moraine Lake. It was a perfect morning 😊 No rain, no clouds, and not too cold. We arrived around 5 am and were there for a couple of hours. We watched the sunrise from the rockpile.
When we left Moraine Lake, our van took us to Lake Louise! We were at Lake Louise from about 7:30-1:30. We took some pictures by the lakeshore and then did the hike to the Lake Agnes Tea House!
The food at the tea house was great! We got a table and sat down for a while and enjoyed the scenery. The tea house has been serving tea since 1905!
After we hiked back down to the lakeshore, we took some more pictures.
The hike to the tea house is no joke! I knew it was a continuous incline but didn’t realize how intense it was. We stopped a few times on the way up to catch our breath and let our legs rest.
We did part of the Little Beehive trail, far enough to get a pretty good view of Lake Louise and the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise:
The shuttle van took us back to where we were staying. We got back around 3:00 pm and took naps and then went to The Iron Goat in Canmore for supper. It was a fabulous meal!
After dinner, we drove to the Three Sisters Viewpoint:
Our tour today was with ViaVia Moraine. I highly recommend this company if you want an easy way to see these lakes. Personal vehicles are not allowed at Moraine Lake, so you have to either go thru a company like we did or use public transportation. This wasn’t the cheapest option but we thought it was definitely worth it!
Friday, June 26
Another big day! We left around 8 am to drive the Icefields Parkway (towards Jasper). I highly recommend downloading the Guide Along app because it will tell you about the area and also help you know where the most popular stops are (not that I didn’t already have all of our stops planned lol) We purchased the audio tour for the Icefields Parkway but I wish I would have gotten the one for the Canadian Rockies because it would have covered the whole area (I didn’t want to buy it after I had already purchased the first one).
Our first stop was at Bow Lake:
Then we stopped at Peyto lake and walked up to it. It was a steep but short walk. This lake is shaped like a wolf’s head and is a gorgeous blue!
We had planned to see Mistaya Canyon on the way by, but it was raining when we came by, so we decided to skip it & hope it was cleared up on the way back. (It ended up being late in the day when we came back by & we were too tired to stop.)
So, our next stop was at the Saskatchewan River Crossing. This was a neat stop and they had some great popcorn lol
Then we passed the Weeping Wall and drove thru the Big Bend.
We drove just past the Columbia Icefield to see Tangle Creek Falls. It is right by the road. You can park & walk across the road to it.
Then we came back to the Columbia Icefield and ate our lunch in the car. We had booked a guided walking tour at 2:00 on the Athabasca Glacier. We were SO glad we did this! It was so unique and unlike anything we have walked on before. The ice crunched under our feet. It was a tiring adventure (since we had just done the tea house hike the day before). There was some uphill climbing involved, but we made it. It lasted 3 hours total. The company we used is called IceWalks. They provide anything you might need. We used some of their waterproof jackets & pants, boots, gloves and crampons (spiked traction devices that go over your shoes). It wasn’t that it was that cold out on the glacier but it was incredibly windy, which made it colder!
cracks in glaciers are called crevasses. They can be 100-150 feet deep. If you walk out onto this glacier, you are supposed to have a guide with you because these can be hidden under what seems to just be snow. There were times when our guide asked us to walk single file behind her to make sure we stayed in the right areas.
We got some snacks/drinks at the Starbucks and some chicken fingers & fries at the restaurant inside the Discovery Center to fuel us for the rest of the day. Our next two stops as we continued toward Jasper were Sunwampta Falls and Athabasca Falls. They were both beautiful and overwhelming! It was a little scary seeing this rushing water and thinking about how powerful water is!
Both of these waterfalls are a short walk from the parking lot. After seeing both of these amazing waterfalls, we headed back to Canmore. We got back around 10:30 and were ready for some good sleep!
Side note: Tangle Creek Falls, Sunwampta Falls and Athabasca Falls are all in Jasper National Park. The Columbia Icefield is on the border of Alberta and British Columbia. It is mostly within the southern end of Jasper National Park and the northern tip of Banff National Park.
You could do The Icefields Parkway at a slower pace than we did – you could spend the day driving to Jasper, spend the night there, and drive back the next day, but we decided to do it all in one day so we could just have one accommodation for the whole week.
Saturday, June 27
Today, we slept in and walked next door to The Bro’Kin Yolk for breakfast. It was a wonderful breakfast!
We then headed to Kootenay National Park. We had planned to do the Stanley Glacier Trail hike, but after doing two long hikes the last two days, we decided to skip it. So our first stop here was Marble Canyon. It was a pretty hike (fairly easy) that slowly ascended thru a huge canyon. We had several views of the creek below.
Next, we went to see Numa Falls. It’s a very short walk from the parking lot and is simply beautiful.
We had planned to see Olive Lake as well, but it was a little farther away than I had thought, so we decided to skip it and go ahead and head to the town of Banff. We saw Surprise Corner and the Bow River.
We walked around downtown for a while and did some shopping for souvenirs and then had dinner at The Eddie Burger + Bar. It was a great place to get a burger! We stopped at Beavertails for dessert. We tried the one with Nutella and bananas. It was good!
Leaving Banff town, we drove Vermillion Lakes Road (it is a dead-end; there is a cul-de-sac at the end where you can turn around). The lakes were pretty and I’m sure they would be gorgeous at sunset!
After this, we drove to Johnston Canyon. You get on the Bow Valley Parkway to get to it, which is a likely place to see wildlife. Right when we turned onto the parkway, we saw a bear right beside the road!
At Johnston Canyon, we hiked to the lower and upper falls. It was a beautiful hike! It’s so cool to walk thru the huge canyon! It is recommended to go very early in the morning or after 6:00 pm (which is what we did) because it gets very crowded in the summer months! This was our 3rd day in a row to have a hike that has some uphill climbs. This was the easiest of the 3. We didn’t feel like it took too long to get to the upper falls.
Sunday, June 28
Sunday morning was interesting. We had decided that we would head out at 7:30 am to go see Takakkaw Falls in Yoho National Park. I pulled up the map as we were eating breakfast and instead of showing 1 hour & 15 minutes, it showed 5 hours and 42 min 😳 There had been an accident (a really bad one😔 ), and the westbound lanes of Highway 1 were completely closed.
Everything else that we had planned for the rest of our trip was to the west. So we decided to head east towards Kananaskis to pass some time (this is where we had spent our first full day).
We got to see some ponds that we would not have seen otherwise, and honestly, they were beautiful. It was still early in the morning and the waters were absolutely still. It was such a peaceful area.
We left Kananaskis and headed back towards Canmore. We stopped at a coffee shop on the way (one of many coffee stops on this trip)
We walked around in downtown Canmore and went in several shops.
We decided to go ahead and try to make it to Yoho today. We got to our first stop around 4:00. It took us a little over 3 hours to get there (much longer than 1 hour & 15 min), but it was so worth it!! Takakkaw Falls amazed me. The water came over the top SO powerfully it was unreal. It sounded like a jet when you got close to it.
Then we made it to our next stop in Yoho – Emerald Lake. Even in the rain, it was still beautiful!
You pass Natural Bridge on the way to Emerald Lake, but it’s on the left side of the road, so we stopped at it on our way out. A picture doesn’t do it justice, so I posted a video as well. I am still just overwhelmed at how much water moves through these areas!
I read this verse right after our trip and it made me think of these amazing bodies of water.
“And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.” Isaiah 6:3
The God who created our world is more powerful than we can imagine 🤍
We had planned to have dinner at a restaurant in Canmore that night, but since we were getting back much later than originally planned, we stopped on the way back. We went to Lake Louise Village Grill & Bar in the Lake Louise area. We were pleasantly surprised! Everyone enjoyed their meal. There is also a candy store, a market, and some other things here as well.
Monday, June 29
On Monday, we were in Banff National Park all day (we’d been in & out of it all week). We left the room around 9:30, and the first place we went was to Johnson Lake. There is a loop that you can drive that takes you to Johnson Lake and then to Two Jack Lake and Lake Minnewanka. When we got to Johnson Lake, we walked all the way around it. It’s 1.8 miles and is a flat, easy path. We were so glad we did this walk. It was so peaceful! There were very few people on the trail with us. We stopped several times, so it took us about an hour & 15 minutes to go all the way around.
Our next stop was Two Jack Lake:
Then we went to Lake Minnewanka, where we had an activity planned. The guys went on a guided fishing trip, and the girls did a boat cruise. Unfortunately, the guys didn’t catch anything 😔 I was so disappointed for them, but they said they still had a lot of fun! Their guide did catch one and let Griffin reel it in. Oh well. I guess that’s why they call it fishing & not catching …
Our boat cruise was 1 hour and the guys’ fishing trip was 3 hours, so while they were finishing their fishing trip, we did part of the Stewart Canyon trail. In about an hour, we went to the bridge and back. We stopped to make some pics along the way.
We were hungry when we left the lake, so we headed to our supper stop – Bear Street Tavern in Banff. We loved the pizza and the pulled pork mac & cheese!
We did a little more shopping in downtown Banff and made one last coffee stop…
And then one last stop at the ice cream shop…
Tuesday, June 30
We loved The Brokin Yolk so much on Saturday that we decided to go back for breakfast this morning, but when we got there, they told us that their power was out (along with most of downtown Canmore). So we finished packing up & headed towards the airport. We found another Brokin Yolk in Calgary on the way to the airport, so we stopped there. Then it was time to fly home. Even though it was 6 pm when we landed, we knew we were back in the south when the humidity hit us! We enjoyed the 60 degree days in Canada 🇨🇦 😊
A few notes ~
Banff NP is in Alberta. Yoho NP and Kootenay NP are in British Columbia.
We saw mountains everywhere!! And I have a ton of pictures of them lol Here’s a few pics I took on the Icefields parkway:
I highly recommend staying in Canmore. It’s only 10-15 minutes from Banff. We felt like Banff was pretty congested when we were there, and this was at the beginning of their busy season (their busiest summer months are July & August). Staying in Canmore is also less expensive than staying in Banff. We stayed close to the Shops of Canmore and loved being able to walk to the ice cream shop and to breakfast. We were also pretty close to a grocery store.
It gets dark much later there than what we’re used to. It would still be daylight after 10 pm, so you really have the whole day to enjoy!
We made reservations for most of the breakfast and supper stops, just to help us not waste time waiting.
One thing we didn’t do was any of the gondolas. I believe there are 3 in the area. Also, we had planned to do the Grassi Lakes hike in Canmore Wednesday night after dinner, but unfortunately it was closed while we were there.
Per the Parks Canada website: The Canada Strong Pass is back! From June 19 to September 7, 2026 inclusive, Parks Canada is offering free admission.
So we had free admission to the parks. I believe they did this last year as well? But for future years, you might need a pass for the national parks in the summer months.
Something I have learned over the last few years is that it is a lot cheaper to fly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays than close to or on the weekends. We booked our flights the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year and the flight going up there was just $139! The flight back was $379. We flew Delta, so we had to pay for checked bags but I still didn’t think that was too bad. I’ve also noticed that it seems to be cheaper if you book two one-way flights instead of a roundtrip flight.
When planning a trip, I like to get a map of the area so I can get a general idea of where things are. I still go to Maps on my phone a lot and look for things, but I think it helps to see the whole area at one time.
If you need a good packing list for a trip, I have one that I’ve created and have used it for a couple of years now:
Following Jesus, exploring His Creation 