Day 54- Banff

August 4

Hipcamp site

Not really Banff, more between there and Calgary.  Because Banff is so popular and the reservation sites for the Parks campgrounds open a year early everything was booked, not to mention a camper my size has limited sites in government campgrounds.  There are also surprisingly little privately owned campgrounds anywhere close.  I think the closest was about 2 hours away.  Or Calgary.  

When I'm staying tonight is about an hour from Banff.  Not sure if I explained what Hipcamp is, but it's very similar to AirBNB's.  Anyone with a little land can basically rent it out.  Usually it's farmers.  Some are rustic and some have full hook up's.  The majority I see usually have power and maybe available water, but no dump station.

Tonight's place is out in the middle of no where.  It's a working cattle and horse farm.  They simply leveled off a space, ran power, have septic and a well.  Pretty a nice place actually.  It's a 10 mile drive off the main road and we saw several deer on the way in and we had a bunch of horses walk up to the fence that is right outside our window.  We have two neighbors tonight with space for another two campers.  They have cleared off a walking/mountain biking path through the property with several geocaches to find. 

I'm thinking I should do a Hipcamp for the mill.  I have power where I keep my camper and can fill water from the hose.  I can move my camper to the side when rented out. Could be some good money during Fair time.

Anyways, we actually got moving pretty early this morning.  We were packed up and rolling by 9:30.  Our first stop was The Enchanted Forest.

Every time we go to a visitors center or check into a RV Park Summer always comes back with a collection of pamphlets.  I'll give her credit, she does read though them.  Last night she got her fill and showed me one for the forest and asked if we could go.  We had to back track about 20 miles, but why not?  It looked like a quick little activity and the price was reasonable.  

The name kinda says it all.  You are walking on a path in the forest and there are displays for almost all the popular nursery rhymes.  The original owners started back in the 1950's,  The wife made all the figurines by hand out of concrete.  I will admit, because they were hand made and not molds, some of them were a little wonky and most of the people ones could be creepy under the right lighting.  However, the current owners have keep good care of everything despite them being 70n years old.  They all had fresh, bright paint.  The husband cleared the path's using only a hand saw and shovels.  It started out as a hobby that exploded in popularity.  It is a pretty cool story.  They also have Canada's tallest tree house.  

It was a neat little side stop and I'm glad Summer found it.  They also had an adventure park.  The girls asked about it, you could do it all or just sections.  It's all in the trees, an obstacle course, zip lines and climbing walls.  Depending on what you want to do you could spend 15 minutes to 3 hours.  Plus they start in 30 minute blocks.  The girls didn't want to wait around for all that.

The road was really busy today.  With everyone displaced from Jasper and it being a holiday weekend the entire area was packed.  The entire drive today was bumper to bumper,  Luckily it flowed well with no accidents.  

I contemplated stopping at a few places.  The first was a walking suspension bridge.  However it was really hazy today.  I thought maybe it was smoke from the Jasper fires but it didn't smell like smoke out.  We ran into rain in Canmore so must have just been haze.  In any event I didn't want to spend $150 and not be able to see anything.  

The second was Takakkaw Falls.  I decided not to as there was a huge line of cars to leave.  I figured with it that busy I didn't want to deal with the trailer.  Glad I didn't because the road has many switch backs and trailers are not allowed.  Not sure why that is not on a sign somewhere before you turn in.  Or I just missed it.  With the road so busy I was trying to pay more attention to the people around me.  

We did stop at the Spiral Tunnels just to get out of the truck.  This is a train track that spirals back and forth going up and down the mountain.  It used to follow the same straight route of the road we drove on, but at 4.5% grade it took several engines to push the cars up and lots of derailments going down.

Before long we were in Canmore.  The rain started just as we got to town.  The girls wanted taco's for dinner but we needed lettuce.  So after spending $100 at the grocery store we were on our way to our campsite.

I'm not sure our itinerary while we are here.  I focused so much of my energy on Alaska by the time I was done with that I was wiped out for planning the rest of the trip.  I figured we would just wing it once we got here.  Banff is the kind of a catch all for the entire area.  There are several other national parks all connected.  From the far west, to the far east of the area is a roughly 3 hour drive.  

I think we will do the above things I mentioned above.  The suspension bridge has other activities, one of which is an alpine slide that Summer said she wanted to do.  I'm also thinking the Banff gondola and Lake Louise.