Entering the Canadian Rockies

Recorded May 30th 2009

Onto Banff National Park on Thursday May 28, 2009. This was probably the most exciting day of our trip so far. As we leave the flat land and enter the forest, it all starts to come back to me. You know when you have memories that you did not know you remembered. As I am gazing up at the Canadian Rocky Mountains with all of their immense beauty, it was as if Mother Nature took this huge 250 mile long range and carved a big old trench right down the center just for the Trans-Canada Highway.
I begin to pick up bits and pieces of memories of that first camping experience in the summer of 1990. Brad was barely 13 years old and we flew to Calgary, rented a class ‘C’ motorhome. We spent about 2 weeks in this area we are about to pass through. I guess we must have liked the experience because twenty years and 3 RV’s later and here we are again.

We choose a National Park Campground in Lake Louise this time for no particular reason. But we decided to stay two nights to see as much as possible. Immediately upon setting up our home base, we backtracked about 30+ miles to Banff to have lunch see the resort town and visit the nearly 100 year old Banff Springs Hotel now owned by Fairmont. The original, built in 1886 burnt down in 1924. The story of how the hotels of that time were built along the railroad line to attract the wealthy easterners to summer in the wilderness and enjoy the beauty of this place has to be true when you see the magnificence of this and the others like the Chateau Lake Louise that are scattered along the rail lines. To walk through them is to loose yourself inside a great novel of the period.

Upon returning to our camp we notice that the campground, that was completely empty when we arrived, was nearly full. This was a shock. Then I began to notice what became so very apparent to Bill & I on that first adventure so many years before. Our campground was about 80% full of those class ‘C’ rental RV’s. There was El Monte RV, Cruise America, Canadream and others. Wow we felt like we started a trend! So…. the reason the park was empty in the morning was, just as we had learned, if you don’t have a tow vehicle, you have to break camp every morning to do anything at all. We met several of these folks and found that they were from Europe, Australia, and the US. Quit an interesting bunch.

On Friday we continued our hotel exploration in Lake Louise at The Chateau Lake Louise. Set right on the lake the view from the hotel is truly breathtaking.
This is postcard stuff! The architecture is magnificent and has been remodeled & updated since our visit nearly 20 years ago.

No time to waste we are off to our next adventure. The gondolas on the ski slopes are open in the summer in Lake Louise. It leaves from the Ten Peak Lodge and tops out near the interpretative center. We got some great pictures all the way up and plus we saw two grizzly bears on the way down.

I sit in our camp at night and listen to a train pass. I try to imagine what life was like for the turn of the century elite or the movers & shakers of the roaring twenties as they boarded the train to head west to vacation in the Rickie Mountains in 1900 or 1920. It makes me wish I were a writer imagining the changes these wonderful old buildings have been through.