This blog post series is a direct transcript of the notes I took while visiting Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. I left with my sister and a friend of ours on the 18th of May and returned on the 26th. I hope it inspires you to travel to the Rocky Mountains and have an adventure of your own. We will certainly be returning.
Wednesday, May 21st
Today was a real adventure! We started at 9:00am with a trip to the Cave and Basin Natural Historic Site, located on lower Sulfur Mountain. Our national parks pass included a free tour and nature walk with our annual pass. Nico, our guide, was lovely. The sulfur smell was especially strong by the manmade tunnels that redirected water from the springs and caverns uphill. We were surprised to learn that the most biodiverse area of Banff was only created because three prospectors (William McCardell, Tom McCardell, and Frank McCabe) had destroyed much of the original rock deposits around the caves to build a “hotel” in 1883.
The Banff Springs Snails and surrounding marshlands, with their yellow throated warblers, garter snakes, and red-winged blackbirds were a treat to behold. The indigenous art depicting elk hunts and healing springs were also fascinating. Navigating the tunnel to their sacred cave felt a bit like trespassing, but we were glad to experience it firsthand amidst the crowd of preschoolers craning their necks at the place.
At 4pm my sister and I left for Banff to rent mountain bikes at Banff Adventures Co. and went on a proper Hopkins Family Adventure. We first trundled up Tunnel Mountain’s steep inclines, and got confused navigating due to the road and trail signs seemingly disagreeing. We zig-zagged around camp sites, elk, and ground squirrels to view the Hoodoo trail from afar through binoculars. at 6:00pm we zipped down to Surprise Corner on what we believed was a downhill bike trail. It was not. When we reached the river 4km (~2.5mi) short, we had to walk our bikes up switchbacks and down three flights of stairs(!) since our trail trailed off into open water. This miscalculation was likely all our own, no maps or trail blazes or cairns to blame, in fact the trail was almost entirely unmarked until we reached Surprise Corner and Bow River Falls around 6:50pm. We got a good view of the full Upper Springs resort which we had visited the evening before. We zipped through town and returned the bikes at 7:10pm, with 20 minutes to spare before the rental place closed. Phew!
Side note, we would later learn Tunnel Mountain was once called Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain due to its distinctive shape, but was renamed when the Canadian government drafted a plan to blast a railway tunnel through it in 1880. The tunnel was never built, and a proposal by indigenous people to rename the mountain has been stuck in limbo since 2016.
I forgot to mention: we did manage to stop by the Banff Farmer’s Market which only opens Wednesdays 9am-6pm MDT. All the stores around here seem to close at 8pm local time. Being on the 51st parallel means the sun sets at 9:40pm MDT, so we have plenty of time to kill in the evenings watching Twilight movies and, in my case, writing code or blog posts like this one. “From now on, I’m Switzerland, okay?”