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Find renewal in this fabled getaway of the Canadian Rockies
Day Trips
For the last few days, it was just the two of us in Canmore, and one sparkling morning we took a day trip to the ridiculously spectacular blue-green Moraine Lake. There we determined that even if Lake Louise has the brand name, Moraine Lake, a striking jewel nestled in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, is more dramatic.
The 1,000 miles of hiking trails in Banff National Park can provide everything from family jaunts around well-trodden lake shores, where flip-flops are not out of place, to strenuous multiday treks requiring some climbing skills and stays in remote huts. We wanted something in-between, a moderate half-day excursion. To our disappointment, at the trailhead of a 2-mile path from Moraine Lake to the rock-strewn shore of Consolation Lake, we found a government sign indicating hikes are restricted to groups of four or more. (Apparently grizzlies rarely attack large groups.) Luckily, a family from Belgium happened by. We all hiked together to the lake for a picnic – chatting loudly to scatter any bears.
Another morning our car zoomed north out of Canmore and we rode along the Icefields Parkway past glacier after glacier until we reached the legendary Columbia Icefield (877/423-7433, www.columbiaicefield.com). About 128 miles from Canmore, across the boundary between Banff and Jasper national parks, the Icefield Centre is a hub for glacier exploration. The classic glacier experience is a 1.5-hour guided tour in one of the famous “snow coach” buses with $5,000 balloon tires; passengers are dropped onto a safe haven on the ever-shifting, 3,200-foot-wide glacier, which we learned to our dismay is shrinking 30 feet each year. Visitors have about 20 minutes to explore on their own in carefully marked areas. We gingerly traipsed about on the ice, stepping by vast fissures and torrents of chilly meltwater. The guided tours cost $38 a person and depart every 15 to 30 minutes from the visitor center; given their popularity, arriving sometime before noon is highly advisable.
Another dazzling day trip is to tour the extraordinary Johnston Canyon (www.banff.com/hiking/johnston_canyon.shtml), a cascading chain of waterfalls about 30 miles from Canmore. Visitors climb up a suspended walkway alongside a mountain where they can enjoy fantastic views. At the trailhead snack bar we wolfed down generous $9 Canadian-bacon BLTs on kaiser rolls, which really hit the spot.
So much of the Canadian Rockies resembled a postcard fantasy of a mountain vacationland: The best part is that the fantasy kept turning out to be real. In the end, we admitted something: We had each worried that an anniversary trip so close to home would be too dull. That turned out to be unjustified condescension. We were stunned to realize how remarkable Banff is. For a place that threatened familiarity, it was nothing short of otherworldly, and we barely sampled its glories.
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