pianotuna wrote:
HiTenOC,
It would not be unusual to have snow on the ground towards the end of the trip.
There is not much in the way of boondocking in the National Parks in Canada. There is an overflow camping site for Lake Louise.
If you are approaching bamff from the East there is a Casino on the south side of the road before the Park that allows overnight parking for free.
Large vehicles are no longer permitted to go up the mountain to access Lake Louise but there is a bus that comes to the campground.
They sometimes have "high tea" at the Lodge (hotel).
There are some walking trails at Lake Louise.
Overnight parking is permitted at the Columbia Ice Fields parking lot. They do have tourist bus/tracked vehicles for travelling out to the fast receding ice fields.
Take along a bathing suit and visit one of the hot springs. My favourite is https://hotsprings.ca/miette/
It is east of Jasper on the way to Edmonton and there is a campground nearby.
What is your routing?
There is boondocking and free dump site at Cranbrook but that may not be on your path.
I love the pool at Radium Hot springs.
Your routing and ideas are all over the map.
1, first there is no “boondocking in any Canadian National Park period. There is over flow camping and places that you can “camp / park “ over night in the NP’s however they are regulated areas that you can stay at, you just can’t park anyplace you like for the night.
2 that Casino your talking about is about 30 miles from the Banff Park entrance, it is east if Deadman’s Flats, which is east on Canmore…
3. Cranbrook is 3.5 hours south southwest of Banff, there are a lot of places that you can dump your tanks without driving to Cranbrook. As well there are a lot and I mean a lot of campgrounds and our places to camp between Banff and Cranbrook, however because you can’t camp anywhere in a Canadian National Park unless it is a campground ot a permitted area, you won’t find any places to camp legally until south if Radium Hot Springs .
4 you have a campsite at Lake Louise… did anyone tell you that the campsite is only a few hundred yards for the CPR mainline tracks? The trains run past that campground 24/7/365..that means train running near your campsite all night long.
I do hope you have a wonderful time in thebCanadisn Rockies, they are fabulous
Soup.
