Banff

The Parks Canada online reservation system is excellent and can be accessed here: Parks Canada

You can browse the different parks and see what kinds of sites are available. We had a full hookup site last year in Banff at Tunnel Mountain. IMHO Jasper NP is better, but both are beautiful.

Have a look at Two Jack Lake (dry only). Have camped there and Tunnel Mountain.

http://www.albertawow.com/campgrounds/Two_Jack_Lake/Two_Jack_Lake.htm

Two Jack is a ways out of town, very quiet. Sometimes requires 'hard sides'. Tunnel is a parking lot style, lots of elk wander through (or use to), but close to town if you want to shop/dine out etc..

Flashman, if you mean boondocking, there is none. But there are campgrounds without hookups along the Bow River, not far from Banff. Just be sure that you know where the train tracks run -- many campgrounds in the Canadian Rockies are RIGHT NEXT TO THE TRACKS, if you know what I mean.

Two-Jack is the best for non-serviced camping. Camped there many times over the past 10 years. Nice and quiet!

profdant139 wrote:
Flashman, if you mean boondocking, there is none. But there are campgrounds without hookups along the Bow River, not far from Banff. Just be sure that you know where the train tracks run -- many campgrounds in the Canadian Rockies are RIGHT NEXT TO THE TRACKS, if you know what I mean.

Wow - as big and empty as Canada is - there is no boon docking??

I guess that is why we (USA) are known as the land of the free!

Flashman wrote:

profdant139 wrote:
Flashman, if you mean boondocking, there is none. But there are campgrounds without hookups along the Bow River, not far from Banff. Just be sure that you know where the train tracks run -- many campgrounds in the Canadian Rockies are RIGHT NEXT TO THE TRACKS, if you know what I mean.

Wow - as big and empty as Canada is - there is no boon docking??

It is a very large place & most of that vastness one would only find boon docking, IMHO.

Alone the Alcan Hwy past Dawson, my son did several boon docking overnights by pulling off the Hwy on un-used sections of older Alcan Hwy.

But Banff has more population around & about as I remember it.

Give these a try:

camping-for-free-in-alberta

canadian rockies/banff/campg

tour-guide-canada/free-campsites

rv.net/2010/08/how-to-find-dispersed-campsites-in-national-forests/

Flashman wrote:

profdant139 wrote:
Flashman, if you mean boondocking, there is none. But there are campgrounds without hookups along the Bow River, not far from Banff. Just be sure that you know where the train tracks run -- many campgrounds in the Canadian Rockies are RIGHT NEXT TO THE TRACKS, if you know what I mean.

Wow - as big and empty as Canada is - there is no boon docking??

I guess that is why we (USA) are known as the land of the free!

There is a lot of BLM land in the western part of the states or so the boondockers have mentioned a lot on RV.Net. But if I were to go to the gates of Yellowstone( 8983Km2) and ask for Boondocking in the park, they would laugh me out of the place.

Banff, Jasper NP have around double the area of Yellowstone and for sure, their policy is dry camping in CG but no dispersed vehicle camping. Backpacking is a different animal.

But out of the parks, their are lots of opportunities for dispersed camping.

Take BC for example which is close to Banff and Jasper NP.

Total area of 948,000 Km2 or 100 times the size of Yellowstone.

94% of that land is Crown= public? There are roughly 400,000 kms of resource roads.

This is only one of the 10 provinces.

Drive up one of them, stay awhile and no one will bother you.

And our bears are very well behaved.

Dave

Waterfowl Lake was our top choice in Banff. No hoookups. Heavily wooded. Camp along a little river leading down to Waterfowl Lake. Kayak down the river to the Lake (5 - 10 minutes). Very scenic lake.
We were pleasantly surprised by the "tent" camping section of the Lake Louise campground. Thought it was going to be like Yellowstone or Yosemite with crowds, but it was OK.
Just north over the border into Jasper was a little jewel called Wilcox Creek. Hiking the nearby trails was amoung the most memorable of my life.
YOu can't loose in the Canadian Rockies. Say as long as you can.

Yes, I should have been more precise -- no boondocking in the parks, and none around Banff. Our trip to that area in September and October of 2012 was one of the highlights of my life -- and I am old and have done a lot of traveling. This whole area has given rise to the problem of "what are we going to do for an encore?" Even my beloved Sierra Nevada feels a little dry and tame, by comparison.

If you want more details, click on this link:

Canadian Rockies

And then see the next several posts in that same time frame.