Banff fall Camping
go out a couple weekends ago and went to Banff, easily one of my favorite places to go. its not rustic or roughing it, although I went to the older section with no hookups, but free bus ride into town from he campgrounds. the only issue is that over the years it has become so over crowded with tourists all the stuff to do in the area has gotten so expensive. I remember when it was 2 bucks to go to the hot springs, the wild ones were free, now its almost 20 bucks a person, and you can't go in the wild ones anymore.. the gondola to the top of the mountain used to be 7 bucks, now your lucky to get on it for 70.00
but it is a great place, and if you don't need to go into town (we have friends there we go to visit once or twice a year) then there are several campgrounds that are a short drive away north of lake Louise on the parkway to Jasper, which are my favorite sites, but they close earlier in the season.
the site was on a fair slope where you park, hence me pulling over the edge of the pad to lower the front a bit. and the tree prevented me from getting as close to the table/fire as I usually do so we can sit under the awning and enjoy the fire if it rains, which is did on the first day 🙄 then it dropped to -5C for the first night
one thing I love about the national parks, is you pay a fee to have a fire pit. so I think it was like an extra 8 or 9 bucks a day at the main campground, now I use to think this was a scam, but it comes with all the free firewood you can burn. in BC provincial parks I can easily burn 30.00 - 36.00 bucks of wood a day as they charge 10 to 12 bucks for a little bag
and the obligatory cooking on the fire pic
the second night it got down to -7C so it ended up being a good test of the new battery and its mounting location. we ran the furnace 24/7 as it was only 6 - 10C during the days didn't worry about lights, or anything and I used 30.4 ah from Friday afternoon to Sunday lunch time, so 10% of my capacity. the battery temperatures on all three probes stayed between 20.5C and 22C all weekend so the location above the furnace worked perfect. solar didn't help me as you can see in the pick how overcast it was all weekend so it was a perfect weekend to test it out.
I am trying to decide if I am going to get out again before it is just miserable, but I am in my rotating work schedule where I am working weekends for the next month now so I think this may have been the last trip for the season, we will see.
