How to plan one week in the Canadian Rockies

[NCWriter]

Never been, plan to go via Spokane toward Banff in mid-June 2017.

How would you divide your time betwee Banff, Jasper, and other suggested places?

After that week, would be heading down to Glacier NP , probably via Calgary.

[NCWriter]

Wow, great tips and pics, DirtyOil! Many thanks.

[DirtyOil]

kknowlton wrote:
It's my understanding that one can book national park CGs starting in January, is that correct?

That is correct, start here https://reservation.pc.gc.ca/ChooseLanguage.aspx reservations for summer 2017 start Jan 1, 2017. Get in fast as CG fill up fast. For those that would rather hit Jasper via Columbia Icefields, I suggest going north through Calgary, AB to Red Deer, AB (Hwy 2) then west on Hwy 11 through Rocky Mountain House to Saskatchewan Crossing then north to the icefields and Jasper, the most scenic route of them all. Takes you by Lake Abraham (man made part of the Ram river Dam).





When in Jasper head up to Mt Edith Cavell, new road and will take you up to the site with parking. Beautiful views, easy access ( I know this as we took Mom in-law up there bad knees, quad bypass...its all about taking your time and enjoying the scenery, yeah I know mother in-law almost as bad as driving a Ford! ;)).

The Athabasca falls, easy walk from parking lot. Sunwapta falls and canyon also nice. Pyramid and Patricia lakes nice drive great views. Also Moraine lake-take a cruise on the lake.

[obgraham]

We've gone there many times over the years, with and without RV's, most recently for a week last month. Here's my two cents:

Jasper is our favorite, as Banff is just too crowded and commercial now. There are plenty of scenic drives/hikes out of Jasper. Some great restauants in Jasper, too.
Lake Louise is wonderful. For a couple of hours, as it is jammed with day-tourists in buses.
Provincial CG's were usually better than the Federal ones. Mt Robson is very nice. Wapiti at Jasper has a great location, but it's so heavily used that it's in pretty sad shape now, and they charge extra for about everything.

Lake Louise CG on the other hand was really nice, especially if they put you on the "tent" side.

Canmore has some nice CG's just east of Banff -- Bow River CG in particular.

Most all those CG's can be booked online, and they also hold some spots for drive-ups.

[NCWriter]

More good advice!

To answser those who were asking, we are two seniors (no kids along) and enjoy going to ranger talks, visitor centers and museums to learn about an area, and have had fun at factory tours (such as the Cabot Cheese factory in Vermont). Eat lunch out about once a week during our long road trips, so we seek out fun places but mostly cook in the RV

Great scenery appeals so we plan our itineraries around national and state parks, forests, etc. and do some hiking. Our knees and other joints aren't what they used to be, so we like the easier trails. Whenever possible, we stay inside the parks, so are willing to dry camp sometimes.

No desire to shop and accumulate stuff all over again. We browse a little if we want to get a tee shirt or small gift typical of the area to take home to family or neighbors.

Someone else who is going next year asked about whether summer campsite booking window opens in January 2017 and yes, that is what the Parks Canada web site says.

[Powder_pig]

You have already received lots of good advice. Your rig is small enough that you can fit into the unserviced campgrounds so I would plan at least a night or two along the Icefields parkway in places like Waterfowl lakes campground or Wilcox creek campground. Lovely places with lots of short walks and or hikes to do. The one issue is weather as it cam be pretty miserable in the unserviced campgrounds if it is cloudy with rain or snow (possible in any month). Leave some flexibility in your plans if possible.

[StirCrazy]

what kind of tourist are you, I grew up going to both jasper and Banff. they are both tourist areas but jasper is a little more low keyed, having said that both are great. what you have to decide is how long do you want to spend in the town and how long out of the town. you can spend two days walking around looking at all the little shops downtown Banff and doing the gondola and sulphur mountain hot springs, Jasper I find there is less tourist things to do but it is a nice little town and you can spend a day downtown and a day around town. ice field parkway is nice, what I did with the kids is we camped in Banff for 4 days and spent a day doing the sights on the lower half of the parkway, then we drove up to jasper and send a day on the upper half of the parkway and 2 days in the jasper area.

if you want you can also spend a day driving up to Lake Louise (very nice lake) and there are lots of lakes and hiking in the area which all add time.

[MudChucker]

Id love to redo the last trip. You will have a great time!

[GaryKH]

When staying around Jasper, you just have to go to Miette Hot Springs and the surrounding area!

Miette HS

[NCWriter]

This is all great information, great resources! Glad to have everybody's 2 cents.

[Pipeman]

We were at Waterton in late June and early July. We stayed at the Waterton Springs Campground, a couple of miles north of the park gate. Made reservations there on the 1st of May. It can get very, very windy there(in the park also), so you probably don't want to put your awning down. Take the boat ride that brings you into Montana. You can also go up to Red Rock Canyon or to Cameron Lake, which in my opinion is better than Lake Louise. Cameron Lake wasn't open due to road construction and tree removal at the lake. Also took a ride to the icefields when we were boondocking west of Nordegg(population, at the time, 60). It's very busy there. The icefield has receded quite a bit since I was a kid. It was just off the highway then and now you get on a bus to get up to it. We don't like Banff because of the crowds but Jasper is ok. My 3 cents. Have fun.

[Army11Bravo]

We are planning a similar trip next summer and expect to make our reservations in January. The earlier, the better!

Our trip will start north of Glacier National Park in Wateron. I have heard Townsite Campground is nice with full hookups right along Waterton Lake. After Waterton, we'll spend a couple days in Banff at Tunnel Mountain Village before driving up north to Jasper. On the way back south, we'll stay a night or two in Lake Louise before heading home to Montana. We still have more research to do before we decide where to stay in Jasper. I believe we are going to stay for at least 2 days at every campground in order to hike a little in each area.

We weren't going to go as far north as Jasper, but after reading about it, it seems like a spectacular place to hike and enjoy nature away from most tourists. I found a great blog written by a local husband & wife that give lots of insights to the Canadian Rocky Mountains called Banff and Beyond. Their articles are quite good and worth the read.

Clicky--> Banff and Beyond

When you head south to Glacier Park, I suggest staying at the St. Mary Campground inside the park. It's a great base to view the whole east side of Glacier National Park. Be sure to drive to Many Glacier and Two Medicine from St. Mary. There are plenty of hiking opportunities for even the most novice of hikers and your reward will be beautiful waterfalls, lakes and wildflowers. Enjoy your trip!

[kknowlton]

It's my understanding that one can book national park CGs starting in January, is that correct?

[BobsYourUncle]

If you book into Banff, look into staying at the Tunnel Mountain trailer court.

I go there regularly as a nice little getaway from Calgary. It's a short drive from the downtown Banff area and a really nice quiet spot to camp. They have rows 100 through 800 in 3 sections A B and C. Try to get a spot in the highest section, 800. Its right beside the forest and a power line runs through that can be used as a walkway. We go for walks there and in the power line area, the view of the stars is reallly nice.
Full hookups there too.
One nice thing is that you are not crammed in like sardines, side by side with your neighbor. All the sites are end to end on both sides of the access roads. It's really good. They have pics on the booking site.

As mentioned, book early!!

[Crowe]

I like Jasper better than Banff. Both are beautiful, both have abundant wildlife and both have lots of activities. Jasper is a little more "wild", less built up and less crowded. Then there's the Icefields Parkway. You can take a long day and explore a lot of it when traveling between the parks or you can camp along the highway and not rush. How much time you spend in each park depends on what you want to do, but three to four days in each gives you fairly adequate time to take it all in. You can take a side-trip to Kootenay & Yoho NPs and see some gorgeous scenery. Calgary is a very nice city on the verge of a rebirth. We only had half a day and wished we had taken a day or two to explore. Again, it all depends on what your likes and dislikes are.

[MudChucker]

We spent the most of July in the Rockies, we had no place to be on any given day and we just drove.

The only place we booked was at Canyon RV on Sinclair rd in Radium.

We were able to get a spot for the night on Canada day (July 1) in Banff, and had no problems finding places to camp at for the 25 ish nights we were on the road.

We did so much I dont know where to begin !

Enjoy your trip, we started planning our July trip in December, I think you're on the right track.

what sort of things do you like to do ? perhaps I can make some suggestions.

here is the main route we took, we had many spurs here and there but for the most part this is the main route.

Google Map


Some photos to get you excited