Our Trip to Banff (Part 6)- Banff

After leaving Yoho National Park we headed east down the highway toward Banff. We planned to spend the rest of the day there before heading to our hotel in Canmore for the evening.

One of the things I liked along this road were the wildlife crossings. I'd read about them before, but never seen one. They are bridges Banff Park has built across the busy highway to protect animals such a elk, deer, bears, wildcats. There are tall fences all along this stretch of highway and then several crossings that go under the highway or over the highway for the wildlife, like the one above.

By the time we got to Banff it was raining and it pretty much just kept raining for the rest of the day. The weather forecasts had predicted rain by the end of the week, so it really wasn't much of a surprise. We kept heading to all the places we planned to go to, but it was a bit challenging for photgraphy.

First place we headed was downtown Banff. Of everywhere we went in the Banff area, downtown Banff was the busiest. We got some lunch, checked in for some tourist ideas at the Visitor Centre and then hit the souvenir shops. John had been looking for a new hat all through the park and finally found a hat he was really happy with. Kind of an Indiana Jones thing- I like it, too!

One of the teachers I work with said she spent several summers working in downtown Banff and one of the most iconic sights in the park for her was standing on Main St. in Banff and looking down to see the majestic mountains at the end of the street. So I had to do that, too, so I can tell her I did.

The rain kept up relentlessly, but we headed on to our next attraction, down Main. St., across the Bow River and then over to Bow Falls. Chateau Banff was in this area, too, but we didn't get a chance to go in.

I was always disappointed trying to take photos in the rain, but sometimes I would look at the mountains in the rain or look at my photos later and it would give me pause. The mountains in all their moods were astonishing to look at. Rain and mist and clouds just made for different, formidable and gorgeous patterns around the mountain ranges. I remember thinking the same thing when we explored the Jasper Tramway in the rain. You can see Bow Falls above.

This is Surprise Corner on the opposite side of the Bow River. It's called that because the road comes down out of the city, turns sharply and then opens up onto this gorgeous vista with the mountains, the river and a marvelous view of Chateau Banff. So I was in a grumpy mood that the rain and overcast skies were ruining my iconic photos, so John turned the camera on the two of us and I had to see the humour in it all. Who cared about perfect photos when we were in Banff! And in the mountains! Getting rained on in Banff in the mountains! So, yeah :).

Last attraction we went to see in B|anff were the Hoodoos. Hoodoos are tall, thin spires of sentimentary rock protected by harder rock on top. We could kind of see them through the rain, but they were cool to look at.

After that, we decided to get out of the rain by striking forward to Canmore to find our hotel. Canmore took us out of the Banff Parks, though we would return there once more the next day before heading on to Calgary.

Our night in Canmore was low-key. It was still raining, so we bypassed the river and the trails and the pedestrian bridge made from an old railway bridge and wandered around downtown, instead. We checked out second-hand bookstores, electronic shops and then had excellent sandwiches and coffee in a small out-of-the-way restaurant.

I liked these sign-posts  in front of the Canmore Museum pointing out the nearby mountains.

Back in our hotel we puzzled over where to spend our last day in the area and after considering the Canmore area and the Kananaskis area just south of where we were, we decided we would go back into Banff National Park to pick up a few of the sights that we had missed today. And I'm glad we chose to do that.

We'll finish up this report next time.

You can see the rest of my photos of Banff and Canmore here: Banff