Canmore, Alberta!

We woke up to a gorgeus view from our condo! When we came in last night, we could not see the view, so we were nicely surprised by this gorgeous back drop! This was taken from our balcony from our 3rd floor condo.

When I took the picture, I did not know about the 3 sister mountains in Canmore, until my sister Margaret asked us if we saw them. And when we found them, we realized that we could see them right from our condo. In this pic, you can see the 2 on the left and the 3rd one I cut off. Apparently originally in the 1800’s someone called them the 3 nuns, but then a few years later somone else called them the 3 sisters, and that name stuck, and when you see these 3 peaks you know you are in Canmore. Today they also call them big sister, middle sister and little sister.

Here is a better pic of the 3 peaks while we were driving around. When in Canmore, the 3 sisters kind of follow you around!

Our plan was to rent e-bikes and cycle to Banff, but my ribs (from my fall in Vancouver) were pretty sore last night and this morning, that we decided to drive to Banff instead. Also there is a chance of rain so all good. When we drove, I saw the bike path (nice paved path) all along the highway. We would have been cycling mostly beside the busy highway, but seeing the mountains from a bike would have been kind of cool! Next time!

I was surprised how many deer and elk are roaming the roads and streets in Banff

First stop in Banff was the Sulpher Mountain gondola. We were able to park but it was getting busy, with quite a few tour buses. We didn’t purchase tickets until we arrived, since we were only going to go up if the weather was cooperating. Wow the weather cooperated as it was so perfectly clear when we got to the top of the mountain. If you are going in the summer when crazy busy, you will probably want to pre-purchase your tickets and I believe you may have to park and shuttle to the gondola. Our condo came with a National Park pass which was great, and paid parking here didn’t go into affect until this coming weekend. There are advantages to travelling pre-busy season. We hate travelling when there are huge crowds, so this was perfect, and we really lucked out with the weather.

Bart was a bit nervous going up the gondola……but he did it and said it was 100% worth the views!! The gondola goes up pretty straight and high! If you don’t like heights, just suck it up and do it! lol. You will not be disappointed.

Wow wow wow!!

We did the hike down the board walk and all the way up to the top! There was no wind and the views were spectacular. We could then see snow coming in the distance.

We went to the restaurant and had lunch with a fabulous view!

Hank likes getting into pictures!! lol.

When we got back out, it was super windy and snowy and so cold. I felt bad for the people just arriving on the mountain, as they missed what we saw earlier. Hopefully, the snow and wind pass and the views come back for them.

The weather changed – so glad we went up when we did!

We met 2 couples in front of us while waiting to go down that were from Netherlands. They were here for a visit to the West, and next week they were going to board a cruise in Vancouver to Alaska. It was nice chatting while waiting to go back down the mountain.

We drove to the golf course behind the Fairmont, where we saw quite a few Elk roaming around on the greens. Kind of cool!!

We went into the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. Such a great back drop this hotel has. The inside is beautiful. It was built in 1888.

We checked out Bow Lake Falls, a nice park where you can sit and enjoy the views and sounds of the water. There is a trail there. We didn’t have time to do the trail but something to save for next time!