Me and Avneet, landed in Calgary around 11 am and picked up the car from airport. Avneet booked the car through Turo and our overall experience was fine. We also got Banff / Jasper national park pass for 40 from our Turo guy, which served us well.
We grabbed snacks, insect spray, bear spray and bunch of toiletries from the Walmart and were on our way to Banff. We covered Johnston Canyon , be sure to cover both the lower falls and upper falls. You can also find a free parking around it, else there's a 15$ day parking pass. It's a fairly easy hike 30 min to the lower falls and another 30 min -1 hour to the upper falls. We just covered the Lower falls.
Later, we checked in into in HI Banff Alpine Center and it was our first experience staying in a hostel and we absolutely loved it. We got the loft and we grabbed the bunk beds upstairs which felt more like our own private room :). We grabbed a quick dinner at our hostel restaurant and grabbed the bus to explore Banff town. It's a cute little town and you will get the view with the Sulphur mountain. We were happy just exploring the souvenir and candy shops, but there's a plenty to see around like BOW falls, Banff townsite, Whyte museum, Cascade of Time garden
MORAINE LAKE
I cannot stress enough the need to book the shuttles. I would say better to book private shuttles as the Parks Canada slots are very limited, and need to be up by 8am MT to be able to grab the tickets. I just managed to get the shuttle for like 35+ tax to moraine lake https://fairviewlimo.ca/ . There's also the open top bus https://wowbanff.com/
630 am to 945 am were our shuttle timings to Moraine lake. The best spot is to take the Rockpile trail for the pictures and then come back to walk around the lake. We were back and grabbed breakfast at Lake Louise Inn restaurant.
LAKE LOUISE
We wanted to try our luck with Lake Louise parking and drove there only to be disappointed as the parking was full and you cannot wait for your turn and we had to exit. We came back to Lake Louise Inn again and I managed to get the lake louise shuttle on the same day for 2pm slot and booked the return for 6pm. It was 25+ tax for lake louise shuttle.
That was enough time to explore the Lake louise, you have to reserve 1.5 hour for canoeing. It's 30 min wait time and 1 hour canoe. It was my first time on the canoe and I cannot describe it in words. I would say it's a MUST experience. You can also hike around the lake or can do the Lake Agnes tea house trail, do check the timings of the tea house as it closes around 430 pm. We had a relaxed lunch at Fairmont restaurant - go for the shrimp tacos and the salmon.
We were pretty tired and got bored of our playlist too, we just returned to our hostel. We also had a Tuesday Karaoke night at our hostel.
We had a nice Brunch and started our journey to Jasper.
BOW LAKE
PEYTO LAKE
ICE FIELDS SKY WALK
SUNWAPTA FALLS
ATHABASCA FALLS - can also do this on return.
MALIGN lake
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