I'm beginning to plan a first-time trip to the area for next June or July. We're in our late 60's, in good health, enjoy hiking and great scenery, and great food. Have been looking forward to this trip for a long time and would enjoy fine accommodations. We usually don't like B&B's, but do love wonderful inns. Love "upscale rustic." Most important is that the accommodations be quiet, relaxing. Would be grateful for suggestions about where to stay, since in our travels we really have found that part of the pleasure for us is in having splendid accommodations. Much less interested in "fancy," by the way, than in "wonderful," if you know what I mean. Thanks very much!

The Fairmont properties, particularly the Jasper Park Hotel, and the Post Hotel would get my votes. Some of the most expensive are the least luxurious, the cost is in the remote nature of the experience not the luxury of appointments.
Lake O'Hara Lodge is my absolute favorite place in the area. It is rustic, fabulous hiking right out the door, and excellent food. Not luxurious, but clean and absolutely wonderful.

I second cmcfong's suggestions re Jasper Park Lodge, Lake O'Hara Lodge in Yoho National Park and the Post Hotel at Lake Louise.

If you want to stay at Lake O'Hara Lodge, you should settle on your itinerary ASAP and then make reservations right away. As some posters around here joke, you have to inherit a reservation. While that's not true, it <b>is</b> true that you need to book a year in advance, or close to it.

The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge would meet your desire for &quot;upscale rustic&quot; in the sense that the accommodations take the form of cabins that are dotted around pleasant grounds.

Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, while they have fantastic views, are large, imposing buildings. I would not describe them as being rustic in any way, shape or form.

I suggest you split your trip amongst three locations:

(1) Jasper (staying at the Jasper Park Lodge)

(2) Yoho National Park (staying at Lake O'Hara Lodge)

(3) Lake Louise or Banff. They are 50 minutes apart. You can use one as a base for seeing the other. If you like a quiet, relaxing place, I recommend Lake Louise over Banff. The Post Hotel is exactly the sort of place you've described. Stay on the preferred side, which faces the river, rather than on the side that faces the parking lot.

If you must stay in Banff, which I do not recommend, the property that I believe would give you what you want is Buffalo Mountain Lodge. It's on the outskirts of Banff townsite. If you stay there, stay in one of the suites that have the claw-footed baths. They face the back of the property and are quieter.

Ordinarily I would include Emerald Lake Lodge on a list of upscale rustic properties in the Canadian Rockies. However, since it's in Yoho National Park, I feel it's too close to Lake O'Hara Lodge, and hence won't give you as great a cross section of scenery as you would get if you moved around a bit more.

The hiking at Lake O'Hara is wonderful. However, you cannot use Lake O'Hara as a base for seeing the rest of the area. The reason is that you cannot drive your car to Lake O'Hara. You have to park in a parking lot off the TransCanada Highway (Hwy #1), and catch the shuttle bus to the lodge.

Since you apparently have the choice of visiting the area in June or July, I recommend the second half of June. There are many more visitors to the area in July and August.

If you go too early in June, the lakes may not yet be thawed and you may not get to see them at their turquoise best. That danger seems to be receding with global warming. In recent years the lakes seem to have been thawing towards the end of May.

Still, even in recent years, I've seen my favourite lake, Moraine Lake, during the first week of June, and it has been <b>nothing</b> like as beautiful then as it has been just a week or two later.

My theory is that the second half of June is the ideal window. The lakes are at their best, but you miss the July / August crowds.

For anyone else reading this post, I would add the observation that September has the same advantages as the second half of June.

And for anyone who reads this who is forced to visit the mountains in July and August, all is not lost. There are many previous messages here at Fodor's that include strategies for slipping away from the crowds. You can still have a good visit to the Canadian Rockies in July and August.

Hope that helps.

I'd have to vote for Emerald Lake Lodge.

I have stayed at Emerald Lake Lodge and while it has nice accomodations it had two major drawbacks. One, the hiking choices there are either flat as a board or rather challenging. Given the age of the OP, I think Lake O'Hara would offer a far greater range of choices. As Judy notes they are only about twelve miles apart and one would not want to stay at both. The other drawback to Emerald Lake was the large number of day visitors. I found the grounds almost crowded during my stay. Apparently a lot of bus companies stop there for the meals and gift shop. If I were chosing between Lake O'Hara and Emerald Lake it would be Lake O'Hara hands down. However, Emerald Lake would be an excellent second choice if Lake O'Hara is full.

ACtually there is a hike that takes you from the end of Emerald Lake over the mountain to Takakkaw Falls. The nice thing about Emerald Lake is that vehicular traffic is not allowed on the lodge property.

Wow! What an exraordinary response. I appreciate it so very much. Now I have another question: I'd like to be able to print a couple of the pages, but when I tried, all that printed was the side-bar, i.e. the 1-50 list of Canada queries. Can someone clue me in on how to print the actual responses to these queries? I'm not very web-savvy. Thanks!!

Press the left side of the mouse and drag the mouse across the text you want to save, right click on copy, open a word document and right click paste.

Still trying to find a way to print. Our mouse doesn't have &quot;sides&quot; (?)

About Post Hotel: I've been reading on Trip Advisor, etc. and understand that it'd be awful (for us anyway) to have a room on the &quot;train&quot; side-- wouldn't sleep a wink. But I'm concerned even abt the river side. I.e. whereas some folks love the sound of the ocean, we can never get a room where we can hear it because lovely as the sound is, it keeps us awake. We're hyper noise-sensitive, I suppose (live way out in the boonies here in Maryland) and really love no sound at night (earplugs don't work very well). In short, I'm wondering about that &quot;rushing river&quot; at Post Hotel. Does anyone know if there are rooms there where one will not hear the river or train noise? (We need a king bed.) I'm surpirsed, by the way, at the quite steep rates at Post Hotel. At least from the photos on their web site, the rooms don't look all that special-- kind of like motel rooms from the looks of the furniture. The setting at the &quot;chateau&quot; certainly looks spectacular, but I think we'd be happier at a smaller place, esp as the rooms at the chateau don't get raves.
Thanks everyone!

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;Still trying to find a way to print. Our mouse doesn't have &quot;sides&quot; (?)&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

I've never seen a mouse that didn't have sides.

Every mouse I've seen has been divided into three sections. The bottom two thirds is solid. The top one third is divided down the middle by a vertical line. If you press on the bottom two thirds, it doesn't yield. It's solid. If you press on either half of the top one third, it will depress a little. Pressing down on the left half of the top third is called &quot;left clicking,&quot; and pressing on the right half of the top third is called &quot;right clicking.&quot;

When you move your mouse, the pointer on the screen moves as well. Drag your mouse across the desk till the pointer reaches the beginning of the text that you want to copy and paste. Once the pointer on the screen is in place, left click and drag the mouse across the desk towards you. That will highlight the text. When you have highlighted all of the text that you want to copy and paste, right click the mouse. You will be presented with a little menu that will give you choices such as Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Select All. Drag the mouse towards you till the pointer points to &quot;Copy.&quot; When the pointer is hovering over the word &quot;Copy,&quot; left click the mouse.

Open a new Microsoft Word document. Once the MS Word document is open, right click the mouse. You will be presented with a menu offering you choices such as Cut, Copy, Paste, Font, Paragraph, etc.

Drag the mouse till it hovers over the word &quot;Paste.&quot; Left click the mouse. The text that you had copied from the Fodor's post now will appear in your new Word document.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;But I'm concerned even abt the river side. I.e. whereas some folks love the sound of the ocean, we can never get a room where we can hear it because lovely as the sound is, it keeps us awake. We're hyper noise-sensitive, I suppose (live way out in the boonies here in Maryland) and really love no sound at night (earplugs don't work very well). In short, I'm wondering about that &quot;rushing river&quot; at Post Hotel. Does anyone know if there are rooms there where one will not hear the river or train noise? (We need a king bed.)&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

In that case I think Emerald Lake Lodge is the place for you.