first night stop near Calgary
 

We're planning our first trip to the Rockies this June, arriving at Calgary airport from the UK. I've been reading some of the posts on here with interest and am in the proccess of planning our itinerary. At the moment it's only a rather vague list of Banff, Jasper and Lake Louise. Can someone recommend somewhere to stay on the first day of arrival, bearing in mind that we don't really want to start driving a long way after our flight? We would rather not negotiate any large towns, preferring smaller towns and places of scenic beauty. We're looking for B&Bs or small, mid priced hotels or inns.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Hello Maria,

Luckily, once you get out of Calgary, there aren't any large towns for a long way. There aren't many towns at all, actually. What towns there are, are small.:)

The closest town beyond Calgary is Canmore. It may take you half an hour to get out of Calgary. Once you've cleared Calgary's city limits, it's clear sailing on an open highway, without a single traffic light or stop sign for a long, long way.

The first town to the west is Canmore, which is about an hour from Calgary's city limits. Canmore is in the mountains, albeit towards the eastern end of them, and just a little east of the entrance to Banff National Park.

There are B&Bs in Camore, but I'm not familiar with them. I like Lady Macdonald Country Inn (12 rooms) and Georgetown Inn (24 rooms). Both places include cooked breakfasts in their rates.

Another 20 minutes, if that, would get you to Banff townsite.

Judy gave you good advice here, as she always does. Canmore is a very cute little town and a very easy drive from Calgary. That is where I would recommend staying for your first night also.

Have a great time!

if you want to avoid the majority of calgary city and it's traffic, the best way from the airport is straight down country hills blvd (road right out of the airport) for about 20 minutes. then turn left on stoney trail and drive for about 15 minutes. it will run right into the hwy that goes to canmore or banff - just turn right. very easy way to get around the city.

I can understand your urge to get on with it, but after a flight from the UK, you might want to get in a good night's sleep before starting out.

I think you should be primed and ready for the scenic wonders you are about to see.

If you decide to take a rest stop overnight before heading west, I have used the Greenwood Inn which is a quick drive time wise from Calgary airport.

The hotel offers several types of rooms.
I always get a room with a king bed and a couch for reasonable fee, even during the Stampede.

I think you will find the Calgary airport to be a very good one. I have flown in and out of there several times and I like it. Once you get your car and head out, the city center is a straight shot south and a little west.
I have found that rental car drop off and return at Calgary is easy and swift.
Last summer, the young lady who was checking cars in saw me coming. She had the receipt ready as soon as I handed her the key. I had popped open the trunk and we had our luggage and were inside well before the tires cooled!!

(I will go so far as to say that of all the airports I have used, I rate the one in Calgary the best. And I am strictly a visitor there.!!)

All in all, from the people to the scenery, I don't think there is a better spot in which to vacation.

Are you used to driving on the "other side"? Getting over jetlag and a good night's sleep is a sensible idea.

I would second Canmore as a good place to start the journey.

However, I would drive south to Waterton National Park from Calgary and back up the Turner Valley through High River to the Trans Canada highway and then stop in Canmore.

Thanks for the replies! My other half, who will be doing all the driving, is a confident driver and has driven throughout Europe on the "wrong" side of the road. If he can cope with Italy, he can cope with anything, I'd guess! I assume most vehicles are automatic over there - though that won't be a problem for him - though it would be for me, as I've only ever driven manual cars!

I think we land about 2.30 in the afternoon though it will seem like late evening to us. What time zone is it there? An hours drive mightn't be too bad, though we probably wouldn't want to do much more than that after the flight. I'll look into Canmore - is it worth staying there a couple of nights or just for a stopover?

Thanks again, Maria

Maria, Alberta is in North America's Mountain Time Zone. Our standard time is 7 hours behind GMT. In summer, we have daylight savings time, and then we're 6 hours behind GMT.

But you also observe DST in summer, right? So we'll still be 7 hours behind you.

While you're here you may venture into Yoho National Park, which is in British Columbia. YNP is only a few kilometres west of Lake Louise, and some of its sights / sites are beautiful. Anyway, when you cross over into BC, you'll still be in the Mountain Daylight Time Zone. The boundary between the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones is between Golden and Revelstoke, and is further west than you are likely to get, I imagine.

As to Canmore, some people use it as a single night's stop over, and others use it as a base for a couple of days or a few days. It serves either purpose just fine.

The only thing I would say about Canmore is that, because it's so far east in the mountains, it's unsuitable as a single base for an entire trip. Actually, there is no single base that can be used for all of Banff and Jasper National Parks. The places of scenic interest are stretched out over a sufficient distance that it's essential to have at least one northern base, which for most people means Jasper townsite, and one southern base, which can be Lake Louise, Banff townsite or Canmore. Some people go further than that and split their trip into three bases. They divide the southern part of their trip into west and east. They use Lake Louise as a base for the western end of Banff National Park (LL itself and Moraine Lake) and for Yoho National Park. Then they use either Banff townsite or Canmore as a base for the eastern end of Banff National Park and, if they have time for it, Kananaskis Country. (K Country is a collection of provincial parks just to the east of Banff National Park.)

If you do word searches for Jasper, Lake Louise and Banff, you'll find heaps of previous threads here at Fodors.

Are you committed to your dates? Have you booked your flights yet? If your flights are not booked yet, I prefer the second half of June over the first half of June. The reason is that the frosting on the cake is the turquoise colour of the mountain lakes. However, the lakes cannot be guaranteed to have thawed until the middle of June. Actually I remember previous visits to Lake Louise when the lake wasn't fully thawed in the middle of June. Global warming is starting to make a liar of me. Recently the lakes have been thawing quite early by local standards. In 2004, they were all thawed by the beginning of June. Still, Moraine Lake, my favourite, tends to be rather empty a the beginning of June, and doesn't look it's best until <b>at least</b> the end of the first week of June, if not the middle of June.

If you're already committed to coming at the beginning of June, by some chance, you can help the situation by going straight to Jasper after your initial night of rest in Canmore. The reason is that Jasper is at a slightly lower elevation than Banff. Although Jasper is further north, and one would expect it to stay frozen longer, it actually thaws out a little sooner than Banff and Lake Louise. If you see the sights around Jasper first, you'll buy a little time. By the time you arrive in Lake Louise a few days later, hopefully the lakes will be in nice shape for you.

If you want further advice, it would help if you mentioned when you're coming and for how long.

Reasonably priced accommodation is difficult to come by in the Canadian Rockies. It would be good to settle on your itinerary and make your reservations relatively soon, although it's not as urgent for June as it would be for July or August.

Thanks so much Judy. We arrive on 19th June and leave 3rd July, flights are already booked. I have a map on order and we plan to finalise our itinerary as book accommodation, as soon as we get that. I have had a browse through some of the threads on here and also browsed some of the tourist information web sites for likely B&amp;Bs, etc, and seen some that look good. Will let you know when we get a firmer route.

Hello Maria,

Two weeks is an excellent amount of time to explore this area. With that amount of time, you have a few different options:

(1) Spend all the time in the mountains, do lots of hiking, etc.

(2) See the mountains but also experience the prairies a little bit.

(3) Visit the mountains AND the west coast of British Columbia.

Here's how a combined mountain / prairie itinerary might look:

June 19 - Land in Calgary
20 - Calgary
21 - Drive to Drumheller to see the awesome dinosaur skeletons at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology; drive to Edmonton
22 - Edmonton
23 - Drive to Jasper in the morning, do a Jasper activity in the afternoon
24 - Jasper
25 - Drive the Icefields Parkway to Lake Louise
26 - Moraine Lake and Lake Louise
27 - Yoho National Park from your base in LL
28 - Drive Bow Valley Parkway, walk into Johnston Canyon, then drive on to Banff townsite or Canmore
29 - Explore Banff townsite and its environs
30 - Drive through Kananaskis Country (Hwy #40) and along the &quot;Cowboy Trail&quot; (Hwy #22) to Pincher Creek or Waterton Lakes National Park
July 1 - Explore Waterton. This will be the Canada Day public holiday, but should not interfere with your tourist activities. It will be the start of the heavy tourist season in Banff, so it will be good to have seen Banff ahead of this.
2 - Visit Head-Smashed-In Buffalo interpretive centre to find out about the lifestyle of the First Nations people who lived on the Plains. Drive to Calgary.
3 - Fly home.

I will provide further information in the next post.

Here's a possible mountain / coast itinerary:

June 19 - Canmore
20 - Explore Banff townsite from your base in Canmore
21 - Drive the Icefields Parkway to Jasper
22 - Explore Jasper’s environs
23 - Drive back to Lake Louise (scenery looks different when it’s viewed from the opposite direction, so don’t consider this to be a waste)
24 -Explore Lake Louise’s environs
25 - Drive to Kelowna (You could make it all the way to Vancouver, but obviously that would be a longer drive. It’s up to you.)
26 - Drive the rest of the way to Vancouver if you didn’t reach it the previous day.
27 - Vancouver
28 - Day trip to Victoria?
29 - Vancouver
30 - Drive half way to Waterton. Nelson, though it's more than half way, would be a pleasant overnight stop.
July 1 – Drive the rest of the way to Waterton.
2 – See a bit of Waterton and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump interpretive centre. Drive to Calgary. (If your flight departs out of Calgary late in the day on July 3rd, you could spend this night in the Waterton area again, and drive to Calgary on the 3rd.)
3 - Fly home.

If you relly want to immerse yourself in the mountains, and not spend time in cities, you could simply add days to all of your mountain stops. Jasper, Lake Louise, and Banff / Canmore all could take up your time in meaningful ways, especially if you like walking and soaking up mountain scenery.

You can get driving directions, distances and times at

www.mapquest.com

Here's a map of the Cowboy Trail that I mentioned earlier, in case you're interested in reaching Waterton Lakes National Park from Banff. Just click on it to get a bigger version.

http://www.thecowboytrail.com/map.jpg

I realise you're waiting for your map before you examine your options in more detail. Don't mean to be intrusive. The information will be here if and when you want to return and look at it in depth.

considering the time you get in, i would definitly drive to canmore for the first night. it is a beautiful setting and you'll be there in time to enjoy a nice dinner and maybe a walk around town. i'd only spend one night there. then you'll be fresh to enjoy the beauty as you enter the national park. enjoy.

Another option for your first night would be Cochrane, about a half hour from the city limits. Slighly off the main highway but not as far as Canmore

Thanks again - so much helpful information. I think we'll probably spend most of our time in the mountains, it all looks incredible from the pictures. We like hiking (though not too strenuous for me), taking in the scenery and are into digital photography - we are hoping we'll also see some wildlife. We don't want to overdo the driving and end up only seeing the area through the car windows. Apart perhaps from the first or last night, we'd like to spend a minimum of 2 to 3 nights at each stop.

My maps have now arrived, one is a general map of the Banff to Jasper area with tourist points marked, the other a more detailed walking map (Gem Trek Publishing) of Lake Louise and Yoho with suggested trails - I might order some more of these now I know where I can get them. I think my hubby is browsing them right now - the trip is for his 50th birthday, so it's his call really but we're both quite excited about this trip!

We travelled from the UK last summer and took a cab into Calgary for the first night. We stayed at the Marriott, opposite the Calgary Tower and next door to the excellent Glenbow Museum for a quick history of western Canada to set the scene before picking up our hire car downtown and heading straight for Banff, a very comfortable 1.5-2 hour drive. The hotel also had a pool, great for something to do with wide-awake children at 5.30 am!