In the early stages of organising a trip to the Rockies next summer. In order to get a better deal on the air fare and (hopefullly), avoid the worst of the crowds which month should we choose, JUne or September? Any help from locals or folks familiar with the area much appreciated

Early to mid June would be marginally less crowded than early to Mid-September. The advantage of June would be the long Nights, (sunsets around 9:45-10:15 PM), but otherwise they are pretty much the same weather wise.

before the last week of june (school lets out) or after labor day weekend in september would both be great. however, as mentioned above, the long days in june might tilt me towards that month. you can start to get some chilly nights in later september.

How much hiking do you have in mind?<BR>In June many popular trails will still be snowed in. We were there in July of 2002 and found many muddy, wet, boggy trails. So if hiking is on your agenda, you will find dryer trail conditions in September.<BR>

bob has a good point re the upper trails

I was there ~1 month ago (in other words, September) and it snowed on us, up in the mountains. Ok, it was really light , almost non-existant snow, but it was still snow.<BR><BR>Of course, everyone told us that the week before (right after Labor Day weekend) had been perfect weather.<BR><BR>

Thanks for all your replies. We had hoped to do some hiking so whether trails are open or not would be a consideration. Are all the trails either closed or muddy in June or just high level ones? <BR>AD.. talk of snow in the Rockies reminded me of our trip to Colorado a couple of years ago when we too had a covering of snow on the tops of the mountains in Sept.Have to say it looked gorgeous!

Most summer Hiking trails are winter cross country ski trails except for the really steep narrow ones. They are closed only when there's a perceived danger of snow or mud slides and that usually occurs in the late spring.<BR><BR> On the other hand there are so very many hiking trails in the Banff/Jasper Park area that there will always be options so I wouldn't make that a deciding factor in whether or not to go in June v September.

We were there Sept 20-29 2002 so we haven't been home to long the weather turned pretty cool just before we got there and we had a rainy day or 2 but all the trails were great, at morraine lake you had to hike in a group of 6 or more because the bears were gathering there berries. The Aspen trees were gorgeous and nothing was to crowded and we even got a few off season rates on our lodging which was great. I wouldn't hestiate to go in sept. This is a wonderful trip. Happy Trails.

We were in Waterton, Banff, and Jasper from Sept 4 through the 16th and loved it. The weather was a little cool, but not bad at all. All of the hiking trails were travelable (is that a word?) except that on some you had to have at least 6 people hiking together because of the bears. Tourist-wise I have nothing to compare it to, but I would go again in September if I had the choice. There were some cloudy days and one rainy day in Waterton, but for the most part beautiful fall days.