| At 4,540 feet above
sea level, Banff is "Canada's Highest Town". It is now
a year- round attraction. Banff town and park is named for Banffshire, Scotland
- birthplace of two of the original Canada Pacific Railway directors. Banff's
2000 population was 7726. There are more than 1,000 glaciers in Banff National
Park. |
|
|
Below: A beautiful mountain
with very jagged edges |
|
|
|
| Below: This was the
first time that the two RV Gypsies ever had a campsite alongside the roadway.
They still had to pay for the site. Here they had electric and water but
no sewer. It was strange having cars drive on the road beside the RV. It
also meant that the slide-out facing the road could NOT be put out. |
|
|
Below is the view of the
two RV Gypsies' RV, known as AWO, as seen from the road below them. |
|
Below is the view looking
out the window on the left side of the RV. Besides seeing another mountain,
another road can be seen with a RV camped on one side of the road and
a picnic table where another RV could camp. The traffic drove on the
road between the two RV's. A first for the two RV Gypsies. |
|
| Below: The bay windows
on the right side of the two RV Gypsies' RV provided a wonderful view of
Tunnel Mountain. The elevation of tunnel mountain is 5,551
feet. |
|
Below: Tunnel Mountain was originally surveyed as the
site for a railway tunnel. Plans were abandoned for a more economical
line, which is the current route of the TransCanada Highway. |
|
Below:
A sign in a store while shopping in town - and Karen Duquette getting
a hug from a big moose. |
|
|
The two RV Gypsies walked high up the hoodoo trail and looked
down into the valley at spectacular views from the lookout point off Tunnel
Mountain Road. Mt. Rundle is named for Robert Rundle, the missionary who
passed through the region in the 1840s, and it rises 9,700 feet. It is one
of Banff's signature sights and is often seen on postcards with the Banff
townsite nestled just below it. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| Hoodoos were nocturnal giants who awoke to
pound the passerby with rocks hurled from the mountainside. Geologists believe
the formations were cemented together with dissolving limestone over 20,000
years ago. Scientific analysis tells us the hoodoos were pillars of glacial
till. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| There are two trails down to the Hoodoos but
they are extremely steep and the two
RV Gypsies chose not to hike down these trails because then they'd have
to hike the steep trail back up again. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Below: The entryway
to Banff Hot Springs where Karen Duquette went to relax
in the hot springs which turned out to be nothing more than a heated pool
outside, unlike the hot springs at Liard and Chena that Karen visited earlier
- as they were in a natural setting, not a pool. However, the waters in
the pool at Banff are from a natural hot spring bubbling from the base of
Sulphur Mountain. This discovery led to the establishment of Canada's first
National Park and the 3rd oldest in the world, established in 1885. |
| |
| While at Banff Hot
Springs, Karen Duquette signed up for a one-hour facial, a full-body massage,
and a body wrap. She got the facial which was fine. The massage was inadequate
- they did not even do her feet. And Karen never got the body wrap as they
said time was up. even though she had paid for it. NO,
Karen does NOT recommend Banff Hot Springs to anyone. Karen
was completely dissatisfied with the service. But everyone can decide for
themselves because everyone has different opinions, and that is just fine. |
Visit sites in the order they happened and 
