| 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.
There are more than 1,000 glaciers in Banff National Park. |
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Below - a beautiful mountain
with very jagged edges |
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| Below: This is the
first time that the two RV Gypsies ever had a campsite alongside
the roadway. They were in a park though and had electric and water.
No sewer. It was strange having cars drive on the road beside the RV. |
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Below: The
view of the two RV Gypsies' RV, known as AWO (All We Own), as seen from
the road below. |
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Below:
The view looking out the window on the left side of the RV. Besides seeing
another mountain, another road could also be seen. Plus an RV camped on
one side of the road and there was a picnic table where another RV could
camp. Then traffic drove on the road between the two RV's. A first for
the two RV Gypsies. |
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| From the bay windows on the
right side of the RV, the two RV Gypsies viewed tunnel mountain at an Elevation
of 5,551 feet. |
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. |
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| Below: A sign
in store while shopping in town. Plus a big, friendly moose that wanted
to hug Karen Duquette. |
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Below: The two RV Gypsies walked
high up the hoodoo trail and looked down into the valley at the spectacular
views from this 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. |
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Below: 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.
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| Below: There were
two trails down to the Hoodoos but as seen in the below photos, they were
extremely steep and the two RV Gypsies chose not to hike down those trails
because then they would have to hike the steep trail back up again. |
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| Below: The entryway
to Banff Hot Springs where Karen Duquette went to relax in the hot springs.
But it 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. |
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| 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 because
they said time was up. Say what????No, Karen does NOT recommend
Banff Hot Springs to anyone. Karen was completely dissatisfied with the
service. But they did not care. |
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