Day 7 - Drive to Banff Springs

The first day of Summer, and we drove back to Banff in snow! The day before, the Icefield Parkway was closed due to the snow that fell. Fortunately, the snow stopped and the parkway was open again, so our tour could continue as planned. The first part of the trip did experience a little bit of snowfall. We stopped for a tour of the Icefield. We took a very serious bus out onto the actual glacier and got a chance to walk around on it. Unfortunately, the clouds and falling snow obsured the view, so not much in the way of photographs of mountain vistas. However, Lisa did try to hit me with a snowball!

As we continued on to Banff Springs, the skies began to clear and we got to see much of the scenery that was not visible to us two days prior on our drive to Jasper.

We arrived at the Fairmont Banff Sprints hotel around 4 PM. (actually at 4:14 PM which won Lisa a prize to be determined later by our tour Director). We saw a little bit of the town of Banff, which is very charming. A picture perfect little mountain town surrounded by scenic mountains. It would be perfect with a dusting of snow and Christmas lights! We had dinner in a Bavarian/Austrian inspired restaurant (Waldhous) and enjoyed exploring the Fairmont hotel. Banff Sprints is definitely the location of the tour we would most likely return to. Lake Louis was beautiful and quiet - if you truly wanted to unplug and just enjoy nature, go hiking, etc... But Banff Springs has the cute little town to stroll through at night. Would be a great place for a winter-themed vacation!Read more