Wild Minds Wander

Wednesday June 26, 2025

Wow! Banff and Yoho National Parks in Canada are… honestly, I’m speechless for words to truly capture our experience here.
Just last Friday, I was absolutely heartbroken after our experience at Glacier National Park – the relentless weather and having to make the tough decision to forgo our three nights of camping there with predictions of constant rain and six plus inches of snow. We decided to leave the area and head up to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, a couple of days early.

When I was telling a friend about this trip a while back, they expressed how they really wished I would have booked more time in Banff, saying it’s phenomenal. Well, her wish came true! Camping spots here sell out months in advance, but because they were getting snow in the higher elevations, people were cancelling their reservations. I was able to snag us last-minute two-night reservations at the campground! Man, I am so glad Glacier didn’t work out, because it has NOTHING on Banff.

Driving through the Canadian Rockies is absolutely breathtaking and nothing like the mountains of Colorado. I really can’t explain their grandeur. Even though the weather was poor during our time here and it rained a lot, it was still so magical that I didn’t even care. I’m literally sitting in a soaking wet camp chair right now, smiling ear to ear. I am really sad to be leaving here tomorrow, and Calvin even asked if we could just stay here the rest of our trip. I would love to agree with him and just set up camp here for the remaining four weeks, but I’m sure there are other beautiful things waiting for us.

Our first day in Banff, we got camp all set up in our electric fence-covered campground… eek! Despite the slight trepidation, we then went on a beautiful bike ride along an emerald green river before heading up to the infamous Lake Louise. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Day 7 we went and explored some more incredible beauty. We saw Peyto Lake, which once again, was breathtaking. (Seriously, count how many times I say that word! It’s just true here!) All of the water is this incredible emerald green from the sediment coming down from the glaciers and turning into this super fine dust called rock flour. We also went to Bow Lake, which is also stunning. I think the towering mountains that surround all of these lakes are what really take the cake. They are beautiful and rugged, and it really just reminds you of how beautiful life is!

I decided to take a cold plunge into Bow Lake! It is a glacier-fed lake, so the water was approximately 40°. The water was in a literal sense breathtaking, LOL! We stopped at many pull-offs and just took in the sights. That evening, we drove the Icefield Parkway until 10 PM, looking for bears, and we actually got to see two bears! We also spotted a beautiful grey fox on our drive into Lake Louise earlier.

Day 8 was honestly kind of a bummer. We drove into Banff, which I didn’t realize was a literal city, and it was just filled with thousands of tourists walking the streets. I didn’t have cell service in Canada, so I was just trying to navigate by signs, and honestly, the signs weren’t great. I drove around Banff for thirty minutes looking for parking, but I couldn’t find a single spot available that the van could fit in. I broke down. I cried. I sobbed. I gave up. I stopped at a gas station and ate two sleeves of Oreos and a Coke. The gas station lady, seeing my distress, told me about getting an eSIM card that would allow my phone to work… $32 it does! I wish I would have known that on day one, because a good two hours of our day felt pretty wasted in the car.

After that, we went and played at a park, and then headed back to Lake Louise in the evening for sunset. We just relaxed at our campfire and rode bikes all around the campground. Theo and I may or may not have gotten seriously lost on one of those rides looking for a trash can!

Day 9 took the cake! Months ago, I booked a tour with a company in the area, and I am so incredibly glad I did. I was a little worried and almost cancelled yesterday, thinking, “I can drive my kids around and look at spots by myself.” So glad I decided to go with the tour guide.
We loaded up into this grandpa’s Honda Pilot, and away we went on a 9-hour day of him driving us all over Banff and Yoho National Parks. Our first stop was Johnston Canyon, a really cool hike up to a beautiful waterfall, where you can even go through a little cave to view it! Then he took us to Morant’s Curve, which is where the iconic scene on the Canadian ten-dollar bill is – a beautiful curve with the Bow River and a train track running through it!

From there, we headed up to Lake Louise for lunch, and then he took us to the Natural Bridge, an amazing area where the river has just pounded the rocks into this beautiful bridge formation. After that was Emerald Lake, another gorgeous lake surrounded by gigantic mountains. We wandered around there for a while before heading to Takakkaw Falls. And wow!! Talk about strength – this is glacier overflow that literally just barrels off of this gigantic mountain, and you really can’t even explain with words the power and strength that this waterfall has. Standing under it was just, wow!!! We also got completely dumped on with rain during that part of the trek, but it was so worth it. From there, we headed to our last stop, Cascade Ponds – more beautiful water and mountains. I know it sounds redundant, but wow… there is such a peace that comes with the absolute beauty of the Canadian Rockies! Cascade ponds was the boys highlight of the day because of all the ground squirrels!! They had so much fun chasing them around!

The tour was such a good decision. I had been driving these kids around for 40 hours over the last nine days. It was so nice to let someone else take the wheel while I just completely soaked in all the beauty around me. And the kids were on their best behavior of the trip, since another adult was around! It was also so nice to have adult conversation for the first time in those nine days. While this trip has been absolutely incredible, I won’t lie… I’m a bit lonely. Consider this my official call for applications: now taking serious inquiries for a co-adventurer who can deal with my particular brand of shenanigans – like spontaneously deciding to take my three kids across the country for five weeks 🤣🤣🤣. Bonus points if you enjoy questionable navigation, sudden changes of plans, and don’t mind long drives or freezing lake plunges.

For now, it’s just me and my boys exploring the world one little, or not-so-little, place at a time. And while it has been incredibly hard and the hours are long, man, the days are short, and I can’t believe we are already on Day 9. So many times I have caught myself saying, “I will NEVER DO this again…” But as I’m reminiscing on the last few days, my heart swells, and I can’t wait to do it all over again. Banff and Yoho National Parks might just be the things that saved this trip for me.

We leave tomorrow, and I’m sitting here watching the kids just having the times of their lives riding their bikes down a hill on our campground, and there is so much more that I want to do. I need more days here, that’s for sure… maybe even weeks! But I guess that just means I will have to come back! The pictures do ZERO justice to the majesty of this place. Now we head to British Columbia for a night and then onto Washington! We’re dirty, we’re stinky, we are forgetting to brush our teeth too often, and it’s so freezing at night that you can see your breath, but man we are having fun. 💕