Thirteen days, five of us and one truck. Edmonton down to Waterton, west through
the Kootenays to Revelstoke, then back east through Yoho into Banff. This is the
route we actually drove – not the one we planned – with the real costs
and the Strava log to go with it.
Day 1–2: badlands, dinosaurs and dinner in the sky
We left Edmonton on 13 July with a Costco run and a tank of fuel from Thorsby, and the first proper stop was Drumheller. If you have only ever seen Alberta as flat, the badlands are a shock – the prairie just falls away into striped rock.
The Royal Tyrrell Museum is worth the detour on its own. That evening we drove into Calgary and ate at the revolving restaurant at the top of the tower, watching the city turn slowly underneath us. It was the single most expensive meal of the trip and nobody regretted it.
Day 3: the Cowboy Trail and Crowsnest Pass
Highway 22 south out of Calgary is the good way to do this. Flat, golden, empty, with the Rockies sitting on the right-hand horizon the whole way and getting steadily bigger.
Then the Crowsnest Pass, where the mountains stop being scenery and start being the road. We pulled over onto a gravel side road to stretch, and the puddle in front of the truck did the thing that puddles do.
Day 3–4: Waterton
Waterton is a completely different energy from Banff – smaller, quieter, mountains dropping straight into the lake with no gradual build-up at all. It is the least crowded of the mountain parks we visited and the one I would go back to first.
We camped, cooked at the site, and swam in the lake in the evening. That swim is the first thing on the Strava log for the whole trip.
Day 4–5: Norbury Lake, the best camping of the trip
Over into BC and down to Norbury Lake, and this is where the trip quietly peaked. Two full days of doing almost nothing: swimming, an inflatable, a steak night at the campsite, and enough badminton to make it onto Strava.
The water is clear and green with the Steeples right behind it. Three separate swims went on the watch across two afternoons and none of them felt like exercise.
Day 6: over Kootenay Pass to Big White
A long driving day west on Highway 3. There is a small lake at the top of Kootenay Pass that is worth the ten minutes it takes to walk round, and then Christina Lake, and then the climb up to Big White.
The hike at Big White was the steepest thing we did all fortnight – 7.1 km for 338 m of gain. It was also the one where I went down, realised I had dropped my glasses, went back up to find them, got thoroughly spooked about bears on my own, came back down, and then went up a third time because the others wanted to.
Day 7–8: Revelstoke, the sleeper hit
Everyone told me Revelstoke was underrated and everyone was right. We stopped at Craigellachie on the way in – the spot where the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway went in, which is a strangely moving thing to stand next to for a monument that is essentially a nail.
The next morning we took the gondola up the mountain and walked back down. Five and a half kilometres of descending through forest with the Columbia valley opening up below, and the best group photo of the trip at the top.
Day 9: Rogers Pass and a night in Yoho
A short stop at the Skunk Cabbage boardwalk, then Rogers Pass, then Golden, then into Yoho. Cathedral Mountain sits above the campground like something drawn rather than eroded.
There were black bears reported all round the campground, so the evening walk was done with the spray clipped on and a lot more talking than usual. We had bought it in Fernie four days earlier and this was the first time it left the truck.
Day 10–13: Banff
Four days in Banff, which after a week of campsites felt almost decadent. The Cave and Basin walk, the Vermilion Lakes with Rundle reflected in them, a pint on Banff Avenue, and showing two of the group round a town they had never seen before.
By the 23rd the wildfire smoke had rolled in properly. The sun went red in the afternoon and the mountains flattened into grey layers – unsettling to look at, and the reason a few of the later photos have that orange cast.
The big one: 16.6 km at Lake Minnewanka
The longest walk of the trip, and the only one that felt like a proper day out: 16.6 km and three and a half hours moving, out along the lake and back.
It is not a climb – only 266 m of gain across the whole thing, and the elevation profile below barely moves. What it is instead is long, hot and relentlessly buggy. No bears that day. Mosquitoes and moths made up for it.
Home, via a rodeo
We drove out of Banff on the 25th, filled up twice, and stopped at Lacombe for a PBR bull riding event on the way north – which is a very Alberta way to end a trip through the mountains.
Back into Edmonton just before one in the morning on the 26th. Thirteen days, five people, one truck, and about 61 km walked between the driving.
What I would do differently
The plan was bigger than the trip. Jasper and the Icefields Parkway were on the original route – the map below is what we genuinely set off with – and neither happened. We ran out of days somewhere around Revelstoke and chose more time in fewer places instead. I do not regret the trade, but I would plan for it next time rather than discover it.
Two nights minimum, everywhere. The places we gave two nights to – Norbury Lake, Revelstoke – are the ones I remember properly. The one-night stops blur together into a windscreen.
Book the Banff and Jasper sites the day reservations open. Still true, still the single most useful piece of Rockies advice.
Buy the bear spray at the start, not four days in. We bought ours in Fernie and were glad of it by Yoho.
The plan we set off with
This is the map I drew up before we left. Waterton, across to Kelowna, up through
Revelstoke and Yoho into Banff, then north to Jasper and back down the Icefields
Parkway. Compare it to the days above and you can see roughly where it came apart
– everything past Banff quietly fell off the list somewhere around Revelstoke,
once we worked out we would rather have two nights in fewer places than one night
in all of them.
Three and a half hours moving for 266 m of gain. Long and flat rather than hard.
Group Favourite Hike
Steepest climb
338 m · Big White, 18 July
Only 7.1 km, but more ascent than anything else on the trip – and the one everybody wanted to go back up. Twice, in my case.
Group Favourite Campsite
Best two days
Norbury Lake, 16–17 July
Clear green water, the Steeples behind it, three swims and a steak night. Two full days of doing very little, and the best camping of the trip by a distance.
Biggest surprise
Revelstoke
Gondola up, walk down, and a town that deserved more than the night and a half we gave it.
Weather
Hot, then smoky
Good weather almost throughout, then heavy wildfire smoke rolled into Banff from the 23rd.
What it actually cost
Every shared expense, split five ways. Totals are the whole group, not per person – divide by five for your own number. Tracked in TripTab as we went.
Fuel
$1,186.71 · 14 fill-ups
By far the biggest line. Thorsby, Fernie, Grand Forks, Revelstoke four times, Golden, Banff twice. This is what a 2010 RAM 1500 costs to take through the mountains.
Food and drink
$931.33
Includes the $384 revolving-restaurant dinner in Calgary on night one, which is a quarter of the whole food budget in a single sitting. The campsite dinners and the two steak nights were the good value.
Activities
$290.00
The Royal Tyrrell Museum on the way down, and the PBR bull riding at Lacombe on the way home.
Camping and fees
$94.05
Banff park fees and firewood. Low because most sites were booked and paid separately before we left.
Everything else
$187.60
Valet parking in Calgary, bear spray, ice, and sundries.
Total
$2,689.69 · about $538 each
Thirteen days, five people, everything in except the campsites booked in advance and whatever anyone spent on themselves.
Gear that earned its place
Two things I would not run this trip without, and one that let me down at the very end.
Falken Wildpeak AT3W
Reviewed on this site
Every forest service road on the route, wet clay and loose rock included, with no drama at all. Read the full review.
MSR Hubba Hubba 3
Reviewed on this site
Roomy enough for three and their kit for twelve nights – then the rain fly tore off at the pole attachment on the very last night, in Banff. MEC replaced it without argument. Read the full review.
Bear spray
$70, bought in Fernie
Bought four days into the trip and carried every evening from Yoho onwards. Buy it before you leave, not when you start seeing the warnings.
What the watch recorded
Every hike, walk and swim between 15 and 24 July, straight off Strava.
19
Activities
61.0km
Covered on foot
15.0h
Moving time
1,435m
Total ascent
Distance on foot, day by day
The first four days were all lake swims. The walking only really started at
Kootenay Pass, and it did not stop until Banff.
Hikes
Walks
Swims
Show the numbers
Distance in kilometres per day by activity type
Day
Hikes
Walks
Swims
Total
15 July
0.00
0.00
0.48
0.48
16 July
0.00
0.00
0.37
0.37
17 July
0.00
0.00
0.79
0.79
18 July
8.18
0.00
0.00
8.18
19 July
4.74
0.00
0.00
4.74
20 July
5.50
0.00
0.21
5.72
21 July
7.28
1.18
0.00
8.46
22 July
0.00
9.21
0.00
9.21
23 July
16.62
0.00
0.00
16.62
24 July
0.00
6.44
0.00
6.44
Total
42.32
16.83
1.86
61.01
The two proper climbs
Everything else on this trip was flat valley walking. These two were not.
Lake Minnewanka, 23 July. 16.6 km and 3 h 25 m moving,
for only 266 m of gain – it is a long, rolling valley trail rather than a climb.
The profile barely leaves a 120 m band the whole way out and back.
Big White, 18 July. Less than half the distance at 7.1 km, but
338 m of gain – the steepest thing we did all fortnight. It also includes the
stretch where I went back up to look for my glasses, which is why the profile
climbs twice.
Recorded on a watch, so distances are GPS-accurate to within a few percent and
the elevation is barometric. Swims are open-water lake swims, which is why the
distances look short next to the walking.
Photo gallery
There are a lot more photos from these thirteen days than fit on one page – the rest are on Instagram.
Genuinely roomy for three, with storage details that earn their keep. Then the rain fly tore off at the poles on night thirteen. Four out of five, and buy the footprint.
