Friday, October 2nd, 2026

Today we left on our motorcoach for a tour of downtown Banff. The resort town was in the Banff National Park with a population of 8,000. Banff National Park was Canada’s first national park. It also was part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Bow River’s name originated from the reeds growing along its banks, the First Nations used the reeds to make bows.

We stopped at the Surprise Corner Viewpoint. It was named because as you turned the corner you saw “surprising views”. It was located in Banff National Park. We had views of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel and the surrounding Canadian Rockies.

Sir William Cornelius Van Horne was the general manager of Canadian Pacific Railway during the 19th century and is best known for overseeing the major construction of the first Canadian transcontinental Railway. A statue of him was located in the roundabout in front of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Near Banff was the Bow Falls. It had a 30 feet drop and was 100 feet wide. It was a block-style waterfall which meant it was wider than it was tall and it spilled over the edge as a single sheet.

We did a group photo before we moved on.

We had tickets to ride the Banff Gondola. It took about 8 minutes to reach the summit of Sulphur Mountain.

From the summit of Sulphur Mountain we could see six mountain ranges in the Canadian Rockies, Bow Valley, and the town of Banff. Click through the slideshow below to see a sampling of the views!

We saw more waterfalls as we traveled in Banff National Park.

Lake Minneanka was a huge glacial lake in Banff National Park. It was 13 miles long and 466 feet deep. This lake was known to the Stoney Nakoda First Nations people as Minn-waki which meant “Lake of the Spirits”. Artifacts from 14,000 years ago had been found around this lake.

We then continued on to Calgary and no longer had the Canadian Rockies to view. Calgary was the largest city in Alberta. It was located at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers. Calgary was known for its world-famous Calgary Stampede. This rodeo festival was founded in 1912 and held annually since 1923.

When we reached our hotel in Calgary we said goodbye to Richard, our driver and guide!

Saturday, October 3rd, 2026

After breakfast a motorcoach picked us up to drive us to the Calgary airport.

Our flight from Calgary to Denver was close to being on time. We arrived in Columbus late in the evening. Our driver was ready to pick us up and take us home.

We had a fantastic trip but it was always good to get home!