We had planned for today to be a spa day. The weather was overcast, so it was pretty good timing. After breakfast, we checked in to the Willow Stream Spa at the hotel, enjoyed the steam rooms and pools, had nice relaxing treatments, and had a very restful morning.
In the afternoon, we headed into town for a light lunch and a bit of shopping.
We had dinner planned at Saltlik Banff, which we loved when we ate here a few years ago. Their award winning burger was as good as I had remembered it was!
After dinner, we walked along Banff Avenue in search of ice cream for dessert.
All in all, it was a nice relaxing day in the mountains!
In our many visits to Banff National Park, we have never hiked up Tunnel Mountain before, so today, we decided to do it.
The weather today was mixed. It was warm and sunny, however, there was haze in the air and a bit of a smoky smell from the BC wildfires. While our photos and videos won’t be crystal clear, it is still an excellent day for a hike.
After breakfast, we drove across the valley to the trailhead. It’s a busy hike being right in the Town of Banff, with limited parking, so we had about a 400 meter hike up the road from the car to the trail, and started up.
The round trip distance of our hike was only about 5 km, and it involves hiking back down the same trail we went up. The elevation gain is minimal at only 948 feet. Still, it offers some very nice views of the area. You can look up the Bow River to the townsite, or down the Bow River as it passes through the golf course. You can see across to the Banff Springs Hotel, and have views to all of the mountains surrounding Banff.
Here is a short video as we hike the nice trail up the gentle switchbacks through the trees. The trail is nice and wide, and offers an easy hike for people of any ability.
You never really get out of the treeline on this hike, but as you get further up, the trees do thin out and you start to get some nice views.
We spent some time walking around on the top, taking in the views from all directions. Here are some photos and a video taken on top of Tunnel Mountain.
The image below is taken from the east side of Tunnel Mountain, looking to the north at Cascade Mountain.
This photo looks east, down the Bow River as it winds through the Banff Springs golf course.
We sat and rested here for a bit, in the Parks Canada “Red Chairs“.
After having lunch up top, we headed back down the trail.
Back at the bottom, we walked over to the Banff Centre to see what was happening, and then walked back up to the car and returned to the hotel.
Later that evening, we relaxed in the Rundle Lounge at the hotel for dinner and drinks.
I’m not sure why we’ve overlooked this simple and very close hike before, but I’m glad we finally made the trek.
On our first full day in Banff, the skies had cleared and the sun was shining. We decided to walk along the Spray and Bow Rivers, so we headed outside and down the hill.
The photos below are taken from out front of the main building, beside the Stanley Thompson Wing.
We walked down the stairs toward the Waldhaus restaurant, and then followed the path to the river.
At the bottom of the hill, is Bow Falls and the intersection of the Bow and Spray rivers.
We captured this video to give a nice picture in all directions.
Below are some photos following up the Spray River.
After following the Spray River for a while, we turned back and decided to head up the Bow River and follow it into the Town of Banff.
We reached the pedestrian bridge over the Bow River, and Nadine captured this short video.
As we arrived in town, the sky started clouding in a bit, and we spent some time browsing the local shops. We had a nice lunch in town, at which point it started raining. After lunch we broke out our raingear and started heading back toward our hotel. Fortunately, we quickly spotted a local bus heading that way, and decided to grab a ride back to the Banff Springs instead of slogging back up in the pouring rain.
After getting cleaned up, we headed out to dinner at Samurai for some sushi.
We closed out the evening by heading across to the conference wing of the hotel, where they have a bowling alley, and we spent an hour playing a few games before calling it a day.
