Tunnel Mountain II Campground
Nestled into Banff’s Tunnel Mountain campground, we found ourselves quite spread out. There are two campgrounds here. Tunnel Mountain I has full hookups, lots of trees and large spaces. We were assigned to Tunnel Mountain II which just had power and water. But the views here were tremendous with lots of sunshine. They had covered areas for gathering and a nice large shower room.
Banff is a great little town with a central core of pedestrian-only streets to access the shops and eateries. The town has a law/rule that to buy an apartment or condo or house, within the town, you must have an authorized affidavit from a business owner stating you need to live in town for work. This keeps the cost of housing down since yahoos from the US or elsewhere cannot come in and buy a “vacation” place, thus raising prices. It is on a need’s basis. The town also provides trash dumpsters on each residential street for the residents to use. This way, they avoid household trash being left in cans along the street welcoming the bears. Pretty cool really.
Inside the Golf Club Restaurant
We did sneak out to the Banff Springs Golf Club and checked the area out. WOW doesn’t describe it. A couple of our members planned to play a round here but I would be happy just hitting on the driving range. It was beautiful.
We headed across from the Banff Springs Hotel and rode the gondola up to the top of Sulpher Mountain. The views of Bow Valley are incredible and you can stroll across the boardwalk to the Cosmic Rays station and Sanson’s Peak. The facility at the top of the mountain is large with a restaurant and coffee vendor. I understand going up at nightfall is a thing to do.
After the ride down, we strolled the grounds of the Banff Springs Hotel which was gorgeous. They set up a lunch for us including a talk from a fully-uniformed ‘retired’ member of the RMCP. He told stories of the area and answered questions. I wanted to ask how Dudley and Nel were getting along.
At 9,000 Feet
We drove the short distance to Sunshine Village and the ski lift to the top of the mountain. It was very cold and snowy. The elevation at the village is 7,000 feet but up top, it is at nearly 9,000 feet. They recently had snow and the trails up top were icy with very strong winds. So they closed the trails but, we could get off the lift, walk around the peak, view the valleys in all directions and hurry back down the mountain to get lunch and something hot to drink. Burgers and hot tea never tasted better!
From Banff, we headed east to Calgary, the Stampede, and a blah campground. We selected a site at the end of a row and good thing we did. We weren’t feeling right and ended up testing positive for COVID which kept us from the festivities of riding crowded buses, in sweltering heat to and from the crowded Stampede. Most of the members enjoyed their time at the Stampede but others relayed the chaos that they endured. But that meant we also missed our farewell dinner and celebration of a great caravan, for which we were sad to miss. We did have our dinner brought to us which was very thoughtful. And we began to feel better the next morning. Those darn showers at the Banff campground!
Some of the crew atop Sulphur Mt.
We enjoyed meeting the members of the caravan and took away a lot of stories. We planned a game for the last night by asking everyone to write down 3 things no one knows about you. Then we had 3 people stand and asked who did this…sort of What’s My Line game. We had one member (83 Year old) who still holds the record at his high school for running the 100 yds, barefoot. Another member (male) who performed in a ballet. A female member who was a prison guard…and it went on.
One couple, from the caravan left early to go north and join the caravan going to Alaska. We were traveling with 2 other couples west. One couple were friends from Oregon and the other friends from Georgia. Both we met on our Kentucky Bourbon and Beyond caravan in 2019. These caravans are amazing!
Next is our trip west to the Okanagan wine country.
