WE woke up to the rushing sounds of the Elbow River along our campsite. The dogs got a walk down the pathway and we had a nice French toast and eggs breakfast. Today we headed towards Banff, and stopped for about 4 hours, walked the dogs, did some window shopping, and had lunch there.
The town of Banff is absolutely gorgeous, if anyone has ever been there, it’s kind of like a cross between Aspen, Colorado, and a beautiful Bavarian village. There are tons of stores along the main street, and the buildings are just gorgeous. At the end of the road there is an administrative building and gardens and we took a nice stroll around there. They were beautiful pavilions made with knotty wood poles as well as others constructed with local stones. They had planted most of the flowers, but we’re still working on some of the beds. It was absolutely gorgeous.
We had lunch at a little pizza restaurant where they advertised something special about a 72 hour dough. We ordered an appetizer and a pizza, and it turned out one was a small pizza, and the other one was a large pizza. The pizzas aren’t cut, but they serve the pizza with a set of scissors so you can cut it yourself. The large pizza was a combination of a local sausage, potatoes, and a local mozzarella. It had a pesto sauce and olive oil rather than a red sauce, which was absolutely delicious. The smaller was a local cheese and pesto.
Somehow, on a busy Saturday, we had managed to get a good parking spot that allowed us three hours of free parking. We headed back after lunch to let the dogs out and walk again. They were treated with some leftover pizza crust. They also approved.
We continued on towards Jasper, and traveled the Icefield Highway. The views in this glacier valley were absolutely gorgeous. We stopped a couple of times to take photos, investigate some waterfalls, and found this really cool stream that was fresh from the glacier and was milky white from the dissolved solids. A little further down the road there was a bear walking along the road, so we stopped, took some photos and videos. Sean was looking to camp down the road from the bear, but we decided to go another hour and ended up at a campground called Wilcox Campground. They were plenty of sites available, free wood, and amazing views. We sat out by the fire for the evening and just as we closed everything up to go to bed it started raining. Perfect! We are going to do another day here.
here are some additional photos from the day. https://www.overlandadventureexcursions.com/photos-albums/nggallery/album/20250705-banff-icefields-parkway-jasper