Banff 7th - 10th August

We are in Banff in the centre of the national park for two days in a local campsite on the outskirts of town and two nights in a hostel in the centre of town. There are mountains everywhere even visible above the roofs in central Banff and the campground was a lovely secluded wooded site.

Much of the town is new  but there are plaques outside some of the older historical buildings dating back to the late nineteenth century.

There are some great walks around the area so I followed some of the trails such as the Bow Valley past the Banff Springs Hotel.

 Tunnel Mountain was so called as when the railway was being built across Canada from the east to the Pacific, the original plan was to tunnel through this mountain but a later survey found a better route so there is no tunnel but the name remains.

 The Hoodoo trail runs along a valley to over look some hoodoos, formed when erosion of some loosely and easily erodible sediments are unevenly eroded, often caused by a cap stone or rock of harder resistance covering the sediments underneath and protecting them from erosion. This leaves just a column of sediment whilst the surrounding rock is washed away.

On the Fenland trail out towards Vermillion Lakes there was a moose cow and calve walking along the bans of a river just metres away from me but too many trees to get a good shot.

Last night we said goodbye to Helen, Graeme, Anja and Roger (who will be rejoining us in a few weeks) at a brew pub in central Banff.