Canadian Rockies Trip

Canadian Rockies Itinerary!

We traveled to the Canadian Rockies with 6 and 9 year old kids and my 80 year old parents. I highly recommend!

Prior to the trip: 1) Download GyPSy App and purchase the Canadian Rockies Tour-- this will guide you on the entire trip

2) Purchase a park pass-- you want the Discovery Pass https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/voyage-travel/admission

3) I booked restaurant reservations, tea at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, boat tickets for Spirit Island at Maligne Lake, and tour tickets for hiking the Althabasca glacier (www.icewalks.com)

Day 1: Flew to Calgary and rented a car and drove to Banff. We stayed at the Fairmont Banff club level- great service & club but very small rooms. I think you could definitely do another option if $ is an issue. We did the 5 pin bowling which was super fun (had reservations).

Day 2: Banff day- we followed the GyPSy tour that took us to the Cave & Basin (kids loved), Lake Minnewanka, Hoodoos, Vermillion Lakes, Banff Gondola, Bow Falls. We skipped the upper hot springs because the hotel had an amazing outdoor heated pool. Downtown Banff is super cute and we got lunch in town at the Bear Street Tavern. For dinner we went to Waldhaus which had fun fondue for the kids.

Day 3: We drove to the icefields parkway and saw lake Peyto; multiple glaciers; Bow lake.

We did the icewalks tour which is a 3 hour hike up to the Althabasca glacier on ice and snow and rocks. This was challenging for my 6 year old, but my 9 year old did fine and it was really incredible. If you have older people or mobility issues once we got to the top we saw the busses you can ride up to a small portion of the glacier. We then continued onto Jasper.

Day 4: We stayed at the Fairmont Jasper in the Whistler Cabins—I highly recommend if you have 6 people. We had our own private Butlers who surprised us with wine, fruit, cheese, bread, cupcakes, s’mores etc. We loved Jasper and saw Elk, Mountain Goats, Bears (from our car), Deer, and a Wolf! We drove to Lake Maligne and did the Spirit Island boat cruise which was awesome—the guide was really funny and you ride to Spirit Island and walk around 15 minutes and ride back but hear the history of the Stony Indians. We then drove to Pyramid & Patricia Lakes.

Day 5: We drove back down the icefield parkway and saw Althabasca falls and Sunwapta falls and went to Lake Louise. We stayed at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise which has amazing access to Lake Louise (can’t beat the location) but is SO crowded overrun with tourists. We had trouble grabbing lunch and finding anywhere to sit before our hotel shuttle to Lake Moraine. We also stayed in the club level but much less options for food and no alcohol included so not really worth the extra money.

Day 6: We did the teahouse hike to Lake Agnes Teahouse which took us about 1.5 hours to get up (with our 9 year old only) and there was already a line at the teahouse at 8AM but got some delicious biscuits and jam and hiked back down. We did the Lake Louise GyPSy tour to Spiral Tunnels and Johnston Canyon but Takakkaw Falls road was closed. We rented canoes at Lake Louise and did high tea which was fun.

My kids enjoyed the scavenger hunts at both hotels.

Day 7: We did the Lake Louise Gondola- great views and then headed back to Calgary.

What to pack: in Mid-June it was 40’s so needed down jackets/hats/gloves for the glacier but mostly wore rain pants and raincoats. Definitely bring layers! For the Glacier I would recommend waterproof hiking boots or even snow boots. There was also SNOW hiking in Lake Louise and ICE so definitely needed good traction and warm clothes.