We flew into Calgary around 8pm on a Saturday night. We picked up our bags and our rental car and soon we were on the road to Banff. Luckily, it doesn’t get dark until nearly 10pm, so there was still plenty of light for most of our drive. We stopped by an A&W location for a quick dinner before ultimately making it to the Fairmont Banff Springs. It was dark by this point, and we were tired, so we went immediately to bed.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful mountain view outside our room! We headed out to explore and our first stop was Cave and Basin to explore the origins of the first national park. We immediately spotted some female elk (I think?) walking across the parking lot! I hoped this was a sign of many wildlife encounters to come.

We entered the building and headed to the cave first. LS thought the smell was “too stinky,” so we didn’t linger around the pools too long, but she did love exploring the nature trails in the area.

We then headed over to Mt. Norquay. One of Mr. Strange’s favorite groups is Boards of Canada, who had an album cover taken at the Norquay lookout. We stopped there and spent some time trying to find the exact location of the picture. This was a fairly busy stop, as there was a tour bus there, but they eventually left and we were able to snag some photos.

We then headed a little further up the road and climbed aboard the chairlift to the top of the mountain. LS loved this! Surprisingly, there was hardly anyone else on board and when we reached the top, there was no one around at all. We had 20-30 minutes of the view all to ourselves, which was quite amazing. As we sat to relax and take in the views, a pair of furry animals scurried around. We had no idea what they were at the time, but later discovered they were hoary marmots.

We had reservations for lunch at the Cliffhouse Bistro, but there were only two other tables occupied when we went inside, so I’m not sure we needed them, but we were placed at a table by the window overlooking the area, which was lovely.

After we ate, we went back down the chairlift (even more fun!) and headed back to the car to drive out to Lake Minnewanka. I had booked the Junior Explorer tour for later that afternoon, and we were about an hour early, so we spent some time exploring the shoreline, and LS loved climbing all of the rocks.

Soon it was time for our boat, so we climbed aboard. This tour was specifically aimed to be interesting for kids, so there was a lot of interaction and a storyline about a treasure chest and needing to find a key. LS was very into it! The boat ride around the lake was very enjoyable, and we learned a lot about the area and the animals of the park as well.

We returned to the hotel and found the trail leading down to the Bow River. We walked the trail past Bow Falls to the town and had dinner at Three Bears Brewery. The pizza here was pretty good, and LS had a fancy dragonfruit spritz that blew her mind.

We did a bit of browsing in the souvenir shops after. LS specifically wanted a stuffed lynx, but we did not have much luck. We did find a bobcat that looked kind of like a lynx, however, and I told her that if we did not find a lynx before leaving Banff, we would come back for it.

The Fairmont had given us complimentary Roam bus passes, so we took the bus back to the hotel and went to bed.

We awoke the next morning and picked up coffee and croissants at the Grab and Go before heading out. Our first stop of the day was the Banff Gondola. We spent quite a bit of time on Sulphur Mountain, looking at the exhibits, the gift shop (no lynx), and we walked the boardwalk to the Cosmic Ray Station and back. We ate a buffet lunch at the Northern Lights Alpine Kitchen before heading back down the mountain.

We then headed next door to the Upper Hot Springs. LS was a little apprehensive about the water temperature at first, but there’s a zero entry area that allowed her to slowly wade in and get used to it. We spent an hour or so here relaxing in and out of the 104 degree water.

After changing back into our street clothes, we grabbed some ice cream outside and took in the views from the red chairs.

Back at the hotel, we had dinner on the Rundle Patio with another gorgeous view. This was probably the least kid-friendly place we ate at, however, and LS ultimately chose the nachos off the appetizer menu, but then didn’t like it once she tried it. We discussed heading out to Johnston Canyon, but we were tired, and LS wanted to play the lawn games, so we did that instead. After some cornhole and croquet, we ended up at the hotel’s bowling alley, where we spent an hour or so being really terrible at 5-pin bowling.