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Banff Parks

Yahoo Message Number: 4091
We traveled to Calgary and Banff and Jasper this past summer -- one of the very best trips we have ever taken in our coach.
If you feel that you must have a reservation.........There was a KOA park, 45 min east of Banff and just west of Calgary...."Calgary West KOA." It was just OK, we had some problems with low voltage. The park was full, so that could have been part of the problem. Also, they did not appear to be very accommodating to us. We also stayed at another park on the South end of the city, " Pine Creek Campground. It had large sites, good power, etc.
By Banff --- in Canmore, there is a private park, Restwell Trailer Park. It was located right on the edge of town. Good 50amp service and sites that were easy to get in and out of -- but not much atmosphere.
Even though they do not take reservations, I would recommend the public campgrounds in this part of Canada. We stayed at the Tunnel Mountain campground (public). This very nice park was located east of town (5 mins.,max) and had great views of the mountains from many sites. The sites ranged from full hook ups to dry camping. If you arrive by 11:00am - ish you are almost guaranteed of finding a site and if you don't like that site, get in line the next morning to pick out another one. Also, some of the campgrounds have overflow parking areas nearby that can be used if by chance they are filled up. The Max stay is 14 days, so every day some people are leaving. They say that they rarely fill up the campgrounds. We were up by Jasper staying in Whistler's Campground (Public) over July 1 (Canada Day -- like our July 4th) and the park filled up in the early afternoon. That was the only time we noticed that the parks we were at had filled up. Across the highway from Whistlers, they had a parking lot for another 75+ coaches. There are about 800+ camp sites within 15 minutes of each other in the Jasper area. Whistler's is a beautiful park, as is Tunnel Mt., no problem for 45' coaches. From the top or a near by mt. we could look down on Whistler's ccampground but could not see any coaches --- to many trees.---simply beautiful.
Take the hike up to the tea house at Lake Louise and also the trail by the creek in Johnson Canyon --- both are AWESOME. Also, drive up to the Columbia Ice Fields, to ride up to and walk out on a glacier. If you can get up to Jasper, do it. We liked Jasper better than Banff. Banff is outstanding, but Jasper is a bit more laid back and not as "touristy." But we want to go back to BOTH places again!!

Roads and fuel availability are great in the area.

ENJOY

Denny Zarnt

2001 Affinity # 5972