Banff is a pretty townsite smack right in Banff National Park. It's pretty obvious that the only industry driving the economy of this town is tourism. Besides the hotels, gift shops, restaurants and eateries etc, the residents of this town operate their houses as B&B establishments! For those who work in the town but do not stay there, most of them stay in Calgary, the nearest major town.

There are many things that can keep one busy in Banff. You could take a hike up one of the nearby mountains. You could join one of the guided nature walks organised by the Banff authorities. For the less physical inclined, they have set up cable-car like transportation to bring you up the mountains. You could even just stay in the town and witness performances organised by the tourism board. And when all else fails, there will always be shopping in town!!.....

Further off from Banff lies one of the icons of the Canadian Rockies, Lake Louise. Its turquoise coloured lake has mesmerised millions over the world. Built right at the edge of the lake is Chateau Lake Louise, a high class, outrageously expensive hotel. Surrounding the lake are thousands of miles of hiking trails begging to be explored. It is no wonder that it is often refered to as the 'Hiking Capital of the World'. While busloads of camera-toting tourists swarm the shores of the lake, we embarked on one of the hikes that brought us to even more magnificent views of the lake. Although the hike took longer than we expected (or we were less fit than we expected....), the long summer hours helped us as the sky gets dark at about 9pm! We can thus reach back civilisation safely.

The Canadian Rockies are riddled with lakes that are astonishingly beautiful. The colours of the various lakes are also different; different mineral deposits on the lake floor bed will cause the lake to take on different colours! In fact, depending on time of the day, sunlight that falls on the lake on different angles will cause the lake to have a different hue!
As we leave Lake Louise and Banff National Park behind, we drove onto the Icefields Parkway, towards Jasper National Park.

Part II: Kamloops

Part IV: Jasper National Park