Alberta Travel Album

Banff National Park, in Alberta, Canada, might be my favorite place in the world. Charles and I like to take what I call "nature vacations", where I don't need to pack the nice clothes, and I can spend a weekend without makeup walking through the forest. I had a few days off school, so we hopped in the car and headed to Calgary for the long weekend. Charles had never been to the parks, and it was something I wanted him to see, even though it was dumping snow the whole time.

Our first stop was Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump. My parents had been, but I had not. It is a museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site for the best-preserved buffalo jump in North America. This museum is beautiful in addition to being informative. I can't really describe how nice it is, but if you're in Alberta, it's worth the stop. It's about an hour from Calgary. 

We spent our first night in Alberta in Calgary and had a lovely dinner at Ten Foot Henry. The city we're in doesn't have a ton of fine-dining options, so we like to have one good dinner out while we're traveling. We definitely had more than one great dinner while we were out, but I really loved our night at Ten Foot Henry. It's a small plate sharing restaurant. We had the Asian Pear, Yam Tortilla, Hanger Steak, and Grilled Broccolini. We also finished it with some tasty, tasty butterscotch toffee pudding. Yum.  

The next several days were out in Banff, Canmore, and Lake Louise. 

We went to Lake Louise...it wasn't as majestic in the winter, but it was still fun. We walked out on the ice, watched some Quebecois guys playing pond hockey, and threw snowballs at each other. That first day was so snowy that I was worried we wouldn't get to see much. Luckily the snow cleared! We were able to rent some ice spikes and do some hiking the next day. The hike was hard, entirely because of the ice. A trail that would have taken an hour, and little effort, in the summer turned into a 4-hour-long ordeal. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time, but it was hard. IF you're hiking in the winter,  that's definitely something to keep in mind. 

I love going to Banff, especially in the winter, and it's something that I recommend to everyone as something you need to do once. Going in the winter is fun because it feels like you're the only people in the whole park, but the weather is definitely better in July. We'll be going back in May, I'm sure. 

Where should we go next?