Out of the 7 included parks, I visited 3 during my week-long stay in this area: Banff, Kootenay and Jasper. Banff NP is the gateway to the Canadian Rockies and is within reach of a day trip from Calgary. It attracts an enormous amount of visitors, and this clearly affected my pleasure of being there. The mountain scenery is wonderful to look at, but I had not much luck in finding wildlife or a non-crowded medium-level hike. Almost everywhere you are you hear the noise of the main highway from Calgary to Lake Louise, it was just like walking in the Netherlands again.

What I did enjoy here was the Whyte Museum in Banff Town. This is the first proper museum that I visited in West Canada. The exhibitions alternate between Rocky Mountain explorers from the late 19th century and Native American artifacts collected by the Whyte family. I also joined a short guided tour that lead us into the wooden cabins where the local Moore and the Whyte families lived. They both were great collectors, maybe we would even consider them hoarders nowadays.

Kootenay (pictured) is one of the smaller parks. It lies in a valley just west of Castle Junction in Banff, in the province of British Columbia. I visited it just to do a hike. I had opted for the ‘Stanley Glacier’-trail, a fine 4-hour hike through a burnt forest that is recovering. It ends near the glacier, where I sat down for a while and enjoyed myself with the hoary marmots and pikas that ran around between the rocks.

On my way to Jasper the warm and sunny weather that I had enjoyed in Canada for 10 days suddenly started to change. It was snowing near the Athabasca Glacier on the Icefields Parkway, and it also did in the higher laying areas in Jasper NP. I couldn’t even see the mountains anymore!

Although it kept on snowing overnight, I was able to visit the valleys without a problem. I drove up and down the Maligne Valley, resulting in the sighting of some Elk and Bighorn Sheep. In all, I think it’s easier to see wildlife in Jasper than in Banff. I also saw a coyote near the road into Jasper town. And I hiked the ‘Valley of the Five Lakes’ trail, a shortish but very scenic hike around (indeed) 5 small lakes.

The whole of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks is a huge area to be covered for one WHS. We have a connection for "Smallest natural WHS", but this must be one of the largest. (Oops - we already have a connection for the largest too, and the Rockies aren't in it by far!) Besides Banff and Jasper, it would have been nice to have 3 nights in the area of Lake Louise or Field. But no matter how long you stay here as a tourist, you will never do it enough justice.