CALGARY · CANADIAN ROCKIES
Turquoise lakes, glacier ice, the long road north.
Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, the Columbia Icefield, the Banff gondola and the badlands at Drumheller. The Canadian Rockies and the prairie city that opens them, one day trip at a time.
Only here
Things you can only do here.
Gondolas and lake cruises turn up in plenty of mountain towns. A glacier you can walk on, the rock-flour lakes, and a valley full of dinosaurs belong to this corner of Alberta alone.
Walk on a glacier
The Columbia Icefield
The Columbia Icefield feeds eight glaciers and caps the largest sheet of ice in the Rockies. A six-wheeled Ice Explorer crawls out onto the Athabasca Glacier so you can stand on ice centuries deep, and the Skywalk hangs you over the Sunwapta Valley on a glass floor. There is nothing else like it on the continent.
- 1 Columbia Icefield Tour with Glacier Skywalk
- 2 Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and the Icefields Parkway Full-Day Tour
- 3 Columbia Icefield Tour with Glacier Skywalk from Banff
Rock-flour turquoise
Lake Louise & Moraine Lake
The two most photographed lakes in Canada sit twenty minutes apart, both an impossible turquoise that comes from glacial rock flour hanging in the meltwater. Moraine Lake under the Valley of the Ten Peaks is the one from the old twenty-dollar bill. Private cars are turned away now, so a guided trip is the way in.
- 1 Emerald Lake, Moraine, Louise, Johnston Canyon & Banff Town
- 2 Lakes Moraine, Louise, Emerald, Johnston Canyon & Yoho Tour
- 3 Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and the Icefields Parkway Full-Day Tour
Dinosaur country
The Drumheller Badlands
Ninety minutes east of Calgary the prairie cracks open into the Red Deer River badlands, a moonscape of striped hoodoos and bone beds that has given up more dinosaur skeletons than almost anywhere on earth. The Royal Tyrrell Museum holds the finds; the hoodoos and the towering roadside T. rex are the day out around it.
- 1 Day of Dinosaurs and Hoodoos From Calgary to the Badlands
- 2 Day of Dinosaurs & Hoodoos from Calgary to Drumheller Badlands
- 3 Calgary to Royal Museum | Drumheller – PRIVATE TOUR
Start with the standout
The one almost everyone books first.
More visitors start a Rockies trip with this than anything else on the site.
The classics
The Most Popular Tours in the Rockies
Lake Louise, the Banff gondola, the Columbia Icefield and the Lake Minnewanka cruise. The days most people come west for.
Where to begin
The days a Rockies trip is built around.
Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, the Columbia Icefield, the Banff gondola, Johnston Canyon, the wildlife drives and the Drumheller badlands. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big question
How to see Lake Louise and Moraine Lake.
Private cars are turned away at both lakes now, and the lots fill before dawn, so the how matters as much as the if. Three ways to reach the turquoise water, depending on where you start and how early you will rise.
The city
Calgary, before the mountains.
Most trips treat Calgary as the airport, but the city earns a day of its own. A glassy downtown under the Calgary Tower, the Stampede grounds, a riverside food and brewery run through Inglewood, and Heritage Park’s working 1880s prairie town out on the reservoir. The Rockies will still be there tomorrow.
Read the guide: the best things to do in Calgary →December to March
When the canyon freezes over.
Winter turns the mountains into a different trip. Johnston Canyon’s waterfalls set into blue ice you walk right up to in cleats, snowshoe trails open through the silent forest, and horse-drawn sleighs cross the snow at Lake Louise under the frozen face of Victoria Glacier.
See the winter experiences →The drive
One of the great roads on earth.
The Icefields Parkway runs 230 kilometres from Lake Louise to Jasper past more than a hundred glaciers, Peyto Lake’s wolf-head of blue meltwater and the Athabasca Glacier spilling off the Columbia Icefield. It is regularly called one of the best drives in the world, and a tour coach is no bad way to take it all in.
Tours up the Parkway →Wildlife
Grizzlies, elk and the valley’s big animals.
The Bow Valley is one of the few places you can reasonably hope to see a grizzly, a black bear, elk, bighorn sheep and maybe a wolf in a single day. Evening drives with a naturalist and a spotting scope put you in the right valleys at the right hour, with the distance and the rules that keep it safe.
- 1 Banff: Evening Wildlife Safari Guided Tour
- 2 From Banff: Banff Wildlife & Scenic Highlights Premium Tour
- 3 Banff and its Wildlife – Year Round Tour
By pace
Pick your day, by pace.
The Rockies answer every energy level. Easy when you want a gondola and a hot spring, busy when you want a trail and a paddle, full-send when you want whitewater and high cliffs.
Take it easy
Gondolas, cruises and hot springs.The Banff Gondola up Sulphur Mountain, a cruise on Lake Minnewanka, and the long soak at the Banff Upper Hot Springs.
Get amongst it
Trails, canoes and grizzlies.Guided hikes to the lakes and canyons, a canoe on the turquoise water, and the wildlife drives where the elk and bears are.
Full send
Whitewater and high cliffs.Rafting the Kananaskis and the Kicking Horse, a via ferrata up the Norquay cliffs, and helicopter flights over the peaks.
The Kananaskis & Kicking Horse
Big water off the snowmelt.
Alberta’s mountain rivers run cold, fast and glacier-fed. The Kananaskis is the friendly one, big splashy rapids you can take the family down. The Kicking Horse over the BC line is the serious water, continuous whitewater through the walls of Horse Canyon. Both leave from the Banff and Canmore side and have you back the same day.
See all 17 rafting trips →By place
The Rockies, six ways.
Banff for the gondola and the hot springs. Lake Louise for the turquoise water. Calgary for the city day. Canmore for a quieter base. The Columbia Icefield for the glacier. Drumheller for the dinosaurs.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
A wildlife drive if you want the grizzlies. A raft if you want the river fast. A canoe if you want the lake slow. Hike, snowshoe, ride or roll, the valley does all of it.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
Never been? Here is a long weekend out of Calgary that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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