Going to Banff

What to do in Banff

by Candyce H. Stapen

Banff, about 90 minutes northwest of Calgary, is Canada's highest town, nestled at 4,540 feet in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. It's the gateway to massive Banff National Park, Canada's first national park, established in 1885. Today, more than 4.5 million people visit each year—most of them in the summer, which can make the tiny town of Banff unbearably crowded. That said, the national park offers 2,564 square miles of exquisite alpine scenery, from verdant river valleys and forests to craggy, skyscraping peaks. And there are plenty of places to escape where you'll feel like the first human ever to set foot there.

No trip to Banff is complete without an eight-minute gondola ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain. There, a boardwalk snakes from the gondola terminal along a ridge and up to a historic weather station....

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