Banff Tunnel Mountain

Traveling down from Edmonton to Banff in a group of 8 in hope to get away and do some hiking, fishing, and great camping experience. We booked our camp site with the Alberta camping reservation system online. At first we wanted to be close to two jack lake, but all their sites were already booked, so we went with the neighbouring camp site at Tunnel Mountain Village II. They have very well facilitated washrooms and sink area for us to wash things and take showers, which was good for some of us who were first time campers.

The Tunnel Mountain Village is extremely near Banff town and we are literally camping in the middle of all the trees and serenity of Banff. We arrived really late and thanks to all the flashlights we have, we were able to build our tents and set up while setting up a fire, as the temperature was dropping down to 5-8 degrees! The whether forecast promised us that it was going to rain throughout the weekend starting tomorrow morning. After setting up our tents around 10, we only had an hour before quiet time, and actually had rangers visit us and warned us of to put our the fire earlier… Anyway, we spent the night playing cards and staying awake, knowing that the next day may be spent in the rain.

Having had about 5 hours of sleep, I woke up and noticed that there was no rain and it doesn’t look like it’ll rain for another couple of hours! So i set on a solo trip down Tunnel Mountain for a hike while everyone was still asleep. I quickly stuffed a slice of bread down my mouth and looked at the map for the entrance to the trail. You can choose to skip a part of the trail and park at the upper parking lot. I’ll provide a map to the trail later on and where you could park.

Although it’s not raining, the fog was definitely giving me some pretty unique environment to hike in! By the time I got here (8:30am) many early birds have already began their hikes.

Does anyone know if this is a pika or a squirrel? 

I took many stops and really took my time. My friends have already eaten lunch by the time I came back. Just then, a male and female deer appeared at our camp site! This makes for the second animal encounter I had haha!

Tunnel Mountain Village Campsites

Please stay tune for my second post on my trip to Banff at Two Jake Lake and Johnston Canyon! Meanwhile, feel free to check out some highlights and larger format photos of my Tunnel Mountain Hike, I hope this will be useful for future hikers and campers alike going to Banff National Park in Canada. =)  Chao~