Cousins trip: Banff!

Just 2 weeks ago I was in the beautiful town of Banff enjoying girl time with my cousins and taking in the picturesque landscape and now I'm holed up in front of my computer doing work. Oh how I wish I could go back! This was my second trip to Banff (first time was back in 2019 on a roadtrip with the family) and I got to check out other parts of this beautiful National Park while laughing it up with these girls to celebrate Frances' big birthday..

We all met up at Calgary airport on Friday morning and after a quick lunch at Calan Noodles for hand-made beef noodle soup (yum!), we hopped in our rental car and drove the 90 minutes to Banff. I was surprised and impressed at how easy the drive was - even easier than driving to Whistler because of the wide and well maintained freeway.

That first afternoon in Banff we walked around town and did some shopping before making our way to Brazen, a bistro serving "Modern Canadian" fare. What's Modern Canadian you ask? We did too! Their menu had some interesting items like tandoori roasted bison, smoked beef tartare, and sugar snap peas with black garlic roasted cashew creme. It was a fun menu to try a little bit of everything to start off Frances' birthday weekend on the right foot!

On Saturday, we woke up at 5:30am in order to make the hour drive and beat the parking lot crush and catch the sunrise at Lake Louise. Every website tells you that the parking lot fills very very early and suggests taking the bus instead. Our efforts were not wasted though - we arrived right around 7am and the lot was about 3/4 full. We made it to the lake just as the sun was starting to turn pink and got some gorgeous pictures of the beautiful lake.

After that, we trekked up to the Lake Agnes Tea House (~2.3 miles one way) to take in more views and have a little snack. It would have been nice to explore a bit more but the temps were still below freezing by mid-morning so we opted to hike back down, warm up in the car and explore other areas. The afternoon took us on a drive up to Jasper National Park to the Athabasca Glacier. We thought it would be just a picture spot but after seeing others walk to the glacier, we got it in our heads that we couldn't be thisclose and leave without stepping on the ice. Way, Grace and I did the quick trek over and marveled at the ice and rocks. It was pretty neat.

Banff!

Don't we look alike now that we both wear glasses again?

Birthday dinner at Brazen

Early morning at Lake Louise

10 minutes later at Lake Louise

The sun really lit up the mountains in the distance

Lake Agnes

Teahouse at Lake Agnes

We got a seat outside in the cold!

SO MANY PEOPLE!

Lake Louise after our hike back down

View of the Athabasca Glacier. Can you spot the offroading shuttle on the left?

Getting closer to the glacier!

Some sketchy sections of the "hike"

Made it onto the ice! Way up the glacier you can see other people (who paid for a tour) trekking the glacier.

On Sunday, we booked a shuttle to Lake Morraine to check out probably the most instagrammed place in Banff. Lake Morraine is another beautiful alpine lake fed with glacial waters and it's very picturesque because it's surrounded by 10 peaks. This is supposedly the image you see on the Canadian $20 bill. Sadly, we didn't get a view of all 10 peaks because there were some overcast skies and clouds that just wouldn't stop hugging several of the them. The beauty of the lake still came through though, and the changing colors of the water was mesmerizing to look at as we walked along the side of the lake and saw the water reflect the sun from different angles.

After Lake Morraine, we headed to Johnston Canyon trail for an "easy" waterfall hike. Since it's rated as easy, this place was teeming with people! It made for slow going as well as some long waits to take photos at just the right angle. We went to both the lower and upper falls and got a good workout in the process.

Lake Morraine $20 view

Lake Morraine from it's shore

Johnston Canyon hike follows the river from the waterfall

The waterfall cave at the end of the hike

Terrible selfie after getting to the other side of the cave

Being silly while "hiking" Johnston Canyon

For our last morning, we treated ourselves to a leisurely fancy breakfast buffet at the Fairmont hotel. The room we were seated in was gorgeous and the food was scrumptious - I'm not huge on breakfast but I left so stuffed! We walked around the grounds and ducked into the shops in the hotel and generally just enjoyed one another's company before making the drive back to the Calgary airport for our flights.

And really, the best part of the trip was just the ability for us cousins to hang out with each other. Of course we enjoyed mother nature and the beautiful views all over the Canadian Rockies, but we could have been stuck indoors all day and still had a blast just laughing and talking. I'm lucky to be able to do these types of getaways with them, and give lots of thanks to the dads who stayed back with the kiddos so that us girls can have this time together!