The buffer day is the one nobody plans and everybody is glad of. A week at Purcell Mountain Lodge or Mistaya Lodge starts at the helicopter hangar in Golden at a time the lodge sets, and both lodges tell you to sleep in Golden the night before. If your flight into Calgary is late, or the Trans-Canada is closed for a slide or a storm, the day you lose is one you paid for. So the spare day goes in Canmore: in from the airport, an hour and a quarter, a night and a day in town with nowhere to be, then the drive west. I have spent a good many of those days there with a camera, and in 2024 I photographed and filmed the town for Basecamp Resorts. This is what I would do with the day.

Canmore main street from above, the Rundle range and Ha Ling Peak behind the rooftops

Canmore is an hour and a quarter from the airport and outside the park gate. It is a working town with mountains at the end of every street, and that is the whole point of spending the spare day here rather than in Banff.

The river path

Start with the Bow. The river runs along the bottom of the town with a flat path beside it, and a morning walk along it is the way to see where you are: the Three Sisters to the south-east, Rundle to the north, Ha Ling standing straight over the town. Policeman’s Creek runs off it through the middle of downtown, and the footbridge over the creek to the pond behind Lamphouse Hotel Canmore is the view the hotel’s 360 tour opens on. In October the aspens around the pond are gold.

The Bow Valley from the air above Canmore, the river winding past the town with the Rockies on every side
A guest crossing the footbridge over the creek towards Lamphouse, the hotel among the yellow aspens

Flat, then not

The river path is the flat hour. It needs no car and no plan, and the coffee is on Main Street at either end. If the legs are stiff from the flight, this is the whole morning.

The walks that climb start from the same town: Grassi Lakes and Ha Ling from the road up towards the Spray, both close enough that the trailheads count as part of the day rather than a drive.

Grassi Lakes and Ha Ling

Grassi Lakes is the short one: a walk up through the trees to two small green lakes under a cliff, with the town and the valley opening behind you on the way. Ha Ling is the long one, a steep climb to the summit of the peak that stands over Canmore, the peak in the round window at Basecamp Resorts. Do Grassi with a coffee and Ha Ling with lunch, water and the boots you brought for the week, and do not do Ha Ling the afternoon before a long drive and an early flight.

A bedroom with the round window framing the mountains, white linen and a sliding barn door

Main Street and the breweries

Main Street is a few blocks of coffee shops, gear shops and restaurants with flower baskets on the lamp posts and the Rundle range at the end of it, and the reason to sleep in Canmore rather than Banff is that it has three breweries and the prices of a working town. I will not name them here because I have not sat in all of them; walk the street and you will find them. Everything downtown is within ten minutes on foot of Basecamp Suites Canmore, a block off Main Street, and two minutes from Lamphouse.

Two guests walking down Canmore's main street past the shops and flower baskets

The buffer day is the one nobody plans and everybody is glad of.

Field note
The lane beside the suites with the stone-clad entry and the mountains at the end of the street

Then the park gate

The drive to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake

If the buffer day is a whole day, the lakes are what most people do with it. Lake Louise is up the Trans-Canada past Banff; Moraine Lake is over the hill from it, and the road up to Moraine is closed to private cars, so a tour or a shuttle is how you get there. I would rather not drive it on the day before a mountain week anyway, and the tours from Canmore do the whole loop and bring you back to the brewery.

The site links these on Viator, and a booking through them pays a referral fee that helps keep this record running:

The Icefields

The Columbia Icefield is the long day: up the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to the Athabasca Glacier and back, which from Canmore is most of the daylight in the car. It is worth it once, and it is the one to do if the buffer day is the day after the trip rather than before, when there is no early flight the next morning. The Columbia Icefield, a full day from Banff does the driving; if you go in your own car, leave with a full tank and the park pass on the dash.

The great room's dining table and armchairs under tall windows with the mountains outside
Guests on the lawn behind the dark-clad Basecamp Suites building, balconies above and a fire table by the fence

The evening back in town

Whatever the day was, it ends in Canmore. The great room at Basecamp Lodge Canmore is open 24 hours with coffee on, which is the difference between a lodge and a motel at six in the morning before the drive west.

At the Suites the barbecues out the back are shared and first come first served, with a fire table by the fence, and the rooftop hot tub is nine to ten. The bags for the helicopter get packed on the long dining table.

The night, then the mountains

Four beds in town are on this record as gateway stays, all Basecamp’s, all photographed and filmed by me and with 360 tours on their pages: the Resorts for the window and the rooftop, the Lodge for a single night and the great room, the Suites for a kitchen and a washing machine, Lamphouse for walking to dinner. None of them publish a rate; the booking engine sets the price by the date, with a flexible rate you can cancel free until 72 hours before arrival and a lower non-refundable one, check-in at four and check-out at eleven, and a $250 deposit per unit on the card at arrival. The Ledger on each page has the rest.

The outdoor hot tub behind a cedar screen with the mountains above
The hot tub by the creek at Lamphouse, nine to ten daily. The towels are in the room and there are no change rooms, so go dressed for it.

Then the highway west: Golden and the hangar for Purcell or Mistaya, or on over Rogers Pass to Revelstoke. The buffer day was insurance. Most years you get to spend it.