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Old 04-03-2014, 08:05 AM   #1
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Banff

I'm waiting for it to be 10:00 mountain time to make reservations for Kootenay and I suddenly realized that I hadn't even thought about Banff. We're going to be there in mid-June and I was kind of hoping we wouldn't have to figure it out ahead of time, but now I'm not so sure. So does anybody know if the campgrounds in Banff fill up early and/or do you have a favorite campground there?
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Old 04-03-2014, 08:30 AM   #2
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Reservations for Banff opened up on Monday. We have our reservations. My wife said it took her a long time of pressing the re-dial button before she got past a busy signal...

My understanding is that the two large campsites that accept reservations are not the best ones. They're more RV-parking-lot than backwoods campground. But, they're the only ones you can reserve. We have our reservation, but if we have time on the way into the park we might see if there's room at one of the first-come-first-served sites.

I made a reservation at Pacific Rim (Green Point) last week. I made the mistake of waiting until 90 minutes after reservations opened. The park was 85% full by that time for the mid-week slot we wanted. Admittedly Green Point is one of the smaller campsites and there isn't a lot of other commercial spots around.
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Old 04-03-2014, 09:24 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dbailey View Post
...I made a reservation at Pacific Rim (Green Point) last week. I made the mistake of waiting until 90 minutes after reservations opened. The park was 85% full by that time for the mid-week slot we wanted. Admittedly Green Point is one of the smaller campsites and there isn't a lot of other commercial spots around.
When I booked at Green Point last year, I tried within about 10-15 sec after reservations opened, and was able to get my third choice of campsites. Within an hour, nearly every bookable spot was taken for the dates we wanted.
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Old 04-03-2014, 09:26 AM   #4
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I was able to make reservations in Banff yesterday but I had to wait untill 8.00 mtn today to make reservations for waterton.
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Old 04-03-2014, 12:34 PM   #5
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The "reservable period" for campsites at Banff, (or at least at Lake Louise, which I investigated), runs from June 20 to September 2. I'm guessing that outside those dates the crowds aren't bad enough to warrant making reservations.

The Lake Louise hard-sided campground is open all year and the soft-sided campground is open May 31 to September 29.
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Old 04-03-2014, 01:17 PM   #6
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I reserved tunnel mountain in banff for may long weekend. That weekend a reservation would be a good idea. But the rest of the time outside of june20-sept 2 I have never needed reservations .
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Old 04-03-2014, 01:35 PM   #7
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this is good news because we will be out of Banff by June 22 so hopefully we will probably be fine going without reservations. Now I have to see which trails are still closed in June. When I made the reservations for Kootenay I couldn't get any of the sites with hookups that I wanted but I was able to get a pretty site in B that's fairly large. I love how the website gives you so much information with photos of every site!
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Old 04-03-2014, 05:31 PM   #8
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dont miss out on Jasper

it is like waterton a lot less tourists

Banff best camping is Lake louise you can catch trout in the Bow river that runs right through the campground
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Old 04-03-2014, 10:53 PM   #9
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Mid-week and you should be fine, but on weekends things will book up. If you have time head north up the Icefields Parkway towards Jasper. There are campgrounds all the way, and the scenery is spectacular. Wilcox campsite is at the Columbia Icefields, and is fantastic! Hike to Wilcox pass if you have the opportunity. Jasper, as mentioned, is far less crowded and more laid back. McDonald's Restaurants tried and couldn't make a go of it here!
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Old 04-04-2014, 08:04 AM   #10
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So final result is that we reserved 6 nights at Two Jacks Lakeside -- Four nights right on the lake in a spot my sister in law says is the best one in the campground. Terry reminded me that we will have a trailer and it won't be that difficult to change sites, so for two nights we'll be in what also looks like a nice site. For a fee we can cancel these, but I wanted to make sure we had somewhere nice to stay when we are there. I'm waiting to hear about the details of the Banff music festival -- It starts the weekend before we arrive. I don't know whether we will get to Jasper this time, but since our son lives in Montana we will be out there on a regular basis in future years.
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Old 04-17-2014, 03:45 PM   #11
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Of course if you get tired of being squeezed by all that Lake Louise tourista congestionitski you could always drive north on Can 1 and then go west, 'til you see the sign for Beaverfoot Road. Then you go to very rustic Beaverfoot Lodge, which as I recall had horses, and the really first trailers ever.
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