Oregon to Banff BC

[DT6]

We have reservations at Lake Louise in Banff National Park BC for 21 to 28 August. As I recall when I lived in Alaska, this can be a pretty time of year with fall colors in abundance, but I may be off a few weeks in my recollection of the northern fall color season.

As we have never travelled (car, air, otherwise) to Banff National Park we were hoping for a few suggestions. The first is any suggested stops along our route, which will be from Salem, OR through Spokane, WA, crossing the border into Canada at Kingsgate.

We can do this in two days, but they would be rather long days, so we are hoping for some suggestions on where we could overnight along the route to break up the trip and enjoy the scenery. I have not looked at Harvest Host yet, so that may be one option, but if there are others, especially good overnight boondocking locations we would love to hear about them.

Suggested things you may have really enjoyed in the area including sites, visitor centers, shopping and restaurants.

While we have the one week reserved, we can stay longer, so if anyone has a route and/or campground suggestion for on the way there, while we are there, or on the way back, we would appreciate that as well.