You have undoubtedly been to Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, but you haven't savored all the awesome beauty of North America until you've gazed upon Lake Louise and Banff National Park. The Canadian Rockies. These undisputed champions of soaring limestone scenery come as close to being indispensable travel as any I can name. And I went there after my recent stay in Vancouver, British Columbia.
But I made the trip to Canada's great national parks from Calgary, the capital of cowboys, farmers and oilmen less than two hours by car from Banff. Although I didn't do it, you can either drive from Vancouver to Jasper, Lake Louise or Banff, take a Via Rail Canadian train from Vancouver to those Canadian national parks (but much of your trip will be overnight), or book the opulent Rocky Mountaineer train leaving from Vancouver, which makes the trip in two daylight stretches and places you overnight in a hotel in Kamloops before proceeding the next morning to your choice of Jasper or Banff (the train splits in half and services both destinations).
Because we had flown from Vancouver to Calgary, we simply picked up a rental car and drove the easy route to the town of Banff, which is inside the giant Banff National Park. Various braggarts in Calgary (a forgettable place awash with oil wealth and construction cranes) claim they can make the drive to Banff in 45 minutes.
Banff is a spectacular, gracefully maintained little town with a main street lined with shops, stores, high-quality restaurants and small hotels, and small, two-block-long side streets with Alpine-like hotels.
With advance reservations, you can pick up modestly priced accommodations (including digs at an impressive YWCA). Otherwise, prices in Banff are rather high, on the order of what you'd encounter in Vail or Aspen, Colo. And the analogy is complete, because Banff in winter is a major ski resort, with apres-ski activity offered in town.
From Banff, motor into the foothills of the massive limestone-and-shale pine-covered mountains and you are almost guaranteed of seeing bighorn sheep and elk. We made no fewer than four such sightings.
There are also escorted sightseeing tours in small vans to see the animals. One disgorged young tourists from Shanghai, all of them stylishly dressed and with expensive digital cameras. They were so chic in appearance we were surprised to learn they were staying at the YWCA in Banff. A funicular to the top of an 8,000-foot mountain is another big Banff attraction.
But the main highlight is 45 minutes away: Lake Louise. This is not a town, though there's a rustic shopping mall along the highway. Lake Louise is simply a lake, probably the most gorgeous in existence, almost precisely circular and of turquoise water, flanked by a couplet of mountains so symmetrical in appearance you'd swear they were sculpted by hand.
The lake is covered with canoeists. And on one side is Fairmont's immense Chateau Lake Louise resort, busy in high season with hundreds of tourists who flock through the lobby and enormous patio to enjoy the view, but who are staying in Banff.
It would be hard to cite a single scene in all the world comparable to Lake Louise. Days later, seated in my apartment in New York, I can still recall the wondrous spectacle and the impact it had on my senses.