We bit the bullet and hired another vehicle to go explore some of the interior of mainland Canada. We set out from Vancouver with the goal of making it to Calgary, about a 1000km drive inland, within a week. We enjoyed a few walks along the way that included Mount Revelstoke National Park. We were also happy to stay overnight in some pretty nice (Canmore) and not so nice but awesomely stereotypical (Merritt) small towns along the way.

We spent three amazing days in the Banff National Park area which is most well-known for Lake Louise, our first stop. Not wanting to miss a thing we stitched together three of the hikes with some off piste scrambling and made a whole day of trekking out of it. We found the Lake Louise area is famous for a reason, it's incredibly picturesque, particularly the Plain of Six Glaciers hike. It was surprising to see how quickly the surroundings change from a green, forested area to a rocky, barren, alien looking landscape.

Our second day was an "easy" day to rest up after the previous massive day so we climbed to the top of Sulphur Mountain and around Johnson Lake. Choosing Sulphur Mountain was a bit of a mistake because it had the Banff Gondola transporting bucket loads of tourists from their car right to the top, which is the type of thing we usually like to avoid. The walk was fine but the top was a bit spoiled and a large number of forest fires in the area had made the view quite hazy.

The third day was the most adventurous, spectacular and rewarding day of the three, as we chose a walk to Harvey Pass, near Bourgeau Mountain, which is barely visited by anyone else, we saw only three other groups in the whole day. It also wasn't very well signposted, which was the cause of us not realising when we had made it to our intended destination of Harvey pass. All we could see was a path that continued up the mountain, and it was a while later that we realised we were actually heading all the way up towards the summit of Mount Borgeau. This was a walk that, at times, made us feel like we were the only two people left on the planet as we struggled up a mountain ridge in the strong winds with only the Massive mountain range visible way out into the distance in every direction. It was also physically the most demanding, calculating afterwards it was a 25km round trip with a 1.4 km vertical climb thrown for good measure.

The hiking we did in the Banff region was at least on par with the very best we've seen so far, we don't agree on our favourite when we compare it to Switzerland. Banff National Park should be high up on any hiker's list of must sees.