Roaming the Rockies With Campgrounds

Fifteen nights on the operator’s flagship Rockies route, sold in the version where the campsites are already booked. That is the whole difference, and in July and August it matters more than almost anything else in the package.

What the paid-up version adds is three things: every pitch reserved in advance, a curated roadbook with the driving and the stops laid out, and a Parks Canada Discovery Pass, which covers entry to the national parks on the route and would otherwise be bought at the gate.

The itinerary itself is unchanged. Calgary to Kananaskis, then two full days in Banff with the Sulphur Mountain gondola, Bow Falls, a Lake Minnewanka cruise and the Upper Hot Springs, open to bathers since 1886. The Bow Valley Parkway leads into Yoho for Takakkaw Falls and Emerald Lake.

The Icefields Parkway then runs north to Jasper, taking in the Columbia Icefield, where an Ice Explorer drives out onto the Athabasca Glacier, and the Glacier Skywalk hanging over the Sunwapta valley. Jasper gives the Maligne Lake cruise out to Spirit Island, and the return goes by Mount Edith Cavell to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake in the Valley of the Ten Peaks. Canadian Affair include the flights, the motorhome, the campgrounds, the roadbook, the parks pass and the listed attractions, with fuel, insurance and meals separate. The price is per person. Against the self-arranged version, the question is simply whether improvising pitches in peak season sounds like part of the holiday or the opposite. For a first trip to the Rockies, the booked version removes the one thing that reliably goes wrong.