Camping In Banff National Park | Lake Louise, Hot Springs & Crazy Wildlife!

Matt and Emily here, this is Where's Wiseman. And we are currently in the middle of a long road trip through the Canadian Rockies and in this video we're going to be exploring Banff National Park. Lake Louise is right behind us. And in our last video we explored Kimberly BC and the surrounding areas. If you haven't seen that video check it out. During our week-long road trip through the Canadian Rockies we'll be exploring Banff and Jasper National Parks and the many amazing sites along the Icefields Parkway. We left our campground in Kimberly BC bright and early and headed north towards Radium Hot Springs for a quick stop before heading on to Banff. How many bears do you think we're going to see on this trip? I don't know we haven't seen any yet. We're on day three. What last time we saw one? When we were this deep in Canada. Yeah it was a different time of year right? Yeah yeah. I thought we'd see a lot more but I don't know. Early in the year bears are uh still getting settled in uh getting ready for summer. You know you gotta clean out the den, you gotta do the laundry, eat some big meals. I think we'll see. I'm being very optimistic. I think we'll see three bears. Oh oh that's optimistic. I was gonna say two and I was gonna be conservative. So we don't have a lot of room for error there. Uh deer? I mean we've already seen a shitload of deer. You guys guess how many deer we've seen already put it in the comments. Yeah at this point. We've been here three this is our day three. We're on the road headed to Radium Hot Springs and then on to Banff and we pulled off at a Apparently this is the source of the Columbia River in Washington that empties out into the Pacific Ocean in Astoria, Oregon. Pretty cool. Had no idea and we just decided to pull over. You know what's crazy is we're gonna see some of this water in a couple weeks in Astoria, Oregon. And we're gonna see the Columbia Glacier. Yeah. Probably where this started anyway. Pretty dang cool. Yeah. Made another pit stop. We saw a sign flashing for bighorn sheep that were sighted in the area and we could see them up on a hill and there's a pull off right here so pretty exciting. There's a herd I think there's maybe seven or eight not quite sure. Kootenay National Park just outside of the town of Radium Hot Springs. These odorless natural mineral hot springs are tucked beneath the vibrant rock cliffs of Sinclair Canyon. The water temperature ranges between 98 and 104 Fahrenheit and they offer an expansive hot pool as well as a colder swimming pool. This was the perfect stop for us to relax and grab a shower. Really nice stop. Yeah it's uh getting busy. I think we got out just in time but uh yeah we thought it'd be hotter. It says 102. Definitely was not 102. I don't know 97, 98. But maybe it's hotter at times there were hot spots in there. Yeah uh nice spot to shower, relax, get some mineral water. It doesn't stink. It's not stinky water. No sulfur. No sulfur. So that's nice. The drive through Kootenay National Park to Banff National Park was so scenic with towering snow-capped mountains and glacier carved valleys all around. We can't believe this area isn't talked about more and we need to come back to explore. We're camping for two nights at the Two Jack Lakeside Campground which is about 15 minutes outside of the town of Banff. Camp sites within Banff and Jasper National Parks go incredibly fast once the reservation system opens for the season in January. We recommend booking the day reservations open up and being patient while waiting in line with 50,000 other people. No joke. All right we are checked into Two Jack Lakeside. It's pretty much all that was available when I booked a long time ago. But we were just informed that there's two resident bears that are in the neighborhood here. With a lot of sightings and apparently it's huge so cool. A large black bear which I mean whatever. We're in the Rockies man. Yeah. There's gonna be bears. They're just doing their own thing. We're gonna do our own thing. Probably shouldn't cook steaks tonight. That's a pretty lake. Oh my gosh. Look at this. Oh look at these spots. Here's our spot. These are cozy in here. Yeah. Made it. We've settled into camp for the most part. We got the slumberjack up. It's kind of raining on us just barely off and on. So we want to make sure we've got cover up. We're gonna have some neighbors. We've got one on that side. This is empty right now but maybe we'll have a neighbor. Maybe we won't because it's forecasted to rain for the next like three four days. So maybe we'll have some cancellations. We already asked if there were any lakefront spots that have come available because those are amazing. We'll show you that in just a minute here. Those are some cool spots. I think we're gonna wrap this up and head into Banff and check that out. So the nice thing about this campground is they provide you with firewood. Just haul it back to your camp. Hold strong little tailgate. There's a 37 inch tire, three gallons of fuel, 80 pounds of wood. Look at these lakeside campsites. Wow what a view. If you're lucky enough to get number 42 at Two Jack Lake, you should take it. Look at the color of that water. I don't know if that's coming across on camera but that is turquoise. Oh so stunning. It looks like there's a trail that runs around the lake. I'm sure at some point we will be walking some of that but oh my gosh wow. The mountains around here are just incredible. The town of Banff is flanked on all sides by the towering mountains of the Canadian Rockies and the streets of downtown are lined with shops and restaurants, art galleries, and museums. It's small and very walkable with Banff Avenue converted to a pedestrian zone during the summer months. There are so many things to see and do around Banff including the hot springs, Cave and Basin National Historic Site, riding the gondola, the many hiking and biking trails, and of course Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. Yeah where do you want to go? I think the Banff Brewing Company may or may not be right in front of us. How's the beer town? That may and will and does sound perfect. Sweet. Well here we are. Banff. I think we're gonna go with my new favorite TP over log cabin with our favorite fire starters that Emily now makes. Vaseline cotton ball covered with a piece of toilet paper so they're easy to grab. Turned into a nice fire again. Really nice. Yeah one swing. You can do it. What's that guy's name? Paul Bunyan. I was thinking like the brawny man. I was like that's not him. I know. Oh not a chance. That was solid. Wow. Not if I cut that other attempt out. Scrubber. Hold please. We don't got any bears so clean up all your meat and your grease. Okay we've got paper towel holder take seven and we finally just got one that will stick to the top of the camper. The suction cups if you saw that last version really didn't work so well so this one seems to be working great. We got to change the roll and done and we've got it positioned so that we can still close the galley. It'll hit right about here so we can close the Be sure to plan ahead for your visit to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. In the summer the Lake Louise Lakeshore parking lot fills up before sunrise and remains full until sunset and the Moraine Lake road is closed to personal vehicles so you must take a shuttle, hike, or ride a bike to access this iconic lake. Shuttles leave from the Lake Louise Ski Resort across the freeway from Lake Louise. While at the ski resort we definitely recommend taking a ride on the summer gondola up to the top of the mountain. The views are incredible. So we were very lucky and got a parking spot up here at the lot at Lake Louise. They also have shuttle. Just know you do have to pay to park here. Guess how much parking was? $18? $37. Holy I know. So yeah seems they're definitely trying to deter people from coming up here and just taking the shuttle. If we ever come again we'll probably just do that. I mean honestly we came to do Moraine Lake. Our original plan we actually had electric bikes rented ready to go today. Pick them up at nine. They cover, I think they said they cover 100 kilometers and it's only 20. So we were going to hit Moraine Lake, Lake Louise, maybe in the little town here. It was going to be great but the road to Moraine Lake is still closed. Well it's always closed for cars. Yeah but it reclosed to bike traffic. There's still snow and ice so we're just a little too early here in May and we figured get up here early enough we'd be able to get a spot. Worst case do a few laps or just take the shuttle but yeah. I think the shuttle actually leaves from the Lake Louise Ski Resort area which is on the other side of the freeway from Lake Louise. There's signs when you turn off for the if you're curious. I think that's where the shuttles actually depart from. Oh wow the lake is still frozen. No wonder the road's not open yet. There will be no canoeing on this trip either. Those do of Lake Louise. We've done a little bit of a hike around the lake. There are a couple of tea houses here that you can hike to. The hikes you can do them right now. The tea houses themselves I don't think open until maybe June so just if you're going to come here before June you definitely want to check all of the websites for all of the things that you want to do and times that they open. The canoes obviously are not you can't rent a canoe because there's still ice on the lake so just be mindful of the time of year that you come and what you want to do and just double check that it's going to be available for you. So I think after this we're going to head up to the Lake Louise ski area. There's actually a summer gondola there that you can take to the top of the lift that doesn't open until June as well. We did that last time though so we're okay to not do that but we're going to go check it out just check out the ski area we'll show you that area. Yeah so yeah overall we're a little early on things here trying to beat the rush but it's how it's pronounced. This is the largest lake in Banff National Park and we have found the first set or our first set of the red Adirondack chairs that they have around the park so pretty excited. Oh wow. through the Canadian Rockies. Make sure to subscribe and join us for our next video where we begin our drive on the beautiful Icefields Parkway and visit Jasper National Park.