Musical campsites

©2013 Lydia Hinshaw

The Magic Bus at Tunnel Mountain in Banff

 LAKE LOUISE, AB -- We’re willing to put up with a lot in order to spend time in the Canadian Rockies, and that’s a good thing.

 Since we wound up leaving Glacier about 10 days early, we were unable to make any campground reservations here.  We had originally planned to be here after Labor Day, when reservations aren’t so critical.

 Still, a certain percentage of campsites are non-reservable, and available on a first-come, first served basis.  Getting one, however, can be a lot of work, and a good chunk of time must be spent each day in securing lodgings for the night. 

 We got into Banff’s Tunnel Mountain Campground Wednesday with no difficulty.  It’s a huge campground, with absolutely no soul.  We were parallel parked in a line of trailers and motor homes with a picnic table and a small square of grass to our right.

 We stayed here mainly to do some shopping, banking and other errands in Canmore and Banff, because of the services available here that won’t be so easy to access as we travel farther north.

 Thursday we arrived by 8:30 at the Lake Louise Campground, which is one of our favorites.  A nice young man told us to come back at 10.  When we came back at 10, he asked us to come back again later.

 First-come, first-served amounts to a lottery.  You’re there at the gate, and there’s nothing available, and the employee sends you on your way.  Five minutes later, another customer is at the gate, a site comes open in the computer and that customer gets the site.  Or at least that’s how it seemed to work.

 Anyhow, on our third trip, two hours after our first visit, we finally got a site, but just for one night, not the three we were hoping for.  This meant that instead of going hiking early Friday, we had to do the same dance again.  This time we were lucky and got a site before 9 a.m., and all we had to do was move to it.  And of course it is only available for one night.

 So we face another day of this, or we can head north and take our chances elsewhere.