The Fairmont Banff Springs & Tunnel Mountain Campground

July 7, 2007.

We are staying in the Tunnel Mountain National Park Campground in Banff, Alberta. Tunnel Mountain Campground offers no hookups, electricity only and full hookups. We are in one of the $29.70 electricity only sites. I do not know what FHU or no hookups cost but they are all in the same area. All sites are paved.

The Fairmont Banff Springs

While staying in Banff one simply must drive across the river and visit Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. We didn't stop and tour the inside this time. As you can see it is getting dark by the time we dropped by. We do like to stop by and have lunch however, when time permits.

This hotel was constructed for the VIEW out the back windows.

Bow River Falls at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

This is the Bow River as it flows past the back side of that Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

There is a nice public walkway that follows the river.

Thousands of people park in the public parking lot at the falls and walk the river.

Bow River downstream of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

This is looking down river from just below the falls on the Bow River. This is the view that guest of the Fairmont Banff Springs get only they are much higher up.

The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

This is a picture of the back side of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

Another picture of the back side of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Large buck strolling through Tunnel Mountain Campground

This buck leisurely wandered through the Tunnel Mountain Campground several times during our stay, much to the delight of campground residents.

Tunnel Mountain in Banff

This is Tunnel Mountain that the campground, we are staying in, is named for. But there is no tunnel, what gives? It seems that the original survey for the railroad provided for a tunnel through this small mountain which appeared to obstruct the Bow Valley. A subsequent survey rerouted the railway to the north, thus the need for the tunnel was eliminated. Although the surveying was completed in 1882, the name "Tunnel Mountain" remains to this day. The railroad played a large part in the history of this area as the name of this mountain attests.

What did this place look like 350 million years ago? One clue there were no mountains here. A warm, shallow sea teeming with aquatic life covered this region. Tiny crystals of lime produced by floating plankton, the remains of sea creatures, and sediments eroding from the distant mainland accumulated on the seabed. Over millions of years these layers grew to be thousands of feet thick. Pressure, heat, and chemical reactions eventually hardened the layers into limestone and shale.

Between 175 million years ago and continuing for 130 million years, North America drifted westward, colliding with chains of islands moving toward it from the Pacific. The collision caused the horizontal laying rock layers created at the bottom of that ancient sea to slowly crumple into huge accoridon-like folds, and fracture into great slabs that stacked upward and eastward somewhat like shingles on a roof. By the end of this process, some 60 million years ago, the seabed had been thrust into high mountains. This explains why it is possible to find fossils of ancient sea creatures on the slopes of these mountains.

When this was taking place the Banff area lay near the western edge of the North American continental plate. As we all know this area in now well inland.

Bow River and Banff Springs Geology

While Tunnel Mountain is tilted it is not tilted at nearly the angle some of the mountains are this picture of rocks near the Bow River Falls at Banff Springs Hotel shows that some were thrust into 50-degree angles.

Mount Rundle north of Banff, Alberta

Mount Rundle, a few miles north of Banff, is probably one of the most photographed examples of how these sedimentary layers have been thrusted upward. This is part of the "front range" of the Rocky Mountains.

View leaving Banff

When leaving Banff on Banff Avenue this is the scene as you approach the Trans Canada Highway PH 1. That small waterfall is crashing down hundreds of feet from the top of this imposing mountain.

View on PH 1 north of Banff

This is the view heading north out of Banff on Trans Canada PH 1 on the way to Lake Louise.