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
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.
