Beautiful Canmore

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Beautiful Canmore

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Local Canmore insiders sharing hiking tips, hidden gems & stunning mountain photography.

We’re a Canmore-based couple (plus one opinionated Pomsky) sharing insider tips, local favourites, and stunning photography of our favourite mountain town. Whether you're planning your first visit or your fifteenth, we’ll help you hike smarter, eat better, and explore like a local.

10/11/2026

Well, autumn was lovely while it lasted. 😂❄️
Our first snow of the season arrived in the Bow Valley just in time for Thanksgiving — but thankfully, it hasn't quite chased autumn away yet.
I love this brief overlap when the aspens and larches are still glowing gold and everything gets dusted in fresh snow. Autumn colours peeking through a snowy forest might just be one of my favourite combinations.
Happy Thanksgiving from Canmore! 🍂❄️🧡

10/10/2026

Lake Louise really does look like this. 💙

It may be one of the most photographed places in the Canadian Rockies, but there’s a reason for that. The turquoise water, Victoria Glacier and mountains rising around the lake make this one of those places that can still stop you in your tracks — even when you’ve seen the pictures a hundred times.

But there’s much more to Lake Louise than taking the classic photo from in front of the Fairmont.

Walk the lakeshore for changing views of the mountains and glacier, rent a canoe for a completely different perspective, or make Lake Louise the starting point for one of the area’s beautiful hikes. And if you visit in fall, the surrounding trails are also home to some spectacular larch colour.

One thing that does take a little planning: getting here. Parking at Lake Louise is limited and busy, and Parks Canada shuttles are often the easiest option during peak season.

I’ve put together my complete guide to visiting Lake Louise — including what to do, hikes, canoeing, when to visit and how to get there:

👉 https://beautifulcanmore.com/lake-louise/

Have you been to Lake Louise — and did it live up to the photographs?

10/09/2026

🏔️ Canmore or Banff — which mountain town would you choose?

I live in Canmore, so you might think you know my answer. 😉

Over the years, we've had quite a few friends and family come to visit, and many of them have ended up preferring Canmore. They love the quieter downtown, the mountain views, the restaurants and the fact that it feels a little less hectic.

But my friend Lana surprised me on her recent visit.

She really enjoyed downtown Banff.

The bustling streets, the shops, the historic buildings, the mountains looming at the end of Banff Avenue — it was exactly what she'd imagined a Canadian Rockies mountain town would feel like.

And it reminded me that there really isn't one right answer.

Banff has the energy and excitement of an international mountain destination. Canmore has a quieter, more lived-in feel. They're only about 20 minutes apart, but they offer surprisingly different experiences.

If you're trying to decide where to stay, I've compared the two — including scenery, restaurants, things to do, crowds, cost, parking and transportation — in my guide:

👉 Canmore vs. Banff: Which Mountain Town Is Right for You?
https://beautifulcanmore.com/canmore-vs-banff-which-mountain-town-wins/

Now I'm curious: if you've spent time in both, are you Team Canmore or Team Banff? 😄

10/06/2026

💎 Want to see Emerald Lake at its most turquoise? Try getting a little higher.

We discovered a new-to-us viewpoint on our latest visit — and it’s surprisingly easy to miss.

As you walk the lakeshore, look for the signed avalanche zone. Because avalanches prevent mature trees from becoming established here, the open slope provides an unusual opportunity to get above the lake.

In summer, you can walk a short way up the open hillside for a beautiful elevated perspective. One of the bonuses of gaining a little height is that the lake’s turquoise colour becomes much more obvious than it can be from water level, where reflections from the sky and surrounding mountains often dominate the surface.

The view changes remarkably quickly with just a little elevation — and you get a completely different perspective from the familiar views near the bridge.

⚠️ This is a summer-only suggestion — do not enter avalanche terrain when snow is present.

Emerald Lake is gorgeous from the bridge, of course, but one of my favourite things about it is how different it looks once you start exploring beyond that familiar view. If you have time, don't just take the photo and leave — walk at least part of the lakeshore and see what else you find.

Have you ever walked around Emerald Lake, or have you only seen it from the main viewpoint?

10/03/2026

The best souvenirs aren’t always the ones that say where you’ve been.

At the end of my friend Lana’s week in the Rockies, she bought a Jason Carter print of a moose, bear and other animals piled into a bright red canoe on Emerald Lake.

She told me afterward that it somehow captured the whole trip for her: the mountains, the canoes on those impossibly coloured lakes, the wildlife, and especially the bright, happy feeling of the week.

I loved that.

A good souvenir isn’t really about bringing home a picture of a place. It’s about finding something that brings back how the place made you feel.

And now every time she looks at that wonderfully cheerful red canoe, she gets a little piece of her Rocky Mountain week back. ❤️

Do you have a souvenir from a trip that means more to you than you expected it would?

10/02/2026

Sometimes you just get lucky in the mountains. 💙

We arrived at Moraine Lake under low cloud, with much of the Valley of the Ten Peaks hidden from view. And then, almost as if someone had timed it for us, the clouds began to lift.

Patches of blue appeared. The peaks emerged one by one. Sunlight hit the water and suddenly that famous turquoise absolutely glowed — while wisps of cloud were still drifting through the mountains.

I've been to Moraine Lake many times, but I think this was the most beautiful I've ever seen it.

Swipe through the photos and you can watch the morning change. The whole transformation happened while we were there.

It's also a good reminder not to write off a mountain day because the weather doesn't look perfect. Sometimes the in-between conditions are far more interesting than a completely clear sky.

And this visit had another first for me: I wasn't able to get Parks Canada shuttle tickets, so we tried a private shuttle instead. I'll share how that experience compared in another post, because it turned out to be a very useful Plan B.

📍 Moraine Lake, Banff National Park

09/29/2026

What happens when you can't get a Parks Canada shuttle ticket to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise?

That happened to me for the first time this year.

When a friend was visiting, I tried to book the Parks Canada shuttle for a day at both lakes — and struck out. So we went looking for Plan B, and ended up booking with Fairview Limousine.

It wasn't the cheapest private option I found, but it still had availability when some of the others didn't — and, most importantly, it got us exactly where we wanted to go. Everything ran smoothly.

The setup is a little different from Parks Canada. Fairview departs from the Lake Louise Inn, rather than the Parks Canada Park & Ride at the Lake Louise Ski Resort. We parked at the Inn, took our first shuttle to Moraine Lake, caught a connector from there to Lake Louise, and then took another shuttle back to the Inn.

One thing to know: you're booking specific times for the different legs, so you need to decide in advance roughly how long you want at each lake. Fairview does allow you to stand by for an earlier return if there's room, but your booked times are what you can count on.

My take after using it? It's more transportation than tour. I didn't get as much commentary along the way as I've experienced with the Moraine Lake Bus Company, and it cost considerably more than the Parks Canada shuttle. But the vehicles got us there comfortably and on schedule, the connections worked, and it was available when the Parks Canada shuttle wasn't.

Given the day we ended up having at Moraine Lake, I'm certainly not complaining. 😄

So if the Parks Canada shuttle is sold out for your dates, don't assume you've missed your chance to visit. There are private shuttle options too — and this is one I've now tried myself.

🔗 I'll put the Fairview shuttle information in the comments.

09/28/2026

Sometimes the best sunsets last less than a minute.
Tonight, Rundle was already dark and silhouetted against the sky when the last light caught these wispy clouds overhead.
I loved the contrast — dark, jagged mountains below and these soft, delicate streaks of light above.
One of those fleeting Canmore moments when you’re very glad you happened to be looking in the right direction.
📍 Mount Rundle, Canmore

09/26/2026

🦌 Sometimes a rainy day delivers its own kind of magic.

While my friend was visiting last week, we came across this herd of elk grazing beneath the misty mountains. I hopped out with my camera and managed to capture them against this wonderfully moody backdrop.

It's rutting season in the Rockies right now, which means there's something important to remember if you're lucky enough to encounter elk:

Give them lots of space.

The bull was nearby with this harem, although he didn't make it into my photo. During the fall rut, bull elk can be particularly aggressive and unpredictable, especially when they're protecting females.

Enjoy the sight, take your photos with a long lens, and never approach an elk for a closer shot. If an animal changes its behaviour because of your presence, you're too close.

We stayed well back and simply enjoyed watching the herd graze against the mountains.

Not a bad reward for heading out on a rainy day. 💙

09/25/2026

💙 What makes a vacation restorative?

My friend Lana just spent a week with us in Canmore, and after she left, I asked her a few questions about how the trip had felt—not just what she'd enjoyed most.

One thing she said really stayed with me.

On the days when we drove to beautiful places and stopped at viewpoints, she sometimes felt like a tourist looking at the scenery.

But when we hiked, she didn't feel like she was just looking at the beauty anymore. She felt like she was part of it.

She told me that during her week here, her brain was quiet. She was completely disconnected from technology. Instead of thinking about everything waiting for her at home, she mostly found herself feeling excited about what we were going to do the next day.

We didn't try to cram everything into the week, either. We stopped when we were tired. We lingered over meals. On this hike at Ptarmigan Cirque, we sat among the rocks eating lunch for almost an hour simply because it was beautiful and nobody wanted to leave.

When I finally told her that I've been working on an article about how to plan a restorative week in the Canadian Rockies, she laughed and said restorative was exactly the word she'd use to describe her vacation.

I think there might be something to this. 😊

Sometimes the best vacation isn't the one where you manage to see everything.

Maybe it's the one where, for a little while, you stop thinking about everything else. 🏔️💙

Address

Vermillion Lakes Dr
Banff, AB

Website

https://beautifulcanmore.com/

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