Winter Activities In Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Ride The Banff Gondola

This is an activity you should wait to book until you can look at an accurate weather forecast. There would be absolutely no view if it were cloudy! If the weather is good it provides stunning 360 degree views of the snowy Canadian Rockies!

Hike Through Johnston Canyon

Johnston Canyon is always on everyone's Banff checklist, but I think it's prettiest in winter! Make sure you bring crampons for this trail. We saw people attempting it without them and it looked miserable! There are several stores downtown that rent them if you don't have your own.

Visit The Park's Lakes (here are a few of our favorites):

Peyto Lake

Peyto Lake is stunning all times of the year, but there is something magical about the snowy trail leading up to the viewing platform. As a southern United States resident, the Peyto Lake platform gave me some prospective on just how much snow that area receives! This trail is pretty popular, but winter keeps the crowds reasonably at bay.

Lake Minnewanka & Two Jack Lake

Lake Minnewanka

Two Jack Lake

These two lakes are practically right next to each other. When we visited there was no one else around so we had the views entirely to ourselves!

Ice Skate On Lake Louise - This is something I have yet to do! Nature has not been kind to me on the freeze timing of the lake. If you want to make sure you can skate, it is pretty much guaranteed mid-December through mid-March.

If you are willing to venture slightly outside of Banff National Park to Kananaskis Country (near Canmore), we have experienced a couple very fun winter activities in that area:

Hike To Ha Ling Peak

This hike was pretty intense, but the views were amazing! We gained around 2700 feet of elevation in just a few miles, and crampons were necessary for a number of sections (we wore them the whole time).