The Banff Airporter shuttle runs a handful of daily departures from Calgary International Airport, and the ride to town takes roughly 90 minutes over about 128 km of Highway 1, with fares generally running CAD 60-70 one way (2024/2025 pricing). I'd booked a room at Buffalo Mountain Lodge, a timber-and-stone property tucked against Tunnel Mountain about a 12-minute walk from downtown, and the front desk had a fire going in the lobby when I checked in around 6 p.m.

I didn't unpack. I just walked. Banff Avenue at dusk in September has a small-mountain-town energy — outfitters closing up, the smell of woodsmoke from someone's patio, elk sometimes grazing on the golf course by the Bow River bridge. Dinner was at Park Distillery, a lively spot on Banff Avenue that distills its own gin and rye on-site; the bison chili and a flight of their spirits (about CAD 18-22 for a tasting) made a fitting first meal after a long travel day.

I rode the Banff Gondola up Sulphur Mountain first thing, before the midday queues formed. The ride itself takes about 8 minutes each way, and adult tickets run roughly CAD 56-64 (2024 rates); I'd recommend booking the earliest available slot online to skip the line at the base station. At the top, a boardwalk leads out to Sanson's Peak and a decommissioned weather observatory, with the Bow Valley unspooling in every direction — on a clear morning you can pick out Lake Minnewanka to the east.

Back down at the base of Sulphur Mountain, I soaked at the Banff Upper Hot Springs, a mineral pool that's been in continuous use since the 1930s, open year-round with a soak costing roughly CAD 8-10 for a day pass. In the afternoon I walked the easy Bow Falls Trail from the Fairmont Banff Springs down to the falls themselves — about a 1 km stroll each way — before wandering over to the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, where Banff's first hot spring discovery in 1883 essentially created the town.

This was the day I'd been most anxious about, because both Lake Louise and Moraine Lake close their parking lots by mid-morning in summer and early fall. Parks Canada now runs a shuttle system from the Lake Louise Ski Resort park-and-ride, and reservations for the July-through-early-October season fill up fast, so I'd booked mine three weeks out for around CAD 8 per person round trip. We caught the 6:15 a.m. departure and had Moraine Lake's shoreline almost to ourselves for nearly an hour before the first big groups arrived.

The color of Moraine Lake at that hour is genuinely startling — a milky, saturated turquoise from glacial rock flour suspended in the water, with the Valley of the Ten Peaks stacked up behind it. We walked the Lakeshore Trail, an easy out-and-back of about 3 km, then took the shuttle onward to Lake Louise itself, where I rented a canoe from the boathouse in front of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise for about CAD 145-165 an hour (2024 season rates) and paddled out toward the glacier at the lake's far end.

Johnston Canyon sits about a 25-minute drive northwest of Banff along the Bow Valley Parkway, and the trail is one of the most popular in the park for good reason. Catwalks bolted into the canyon walls lead past the Lower Falls at 1.1 km (about 20-30 minutes each way) and on to the Upper Falls another 1.6 km beyond, with spray from the falls hanging in the air even in September's cooler weather.

Most day-trippers turn back at the Upper Falls, but the trail continues another 3 km through quieter forest to the Ink Pots, a set of cold mineral springs that bubble up an odd blue-green from the valley floor. The full round trip runs close to 11.6 km and took us about 4 hours at an easy pace, including a long lunch stop with sandwiches from Wild Flour Bakery on Buffalo Street back in town, which we'd picked up before driving out.

After four active days, I built in a slower one. We were up before dawn to drive the short Vermilion Lakes Drive, a roughly 4 km loop just west of downtown Banff, arriving as the sun cleared the Fairholme Range around 6:45 a.m. in early September. A pair of elk were grazing at the water's edge, and the reflection of Mount Rundle on the still lake was worth the early alarm on its own.

The rest of the day stayed close to town. I spent an hour at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies on Bear Street, which does a good job tracing the valley's mountaineering and railway history, then rented a bike from one of the shops on Bear Street to ride the Banff Legacy Trail — a paved, mostly flat route that runs about 26 km one-way toward Canmore, though I only rode a gentler stretch out and back.