If you love getting active outside in the winter surrounded by pristine wilderness and quiet whiteness, a winter vacation in the Canadian Rockies might be just your thing. Visiting 2 Canadian National Parks and experiencing outdoor fun like you never have before while you go cross-country skiing, dogsledding, fat tire biking, snowshoeing, and ice skating, this is a destination and an AdventureWomen winter trip beyond compare.
Here are 10 great reasons to visit the Canadian Rockies this winter:
1| It’s Magical! The light and glistening snow offer memorable moments.
Winter at Bow Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta Canadian Rockies (Photo Credit: https://www.marcadamus.com/photo/color-on-the-cold/)
2| What is Hoarfrost? Hoarfrost is a type of frost formed through water vapor crystallizing around objects. It can be found on leaves, sticks, buildings, or even eyelashes!
3| Nordic and Alpine events were held in the Canadian Rockies for the 1988 Winter Olympics.
4| You can still go biking in the winter! Fat Bikes are bikes that ‘float’ across surfaces where normal mountain bikes would sink. Fat bikes have very wide tires, which are pumped with very little air (low pressure) so that you can ride on the snow effortlessly.
5| The best time to star-gaze is in Winter. Besides the fact that there is a longer window to look up at the night sky, the air is less humid than in the summer, leading to less contamination. In addition, during winter months in the Northern Hemisphere the Earth is facing into the spiral arm of the Milky Way, away from the center of the galaxy. In the summer months the Earth is facing into the center of the Milky Way galaxy and you are looking towards the combined light of billions and billions of stars, which gives the sky a hazy quality.
Stars illuminated in crisp winter night sky.
6| The Icefields Parkway is a 140 mile scenic highway that parallels the Continental Divide travelling through Banff and Jasper National Parks. It is named for features such as the Colombia Icefield, which is the largest Icefield in the rocky mountains.
Scenic Views of the Icefields Parkway in winter, Banff National Park
7| The lowest temperature ever recorded was -63F on January 25, 1950.
8| The largest animal overpass and underpass system in the world exists in the Canadian Rockies! Wildlife vehicle collisions have been reduced by 80% since the overpass and underpass systems were created in Banff National Park. You’ll get to see them on our Canadian Rockies trips!
9| Canadians use both the metric and imperial system for measurements. In the mid-1970’s, the country changed over from using Imperial units to Metric units. Today, road signs are displayed in km/h and kilometers, temperature is read in Celsius, and gasoline is purchased in liters. However, the use of metric or imperial on a daily basis often depends on the generation and it isn’t unusual to hear both types of units being used in a conversation.
10| And did you know? The highest point of the Canadian Rockies is Mt. Robson at 12,972 ft.
