Visiting Banff Gondola, Sulphur Mountain, Hoodoo and Banff Town

The Banff Gondola is one of the best things to do in Banff, taking visitors to the top of Sulphur Mountain for extraordinary summit views without effort. In this video, Dr. David Zhang provides tips and a visual guide for the gondola, the Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station, Bow Falls, Surprise Corner, Hoodoos, and Banff Town itself.

Gondola Tips

Ticket prices online are lower than at the window. However, this means buying in advance without knowing the weather. Refunds or date changes require at least 48 hours notice. If you hike up the Sulphur Mountain trail, you can buy a half-price one-way ticket down. Note: you cannot buy a one-way ticket going up.

Sulphur Mountain Summit

The summit features a boardwalk, the historic Cosmic Ray Station, and an interactive Interpretive Centre with a short educational video. On clear days, the 360-degree views of the Canadian Rockies are spectacular.

Other Nearby Attractions

Bow Falls is a short drive from Banff Town and provides picturesque waterfall views. Surprise Corner offers a dramatic viewpoint of the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel framed by mountains. The Hoodoos are rock formations created by erosion, resulting in spires that shoot from the ground in fascinating shapes. Wildlife crossings (overpasses) along the highway are unique engineering features worth noting.

For more travel content, check out Dubrovnik, Croatia and Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. For travel preparation, see internet access tips when traveling to Europe.

Getting to the Banff Gondola

If you’re staying in Banff, there are a lot of places to see within an easy drive. One of the most popular is the Banff Gondola, which goes up Sulphur Mountain, taking you from the bottom up to a height of about 7,500 feet above sea level. If you don’t have your own car to get there, there are also free shuttles running much of the year from Banff Town. The gondola takes eight minutes to ascend. It’s quite steep and you have some amazing views as you go up and down — as long as you dare to look out.

If you feel like hiking up the mountain, which some people do, you can hike up and then take the gondola down if you want. It is possible to buy half-price tickets to ride the gondola down. It is apparently not possible to buy half-price tickets to ride the gondola up and then walk down.

Weather and Ticket Flexibility

The day we were up there, we do need to point out — and you can see here — that it was extremely foggy. The fog moved in and out quickly, but basically it was pretty much fogged in almost all the time. So we really didn’t get to see very much in terms of the amazing views.

You might want to keep in mind that if you are able to predict the weather, or you’re keeping an eye on the forecast and they are predicting for sure that it’s going to be rainy or foggy, you can cancel your tickets. They are refundable up until about 48 hours in advance.

The Summit Boardwalk and Terminal Building

One thing you can do at the top, regardless of the weather, is walk along the boardwalk, which goes from the gondola terminal at the top to the Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station. It’s pretty easy walking as long as you can manage some steps. And again, if the weather were clear, the views would be amazing. The observation deck is located at the Cosmic Ray Station.

If you have some extra time before you get on the gondola for the ride back down, the terminal building has various observation decks, an interpretive center with short informational videos, and restaurants.

We’re told that sometimes you can see wildlife as you’re riding the gondola or as you walk along the boardwalk. We were not so fortunate, except for the many chipmunks scurrying around.

Bow Falls and Surprise Corner

Another fun destination is Bow Falls. You can actually walk there from town in about a half hour or so. It’s not a huge waterfall — it is about nine meters high and rather wide. There are people who like to go canoeing or kayaking on the river below the falls, not above the falls.

Another spot not far away from Bow Falls is called Surprise Corner Viewpoint. You come up to this corner, you pull off, there’s a small parking lot, and as you look across the river — because you’re pretty high — you look across and there is the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. It’s quite a large and impressive building, and Sulphur Mountain is in the background, at least on clear days.

The Hoodoo Lookout and a Park Service Encounter

From Surprise Corner, you might want to go on to the Hoodoo Lookout. What is a hoodoo? A hoodoo is a rock formation — a spire that shoots directly out from the ground and creates a rather interesting shape. It’s a natural rock formation that exists in some places, created by erosion and weathering. There are signboards there explaining them a little bit better.

While we were at the Hoodoo Lookout, we ran into a couple of people working for the park service who were carrying around skulls of bighorn sheep and, I think, mountain goats. We were allowed to not only touch them but also to give them a heft, and we discovered just how heavy a bighorn sheep skull was with those horns. One of the park staff clarified: “I thought one is male, one is female — that’s why we bring that.” So this is a male bighorn sheep and this is a male mountain goat. The mountain goat: all white, shaggy white fur, really bright white. The bighorn sheep: kind of a sandy beige.

Banff Town, Castle Mountain, and Wildlife Crossings

This is a view looking down over the town of Banff. Something you can do, maybe in the evening, is go stroll around the town. It’s a fairly typical tourist town with lots of little gift shops, souvenir shops, restaurants, and cafes. We ourselves stopped to get some ice cream at a very popular shop with some very interestingly named flavors.

Castle Mountain is approximately halfway between Banff and Lake Louise when you drive the Trans-Canada Highway. It has steep, continuous cliff-line runs and was named for its castle-like appearance.

Along the road, we also got to see the wildlife overpasses that this region is famous for. There are also a lot of underpasses for wildlife, but because wildlife won’t go under the road on demand, we didn’t see those in action.

If you’re staying in Banff, most popular for a day trip is probably Lake Louise, which is about 55 kilometers or 35 miles to the north. And if you want to go further than that, you can get to some of the other lakes and glaciers shown on the map and covered in additional videos.