Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Rockies, typified by holes aligned with distant mountains, elevated tee boxes, and fairways
following natural contours of the land. (As most of Thompson's work was in Canada, he
is still little known in the United States.)
The golfing season is fairly short, May-early October, depending on snow cover. (The
golf courses at Radium Hot Springs and Golden are the first to open each spring.) But with
the long days of summer, there's plenty of time for golfing. Greens fees range from $15 at
the historic nine-hole Nordegg Golf Course to $225 for 18 holes at the Banff course. The
greens fee at Kananaskis Country Golf Course ($100) is also worth noting: It is regularly
featured in Golf Digest as North America's best-value course. At the resort courses, greens
fees usually include the use of practice facilities and a cart (complete with global position-
ing system at Silvertip). The sport's popularity in the mountains is such that tee times need
to booked well in advance—up to a month for preferred times at some courses.
The Courses
The jewel in the golfing crown is the Banff Springs Golf Course, a 27-hole layout that
graces the grounds of the Fairmont Banff Springs and is rated one of the world's most scen-
ic courses. The Jasper Park Lodge Golf Course, a challenging par-73 course surrounded
by spectacular mountain scenery, is of the same high standard. The Kananaskis Coun-
try Golf Course, a 36-hole, Robert Trent Jones Sr.-designed course built in the 1980s at
a cost of $1 million per hole, was the first of the resort-style courses built in the Canadi-
an Rockies. At Canmore, Silvertip set a new standard in golf course difficulty in Canada
when it opened in 1998. It promotes itself as an extreme experience, and it is: 7,300 yards
long, with elevation changes up to 40 meters (130 feet) on any one hole, and a slope rat-
ing of 153—the highest of any Canadian course. Across the valley from Silvertip, Stewart
Creek opened in the summer of 2000, bringing the total number of courses in Canmore to
three. Other resort courses are Radium Resort (36 holes), at Radium Hot Springs; Grey-
wolf, at Panorama Mountain Village; and Wintergreen, at Bragg Creek; while the towns
of Canmore and Golden offer excellent 18-hole public layouts, as does Waterton Lakes
National Park.
ON THE WATER
Canoeing
This traditional form of Canadian transportation is a great way to explore the waterways of
the mountains that are otherwise inaccessible—places such as Vermilion Lakes in Banff
National Park, where beavers, elk, and a great variety of birds can be appreciated from wa-
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