Banff National Park in the context of "Kananaskis Country"

A mountain resort is a place to holiday or vacation located in an elevated and typically at least relatively isolated area. The term resort implies integral hotel or inn accommodations, restaurants, and either or both sports facilities or scenic attractions like birdwatching. These can be part of a "destination resort" that provides accommodations and activities or a "resort town" that offers amenities near outdoor areas.

They include winter sports like skiing, snowboarding, and ice skating and summer activities such as hiking, golf, and tennis. Sightseeing and related activities, such as leaf peeping to appreciate fall colors, are also common where foliage turns.

The White Goat Wilderness Area is a provincially designated wilderness area in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta. It was established in 1961 and it, as one of the three wilderness areas of Alberta, has the strictest form of government protection available in Canada. All development is forbidden and only travel by foot is permitted. Hunting and fishing are not allowed. The other two wilderness areas are Ghost River Wilderness Area and Siffleur Wilderness Area and together the three areas total 249,548.80 acres (100,988.82 ha).

White Goat is located near the west end and north side of Canadian Highway 11 and slightly north of the Siffleur Wilderness area. It is near the north end of Banff National Park, the south end of Jasper National Park, and east of the Columbia Icefield. Mountains rise to over 3,300 metres (10,800 ft). The area has rugged mountains, glacier-carved valleys, mountain lakes, waterfalls, and alpine meadows. There are two distinct vegetation zones. Above 2,100 metres (6,900 ft), the tree line, are grasses, sedges and wildflowers. Below that are spruce, fir, and lodgepole pine. Animals in the lower regions include woodland caribou, moose, elk, white-tailed deer, mule deer, grizzly bear, black bear, cougar, coyote, timber wolf, and wolverine. Animals in the upper regions include golden-mantled ground squirrels, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, hoary marmot, pika, white-tailed ptarmigan, grey-crowned rosy finch, water pipit and horned lark. Eagles are seen in both the lower and upper regions.

The headwaters of the Bow River in Alberta, Canada, start at the Bow Glacier and Bow Lake in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The glacial stream that feeds Bow Lake has a mean elevation of 2310 metres above sea level (7578 feet above sea level). From there, the river winds through the Alberta foothills onto the prairies, where it meets the Oldman River, the two then forming the South Saskatchewan River. These waters ultimately flow through the Nelson River into Hudson Bay.

The Bow River Basin is the most highly populated basin in Alberta, with over 1.6 million people living within the watershed. Major population centres along the Bow River, listed from upstream to downstream, include Lake Louise (population 1,004), Banff (population 10,944), Canmore (population 17,200), Cochrane (population 38,014), and Calgary (population 1,481,806).

The Fairmont Banff Springs, formerly and commonly known as the Banff Springs Hotel, is a historic hotel in western Canada, located in Banff, Alberta. The entire town, including the hotel, is situated in Banff National Park, a national park managed by Parks Canada. At an elevation of 1,414 metres (4,640 ft) above sea level, the hotel overlooks a valley towards Mount Rundle, both of which are situated within the Rocky Mountain mountain range.

Opened in 1888 by the Canadian Pacific Railway, it is one of the earliest of Canada's grand railway hotels. The original five-storey wooden hotel was designed by Bruce Price and was able to accommodate 280 guests. With expansions, the original structure became the North Wing, which was eventually destroyed by fire in April 1926.

Canmore is a town in Alberta, Canada, located approximately 81 kilometres (50 mi) west of Calgary near the southeast boundary of Banff National Park. It is located in the Bow Valley within Alberta's Rocky Mountains. The town shares a border with Kananaskis Country to the west and south and the Municipal District of Bighorn No. 8 to the north and east. With a population of 17,036 in 2023, Canmore is the fifth-largest town in Alberta.

Lake Louise (named Ho-run-num-nay (Lake of the Little Fishes) by the Stoney Nakoda First Nations people) is a glacial lake within Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. Situated 11 km (6.8 mi) east of the border with British Columbia, Lake Louise is located 5 km (3.1 mi) west of the community of Lake Louise and the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1).

Lake Louise was well known and visited by Indigenous Peoples prior to the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway survey crews in the 1880s. Thomas Edmonds Wilson was the first non-Indigenous person to visit the lake, having been led there by a Stoney Nakoda guide named Edwin Hunter in 1882. Wilson named the lake "Emerald Lake" and promoted it as a development opportunity, although the lake was later renamed to Lake Louise.

Moraine Lake is a snow and glacially fed alpine lake in Banff National Park, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) outside the village of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. It is situated in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, at an elevation of approximately 1,884 metres (6,181 ft). The lake has a surface area of 50 hectares (120 acres).

The lake, being fed almost completely by snow-melt and glacial-melt, does not reach its crest until middle to late June. When it is full, it reflects a distinctive shade of azure blue. The unique colour is due to the refraction of the blue end of the spectrum of sunlight off the rock sediment deposited in the lake on a continual basis in summer by the surrounding glaciers. The lake is completely created by nature and has not been dammed, drained, or otherwise altered by humans in any way, other than the visitor services which are strictly controlled by the National Park.

Peyto Lake (/ˈpiːtoʊ/ PEE-toh) is a glacier-fed lake in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. The lake is near the Icefields Parkway. It was named for Bill Peyto, an early trail guide and trapper in the Banff area.

The lake is formed in a valley of the Waputik Range, between Caldron Peak, Peyto Peak and Mount Jimmy Simpson, at an elevation of 1,860 m (6,100 ft).