I went to Calgary fourteen years ago with my family. It was a trip that my sister and I infamously (in our house at least) didn't really want to go on, but then ended up enjoying tremendously. Enough so I ranked Calgary fairly high on my list of favorite US and Canadian cities. Fourteen years later, I went back, this time with a buddy, for an extended weekend (ironically, though missing Canada's National Heritage Day holiday this Monday). When I ranked Calgary, I openly said I had no idea if this was an accurate accounting - that it could end up like when I ranked Goa #6 on my favorite cities list after one perfect trip there. Unlike Goa, after visiting Calgary again, I think I may have underranked it the first time.
The closest comparison I can make is that it is a combination of Denver and Salt Lake City, taking the best aspects of both. I'll have a lot to talk about on Banff National Park, the best reason as a tourist to visit Alberta's capital. Banff is amazing, but even if you take away that stunning slice of Canadian Rocky Mountain beauty, Calgary is a fantastic city by itself.
The best aspect of Calgary may be how green and how much embraces the outdoors, despite it being riotously cold four to five months a year. I came during probably the hottest time of the year, and it was a clean, sunny, nearly cloud-less 75-80 degrees during the day, and 60-65 at night.
The city has green everywhere, including in rows of residential housing, nicely manicured lots and houses, just blocks away from the heart of the city. To me that is the biggest similarity with Salt Lake City, how small the city seems. How little traffic there ever was. How easily driveable and navigable the city is. Of course, Calgary is much larger than Salt Lake, housing ~1.3m people. Calgary is a truly beautiful city, even if I was a tad lucky with weather - as locals told me I missed a week of rain a week earlier.
The restaurants and bar scene in Calgary are well built - as they are in a lot of cities we now visit in North America. But what I loved about Calgary is how they embraced the outdoors. The best meal I had wass in the reputed Deane House restaurant to the East of the city, which had tons of outdoor seating near an old train line. They place was well manicured, and had a great tasting menu featuring Calgary beef in each course.
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Other meals were similarly fresh - one was at a really nice trendy spot right on 17th Avenue, the main entertainment drag of the city. Driving to the restaurant, we passed scores of bars and restaurants all with jam-packed patio seating on the street. It was joyful and far more crowded than I would have expected.
The bars were similarly good, with a burgenouning beer culture that has spread all throughout Canada, including a number of stouts. There was a great cocktail bar Milk Tiger that had fascinating bartenders whipping up interesting cocktails, all for far cheaper than you would get in New York, also without the crowds.
They also had one of the more generally pleasant clubs I've been too, small but not overcrowded (despite no real crowd control), cheap drinks (~$7 CAD), great music, good crowd, mix of folks. Everything about Calgary seemed just a real damn pleasant place to live - even for a 20-something.
Anyway, what really makes Calgary sing, as a tourist at least, is what is a few hours away. Banff National Park is now famous - too much so in a way I'll get to. The immediate drive to the park is rather staid with rolling farmland and distant small peaks. Once you enter the park though, staid turns quickly to stunnign is higher peaks surround you on all sides, with the rushing, beautiful baby blue Bow River cascading parallel to the main road.
The park contains multitude of hikes, most of the popular ones being around the two largest tourist attractions in the Park - Lakes Moraine and Louise. The first day I arrived in the afternoon, so I didn't make it into the park proper, but made it to Grotto Canyon, the first semi-popular hike a few miles into the park. Grotto Canyon. This was a fairly short hike that was a great amouze bouche, ending at a creek and waterfall. I left back to town around 7pm, still bright blue sky on top.
The next day was Lake Moraine, having to do that first because Lake Louise already had a parking lot full by the time I reached at 11am. Lake Moraine was surprisingly not full. Lake Moraine is the slightyl less crowded of the two main lakes, mainly because it isn't as big and doesn't have a large chateau, but to me it is the better of the two.
Lake Moraine has such an incredible deep blue, below picturesque peaks. There is a giant 'rock pile' hill at the foot of the lake, and each of the many photo lookouts on the rock pile are more stunning than the last. As you walk around the lake to the creek at the other end, it is more of the same, with a glacier poking out on top of one of the cliffs as you reach the other end. There are a few hikes leaving from Lake Moraine.
The other hike on my first day was a more impressive one, further into the park, after the main highway turns off to the 'Ice Fields Parkway'. About 30 minutes from Lake Louise is Lake Bow, a giant blue lake with a giant waterfall up in the mountains behind it. The hike is a bit tougher, about three hours round trip, but the view throughout and the end is just sttunning all the time, especially when you reach this waterfall thousands of feet above sea level.
The final day was Lake Louise, as amazing as ever, even if they need to improve the logistics (either build a bigger parking lot that doesn't get full at 7am, or run buses from the overflow lot after 6pm). Lake Louise is not as blue as Lake Moraine, but larger, more stunning. There are also a ton of hikes that leave from Lake Louise - the one we did was up to Lake Agnes, a smaller lake about 1,000 feet above Lake Louise, passing a few hills and views of glaciers - and views of Lake Lousie below it - throughout.
Banff is the jewel of Alberta, and again probably the best reason to go to Calgary. However, you probably don't even need to go to Calgary. The town of Banff, a small perfectly manicured town a few miles past the park entrance, is nice enough - with great lodges, restaurants, bars, shopping. A bit too touristy, sure, but a really nice place to either stay or grab a beer and bite on the way back to Calgary.
This trip jsut fortified for me the idea that Canada does its big cities right - again, Calgary is a Top-20 market in terms of population in either US or Canada, despite feeling as small as a Salt Lake City. It also does natural beauty right and more than anything, summer life right.
