We flew to Calgary on Friday night, rented a car and stayed for the night in a small motel. (Surprisingly our economy car was a Chrysler brand.) We spent Saturday in the Banff area and hiked the Sulphur Mountain. On Sunday, we drove to Lake Louise and hiked around there. Then we went for a four day hike east of Lake Louise (Baker lake, valley of Red Deer river, Skoki Valley). On Friday we drove north on the Icefield Parkway and saw Athabasca glacier (Columbia icefield). It was sunny and because the night before it snowed, the views of snow-covered mountains and glaciers against the blue sky were just magnificent. The last day we wanted to do some serious hike and get good views of the mountains (from above). A ranger recommend us to scramble Tangle ridge. It was a good advice. The views were hard to beat.
Despite the fact that in September it was already rather cold (close to freezing during night) and it did rain most of the days, we were able to enjoy the mountains and had yet another great experience (At the end, the cold you catch when trying (in a freezing lake) to wash away the sweat of a full day hike with heavy backpack (while it is still raining), can be eventually cured back home when the vacation is over, and there is nothing else to do than to wait for the next vacation trip....)