The Sunshine Meadows are a natural garden set at an altitude of approximately 2,300 metres (7,500 feet). It is located within the peaks of the Canadian Rocky Mountains of

Banff National Park Banff National Park is Canada, Canada's first National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous ter ...

. From the vantage point of Sunshine Meadows one has a clear view of Mount Assiniboine, the highest peak in the region at 3,618 metres (11,870 feet). Sunshine Meadows is located 18 km directly southwest of

Banff, Alberta Banff is a resort town in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, in Alberta's Rockies along the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Calgary, east of Lake Louise, Alberta, Lake Louise, and above Banff was the first municipality to incorporate within ...

, and spans along both sides of the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

(between

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

and

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Access

There is no public road access to Sunshine Meadows, and thus it can be reached either by hiking several kilometres from the area of the

Sunshine Village Banff Sunshine Village (formerly Sunshine Village) is a ski resort in western Canada, located on the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies within Banff National Park in Alberta and Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park in British Columbia. It is ...

ski resort, located near the resort town of Banff, or by using the Gondola (Fri-Mon) or Alpine Shuttle Bus (Tues-Thurs) which departs from the Sunshine Village base area. You can book tickets for the shuttle or gondola in advance at http://www.banffsunshinemeadows.com . Guided group hikes with lunch and transportation from Banff is also available. Sunshine Meadows has established a system of well-graded, hardened trails to take the hiker out into the surrounding sub-alpine and above

tree line The tree line is the edge of a habitat at which trees are capable of growing and beyond which they are not. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually low ...

habitats. Visitors to the meadows are required to stay on these trails to protect the fragile alpine

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...

The main

hiking trail A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. " ...

travels past Rock Isle Lake, continuing west of the ski area, before finally descending back down to the Sunshine Village Day Lodge. This 5.8 km loop has an elevation gain of 170 metres. Other trails branch off from this main loop to other regions of the meadows.

Scenery

It is the unique mountain scenery which makes Sunshine Meadows a notable habitat. Sunshine Meadows offers a colourful array of wildflowers and other alpine tree line vegetation. The fragile alpine terrain has a growing season of just a few months, as the area is covered by snow October to mid-June. Situated at 2,300 metres, the temperatures drop below freezing in every month of the year. In July and August temperatures can range from 30 degrees

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale "Celsius temperature scale, also called centigrade temperature scale, scale based on 0 ° for the melting point of water and 100 ° for the boiling point ...

above zero to freezing.Robert W. Sandford, ''Sunshine: Its Human and Natural Heritage'' (1984), page 56 The field of fragile wildflowers and

lichens A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

blooms into colour in mid-June, and nature is in full bloom July through August. In September the scenery alters dramatically, with the

larches Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere, where they are found in lowland forests in the high lat ...

turning yellow and red in the season’s final burst of colour.

External links

Photographs

ClubTread Community Forums

References

{{reflist Banff National Park