The Cave and Basin Springs are home to the Banff Springs snail, an endangered species. The Cave itself is now reached by a man-made tunnel that connects it to the visitor centre, and the spring and basin in the cave have had some stone walling added. The area around the original Basin shown was redeveloped with modern stone buildings in the early 1900s. The original basin is still there, though.

The Upper Hot Springs are about 5km to the southeast.There are nine naturally occurring hot springs in the Banff general area.

Banff is an hour's drive west of us. Nice to head out for lunch and a stroll on a nice day.

I thought it was a bear there, too. :-)

I guess I'm the only one who thought, at first glance, he was swimming with a bear.

Sometime in the early eighties when our two sons were still young enough to travel with us, we took a camping vacation thru Banff and Jasper. Just as hamellr did, we were up there on July 1st. All the campgrounds were a free for all come 4 pm with RVs scrambling for the last few campsites. We visited the "Basin" pictured above, which is fed by a natural hot spring. I was waiting outside the men's dressing room for my wife to come out when an older guy followed his wife into the ladies' dressing room. I expected to hear some screams and loud yelling, but there was none. He didn't come out for quite some time. I wonder what he was doing in there for so long?

On the hillside above the end of the diving board at the edge of the bushes is someone watching the swimmers. Is he the lifeguard or some kind of weirdo?

[Maybe it's time to come in out of the sun! - Dave]

I visited there back in the 1980s and remember it looking the same. Although there were a couple of mountain goats up on that hill there. We stayed down the road a ways in some "rustic" cabins, I'm not sure if they were part of the park or not. But we were really lucky to get one as we had accidentally traveled on a Canadian National Holiday.

Always have meant to go back there some day.

Any lifeguard at a pool or lake with lane floats or section dividers has said too many times, "please do not hang or step on the ropes".

The New Zealanders seem to be better at this outdoor stuff.

always preceded by "The Cave and Basin" for correct directions, and I guess somewhere near is the Upper Spring.