's Sulphur Mountain via Cosmic Ray road Hike
How to get to Sulphur Mountain
Starting on the main street that runs through Banff (Banff avenue) you will want to head south towards the river. Once you cross the bridge and come to a T intersection, make a right heading west on Cave avenue. Follow this road to the very end and you will reach the Cave and Basin.
Your other option if you're looking for a bigger work out without the painful knees on a decent. You can drive to the hot springs and start your hike from there. At the T intersection by the bridge you will want to make a left on Mountain avenue. Follow the road to the right which still is Mountain avenue and it will take you to the Banff hot springs.
You can also get turn by turn directions by using our 'Get Directions' function at the top.
Sulphur Mountain via Cosmic Ray road trip log
If you are interested in doing just the trail itself, skip this section and jump down to the bolded trail head start.
You have a few options with this trail. It has one great advantage of offering a free ride down. As of June 2010 if you hike up you get a free ride down which your knees will thank very much. One problem that arises with this choice is that your start point is the cave and basin and your finish point is the lower terminal of the gondola which is near the hot springs. You can either park at the Cave and Basin and hike up, get a free ride down and hike/hitch hike/taxi it back... or how we did. We parked at the hot springs, hiked about 4.5km downhill, hiked the trail, enjoyed a beer and ice cream at the top, took a free ride down, and hopped into the pool for a great soak.
If you choose to take this route it offers a great workout early in the season when most peaks are still snow capped. The hike down to the cave and basin is pretty straight forward. You will basically walk back everything you drove up all the way past the T intersection at the bridge and continue on the road till you reach the Cave and Basin.
We took what we thought was a shortcut through the Cascade Gardens but looking at the GPS afterwards it did not seem to cut out much time at all. Might be quicker to just follow the road.
-- Official trail head start --
From the parking lot head up the path to the Cave and Basin Historical Site.
You will want to walk past the building and after a short ways you will reach the true trail head. Follow the signage for sundance canyon trail. The first 2.4 km of the trail is part of sundance canyon trail . Follow this paved trail for 2.4 km.
At the sign indicating that there is 0.8 km left to sundance canyon, an old access road that appears to head steeply up is visible on your left. Take this access road. The rest of the 5.8 km are a steady climb on the backside of sulphur mountain.
As you climb up, spectacular views open up to the west. If you're lucky you may just see marmots popping out of the rock fall. We were lucky to see a few and even see a couple of them fight!
The trail eventually turns into a single track for a short awhile before returning back to its usual wide nature. Once you reach the large, and only zig zag you are nearing the top.
The sight of the stairs leading to the old weather station at the summit of Sulpher Mountain signifies the end of your long trek.
Enjoy the panoramic views of the magnificent mountain ranges around you and the interpretive signs of the mountains important history.
Once you mosey around The wooden plateforms all the way to the summit. You will find the old Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station perched right at the top. For this reason the road you follow all the way up from Sundance Canyon is called 'Cosmic Ray road'.
From the top you can choose to hike down the same trail back, take the trail down underneath the gondola, or what we suggest is to just hop on a gondola and get a free ride down! To end off your day on a perfect note, take a dip in the Banff Hot Springs at the bottom of the gondola.
GPS Plotted Route
This is the GPS track overlay heading up Sulphur Mountain from the backside. Since we did the whole loop from the hot springs, if you are starting at the Cave and Basin the route only starts around the top center going counter clock-wise finishing on the bottom right right before the straight line which would be the gondola. Start / finish indicated by the black line.
This is the GPS graph of the elevation change for the loop. The official trail had starts around the 5km mark and finishes at the summit.
If there is any change to the route you feel others should know about, shoot us an e-mail from our contact page.
