Kananaskis is a provincial recreation area located just outside of Calgary to the west side of the city. Kananaskis is a big area encompassing 4,211km (25266mi Squared) squared of pristine forest and mountain vistas. Access to Kananaskis can be reached by traveling on one of four main Hwys; Highway 40, a 66 km (41 mi) segment of the Bighorn Highway and also known as Kananaskis Trail; Highway 66, a 28 km (17 mi) highway originating near Bragg Creek known as Elbow Falls Trail; Highway 68, a 42 km (26 mi) gravel highway originating from the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) known as Sibbald Creek Trail; and Highway 546, west of Turner Valley. Once in the park you have access to a myriad of parks in which to explore. Kananaskis has a total of 11 sub-parks within its boundaries they are:
- Bluerock Wildland Provincial Park
- Bow Valley Provincial Park
- Bow Valley Wildland Provincial Park
- Bragg Creek Provincial Park
- Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park
- Don Getty Wildland Provincial Park
- Elbow-Sheep Wildland Provincial Park
- Little Elbow Provincial Recreation area
- Peter Lougheed Provincial Park
- Plateau Mountain Ecological Reserve
- Sheep River Provincial Park
- Spray Valley Provincial Park
We have camped in three of these parks Bow Valley Provincial park, Little Elbow Provincial park, and Peter Lougheed Provincial park (See our article on Peter Lougheed Provincial park). Also, within the park we have camped at Sibbald Lake which can be accessed from Hwy 68, and Little Elbow Provincial park which can be accessed from Hwy 66 outside of Bragg Creek. Of the three parks we have stayed at we preferer Peter Lougheed Provincial park, though Sibbald Lake is also a nice place to stop for a few days.
Little Elbow Provincial Park is an old campground created when Kananaskis was first created. It was not designed for big rigs and we found it difficult to move our 32’ RV around the various campsites. The road system is fine, but the campsites are small. We ended up staying in the Equestrian campground where sites are side by side. So, to allow us enough room to spread out we rented two spots side by side which gave us the room to setup the RV and our campsite, but that is an expensive option to have to pay for two sites. In our case it was worth the extra money to not have neighbors or being cramped in our setup.
Above and below are our first attempt at camping in Little elbow. We did not realize that this was a double site. We had to book both sites that day in order to avoid having to move our rig to the other side of the pad. Boy was that a stressful day when the other people showed up.
Camping in Kananaskis has many options depending on how you enter the recreation area. In total there are 36 campgrounds in which to choose from. Some of these campgrounds are small and no more than a dozen sites, whereas others are fairly large. Depending on what you are looking for you should be able to find it in Kananaskis. (Kananaskis Campground map). There is one drawback to Kananaskis and that is its close proximity to Calgary and surrounding communities. This leads to very busy weekends as everyone tries to get out and grab a campsite, or for those campgrounds that are in the reservation system it can be frustrating trying to book your site as everyone is also doing the same. So, the takeaway here, book early! Don’t relay on first come first serve sites or else your expectations may be deflated. If you are going to try the first come first serve sites, then go during the week. Monday through Thursday the demand is much lower than on the weekends, which may allow you to sneak in and grab the perfect site.
Nuts & Bolts
K Country is an amazing place to recreate! Its pristine forests and mountain vistas make this a very popular place in which Calgarians and surrounding communities flock to year-round. There are some paved roads through the park but mostly the roads are gravel to the more remote areas of the park, so if you have a rig that you do not like to drive on gravel roads you may have to go to the more popular spots and try your luck in getting in. The paved sections of the park will certainly allow big rigs to navigate them to the various campsites that reside off of the paved hwy’s. Most of the campgrounds can accept big rigs as many campsites are fairly big and can accommodate rigs 32’ and above. There are exceptions to this so make sure you plan and understand where you are going so that you are not surprised, buy the lack of paved roads and big campsites.
Vehicle Accessible Campgrounds
Till Next time,
Happy Trails
The Glampurs
This was our second attempt at camping at Little Elbow. We still had to camp in the Equestrian sites, and we booked two sites to give ourselves room. But this was nicer than the first attempt.
A dejected Finny at having to be leashed up!