Canmore
If you are staying in Banff and want to fly, this is the page that matters. Canmore sits twenty-five minutes down the valley, just outside the national park boundary, and four of the flights on this site lift from its helipad. A Canmore helicopter tour is the practical way to fit the Rockies from the air into a morning.
Quick answer
Canmore helicopter tours run from $256 for twenty-five minutes to $437 for forty-five. The helipad is about twenty-five minutes from Banff by road, which is why it exists at all: it is outside Banff National Park, where helipads and scenic overflights are not permitted. Routes cover the Three Sisters, Mount Assiniboine and the Continental Divide.
What the routes cover
The Three Sisters, Lake Minnewanka, Mount Assiniboine and the Continental Divide.
Twenty-five minutes: the Three Sisters. Faith, Charity and Hope, the three peaks that stand over the town, and the Bow Valley beneath them. The shortest Canmore helicopter tour and the one that fits into any morning.
Thirty minutes: Lake Minnewanka. The largest lake in Banff National Park, flown along the boundary rather than over it, with the Bow Valley and the front ranges around it.
Thirty-five minutes: Mount Assiniboine. Over the alpine lakes and up to the 3,618-metre horn they call the Matterhorn of the Rockies, and the glaciers hanging below it. On the ground this is a two-day walk from the nearest road.
Forty-five minutes: the Continental Divide. The longest Canmore helicopter tour sold here, over Assiniboine and on into British Columbia, where the water starts running to a different ocean. It is a newer listing with a single rating, so read it as a route rather than a track record.
Practicalities
Canmore is a small town and the helipad is not in the middle of it.
Thirty in summer traffic. Every Canmore helicopter tour asks you to check in ahead of the slot, so build the drive in.
So you do not need a park pass to fly, and you do not need one to reach the helipad.
Canmore mornings are cold in June and serious in January. The cabin is glass on three sides.
A Canmore helicopter tour is an overflight. The listing that lands is at Cline River, two hours north.
Valley cloud lifts through the morning and wind builds after lunch. This is true in every month.
The Three Sisters trails, the Bow River and a town that is noticeably calmer than Banff in August.
If you are staying in Banff and have one morning, a Canmore helicopter tour is the answer. If you have a whole day and want to stand in the mountains rather than look at them, drive north to Cline River instead.
Flights that land→Book direct
Four listings from one helipad twenty-five minutes from Banff, from twenty-five minutes to forty-five.
★ 4.9 · 15 reviews
★ 4.9 · 57 reviews
★ 5 · 6 reviews
★ 5 · 1 reviews
Common questions
About twenty-five minutes by road, down the Bow Valley. It is the closest helicopter base to Banff, because helipads are not permitted inside the national park.
From $256 for twenty-five minutes over the Three Sisters to $437 for forty-five minutes across the Continental Divide.
No. Parks Canada does not permit scenic overflights of most of the park, so the routes work the mountains around it — which is where Mount Assiniboine and the Continental Divide icefields are anyway.
No. The only listing on this site that lands is at Cline River, about two hours north on provincial land.
The thirty-five-minute Mount Assiniboine flight at $344 if you want one mountain properly; the twenty-five-minute Three Sisters flight at $256 if you want a morning.
Not to fly. The helipad is outside the boundary, so a Canmore helicopter tour neither requires nor includes national park entry.
Go deeper
From $199 to $1,035, and what a minute in the air is worth.
The verdictOne recommendation for each kind of traveller, and why.
The ruleParks Canada, and where the flights actually go.
KananaskisAlpine lakes, Mount Assiniboine and the longest routes.
LandingsWhere a helicopter may set down in the Rockies, and where it may not.
The rideThe weigh-in, the doors, and the first ridge.
Canadian Rockies: Helicopter Flight with Exploration Hike
★ 4.9 · 646 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h