Bow Valley Canyon Tours

First things first, we had a great time and wholeheartedly recommend this canyon tour.

I am always dubious of service providers in general (do most of my own repairs) and tour operators in particular. I frequently just feel cheated. This canyoning trip was my daughters' idea. They found it online. I was uncertain, but after dragging the family on several long hikes, I felt I should let them decide.

I should take them to the track, because my daughters pick winners. We had an ABSOLUTE BLAST!

Our guide/instructor, Mark, was the best. He was a patient and thorough teacher. He helped everyone there (our group and another couple) according to their abilities. Then, he gave us the opportunity to push our limits.

While we had no problem with the hike, he told us it was "easy", I could see people having trouble. There is a lot of uphill, as you might expect. The water is cold, but we are cold plunge fans, and found it very refreshing - like drinking three cups of coffee!

Again, I cannot stress how great Mark was. This will be something that we talk about for years. My daughters are looking into buying equipment!

This is probably the best day out I've had in banff! Marc is a hell of a tour guide and host
We had perfect conditions with heap of water and just didn't stop
Managing expectations 10
Experience 10

This tour was just incredibly beautiful and SO much fun! I did the Ghost Canyon full day and couldn't have wished for a better experience! Kris is an awesome guide who I trusted 100 percent. He gave the right amount of instructions and encouragement and was super nice to talk to. The drive to the Canyon itself is almost worth the money, the gravel road is a lot of fun and the views are amazing. Highly recommend this place to everyone who enjoys active outdoor activities with a bit of a challenge. Bring hiking shoes rather than running shoes, far better choice even though they will take a while to dry afterwards)

We had an amazing time on our canyoning adventure! Pablo was awesome, competent and certainly encouraged us in just the right way! It was a perfect addition to our Banaff holiday!

The Heart Creek beginning course was the highlight of our trip to Banff. Pablo, our guide, was great at teaching us, keeping us safe, and encouraging us. By the time we got to the 75-meter wall, we were ready and it was a thrill! Wear shoes that can get soaked and keep a dry pair in your car to change into at the end. My husband and I didn't bring our iPhones and we both enjoyed focusing on nature (and survival) instead of getting the best selfie.

What an amazing hidden gem! Tell all your friends, bring your family, it is not as challenging as you think for the basic tour but still lots of easy fun for those that love adventure too!

The team at Bow Valley Canyon Tours were so helpful and friendly and they really made our trip to Alberta!

We were booked to go on the Ghost canyon tour, and a few days before there was heavy rain. Marc kept us updated on what was going on, and whether the tour would go ahead. On the day, we drove out to the Ghost but unfortunately the water levels were too high. Marc suggested that we turn back so that we could make the 12pm Heart Creek tour instead as we were unable to reschedule the tour it being our last day in Banff.

Marc was super friendly and helpful
He organised it all for us, and drove us back and waited with us over coffee, chatting away until it was time for our tour with Chris and Corey.

The Heart Creek tour was heaps of fun, and the guys were knowledgeable and friendly. Felt in super safe hands and we had lots of fun.

Absolutely recommend these guys and their tours, and we're so grateful to them for being flexible and thoughtful in making sure we got to experience canyoning on our trip.

Thanks so much guys! Anne & Jonny

We went on a winter canyoning trip & it was amazing! Our knowledgeable, experienced guide made it possible for us to do something we never would have been able to do otherwise. Unforgettable experience!

I do not understand how this company is still in business. After the owner Marc flipped our van on the way to the tour while driving on the wrong side of the road that was about 3-4 cars wide with no other vehicle in site. He also did not have business insurance and was not insured to drive customers around in the vehicle. He proceeded to not have anyone to get us back to our vehicles and one of the other customers had to get 2 family members to come pick everyone up. The Owner is extremely immature and ignorant, as is evidently apparent in his replies to other reviews.

Me and a few friends did the advance tour. It was really amazing and I enjoyed the fact it did not feel touristy at all. Rather I got the full experience of what it is like to canyoneer. Our tour guide and also the owner Marc was really amazing. He was very serious when he needed to be (during the training at the beginning, and when rigging and repelling) and was super fun for the rest of it. I think that is a really important quality in a tour guide service (personable and maintains great safety). I also really like the training at the start of the tour it gives the chance for the clients skills and comfortability to be tested and evaluated to help ensure the tour will be doable for both parties, helps reduce the chance of surprises. I think it is worth taking serious the three canyon levels this company provides and do the tour you think you would be comfortable. Im quite adventurous, and there was even a few parts here that took me a minute to do (jumping into to pools for decent heights). All in all this tour was epic and me and my friends had a blast.

I've been on the Ghost and Castle trips thus far and have had nothing but pleasant experiences. We had Marc for both excursions, I enjoyed being able to take it at whatever pace we wanted. When doing Ghost we were able to climb back up in sections to re-experience jumps or slides. Shoutout Marc and the rest of his team for finding these awesome spots to have one of a kind experiences.

Marc was fantastic! We had an amazing day and the tour was so much fun. Cannot wait to come back for another tour!

Sara was a guide and did a great job! The final rappel was the best. Fun while a little scary, bit we would all definitely do it again. The hike to get to the top was a little more than we expected, since we had to carry gear up. Do it!

Our tour was lots of fun and nice and small - just the 4 of us. Chris did an excellent job of guiding us on this adventure and adjusting the pace to match our needs/abilities

Dangerous and awful experience.
We were booked onto the Ghost Canyon full day tour today. Marc Niehaus, the owner and our guide flipped the tour vehicle on route to the start location.
Marc started the day by being late and clearly very distracted… driving whilst on his phone etc when upon turning onto the track to get to the start location began driving on the wrong side of the road and after about 1km flipped the vehicle. There were 6 of us on the tour all involved in the incident in which was caused by Marcs total disregard for his groups safety. Marc drove so close to the roads edge (on the wrong side of the road) that the vehicle toppled and rolled off the road with us onboard. Fire, EMS and RCMP responded to the single vehicle incident after a tour member called 911 (Marc didn't bother to contact authorities… just his mates to get his vehicle recovered). Marcs total disregard and care for our safety after paying for what was meant to be a great day was disgusting and as the companies owner was an absolute shambles… Marc could not even get us a lift out of the area, we had to get friends to pick us up otherwise we would have been stranded. This whole experience was very avoidable and could have ended with serious injury or worse due to Marcs inability to take basic measures of care. He couldn't even drive the vehicle to the location, who knows what would have happened when actually canyoning.

Tons of fun! Very relaxed but safe experience for our group. We had no experience with repelling or canyoning but felt very comfortable and confident with the guide and the tour. Alex was great!

Water levels were WAY too high and it was freezing! They didn't have the proper gear for the participants and they couldn't do more than 1/2 of the repels. They should NEVER have taken out a group that day!

An absolute must do when travelling to Banff. My friends and I did a tour with Marc and he was fantastic! His enthusiastic “YAHOOO” everytime someone repelled down and excitement in dumping water over his head any chance he got made the experience that much better. Made even the least experienced and most nervous of us excited to jump down. Marc was so kind as to come pick us up from our hotel and give us all the tools and information needed.

We did the heart creek canyoning tour and Marc was our guide. Such an incredible experience and Marc was incredibly enthusiastic and helpful. He made the trip memorable and you can see his passion for this activity! It was my first time repelling while my boyfriend had quite a bit of experience, and we both had a fantastic time! This is such a unique experience and one we won’t forget! Looking forward to doing this again on our next trip to Alberta.

Hi everyone! We did winter canyon rapelling yesterday Jan 21 2022 with Marc and he was absolutely lovely and very knowledgeable and took safety very seriously. The winter canyoning package includes 3-4 hours of rapelling down 6 different sections of frozen waterfall for $125 per person. You start off hiking to the starting point carrying the helmet, harness and crampon boot spikes that they provide. None of the 4 of us had done any rapelling/climbing before but Marc gave us a demo and we had to demonstrate our learning back to him on flat ground prior to beginning our adventure. Each frozen waterfall gradually gets bigger, more technical and more exciting. Marc was thorough and patient, and hilarious too. What a jolly, fun, and encouraging tour guide. We had a great time and highly recommend doing winter canyoning. We look forward to doing another tour in the summer sometime! Thanks so much Marc!

My family of four (myself, my husband, my 18 yr old son, and my 15 yr old son) went canyoning with Marc at Silverton Falls at the end of August 2021. We are an adventurous family and have done lots of activities all over the world (numerous ziplines, high ropes, horseback riding, deep sea fishing, scuba, ATVing, etc.) so we were up for this challenge. And it was indeed a challenge. And a bit scary. But sooooo awesome! Marc is very capable and energetic and fun. We felt extremely safe with him. We met Marc in downtown Banff at 9am and returned to our hotel around 3pm. Marc took us to repel on “dry land” first to determine our ability level so that he knew which spot to take us to canyon (there are 2 or 3 starting points). My family members have all repelled before, but we are not practiced climbers. We agreed that canyoning at Silverton Falls suited us. There was a bit of a steep scramble to get to the top and then it’s full-on-all-in right away. About 6 or 7 falls to repel and 2 or 3 pool jumps. Not for the faint of heart, but an amazing experience!

My wife and I had Marc as our guide for the Ghost canyoning tour and we could not have asked for a better experience. Marc was willing to work with our schedule, perfect to deal with and just a nice person to be around. As for the excursion it was not extremely commercialized like most other excursions which we both thought made the whole experience feel more personal. Canyoning is definitely a bucket list type activity and would recommend anyone to try it. Had an experience of a lifetime and couldn't be happier with our decision to try it out.

We did the Ghost Canyon tour and it was so much fun! By far the best excursion we did on our trip to Kananaskis/Banff. Our guide was super energetic and funny.

We had a lovely time at Heart Creek Canyon with our guide Andrew. As we had done canyoning once before we felt like we could have done a more advanced journey but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Thank you Andrew for being a super friendly and patient guide!

So much fun! We did the advance course with Marc and I would highly recommend it. Very exhilarating experience rappelling and jumping into canyon pools. Definitely dress warm.

Canyoning with Marc definitely exceeded my expectations as he provided safe measures while pushing the group to have courage when interacting with the elements of nature. This was not a 'hand-holding' experience, you get the real-deal and will have a blast doing so. Highly recommend.

Had such a great time with Mark today. It was a group of three of us and we had zero experience. Mark made it easy and fun. We had lots of laughs and thourouly enjoyed our experience!

We had a great time with Mark! He was very patient with our group of 9 and he made our experience very enjoyable! Thankful he took pictures for us since we left our phones in the vehicle in case they would get wet! Could’ve taken them after all amd would recommend you take a water tight bag along!

We had a great experience rappelling in castle canyon. It definitely was a challenge but our guides made the tour safe every step of the way. We plan on bringing some more friends next season. I would definitely recommend Marc and his team.

Fantastic experience at Heart Creek Canyon, excellent instruction from Andrew, made it fun and achievable for all skill levels in our group. Will definitely go out with these guys again.

This was our most favourote thing from our trip to the Rockies! Marc was an amazing guide and we had a TON of fun. This is a must do adventure for anyone looking to get outside and try something new. We will definitely be going back!

Me and a buddy went on the Castle Mountain Canyon tour with Mark. Mark was able to be flexible with us to book this intermediate/advanced course as it was very close to the end of the season. Mark was very good at ensuring that we were fully comfortable, and we were so happy that we were able to make it before next year!

The canyon tour was SPECTACULAR, rappelling down waterfalls, jumping into pools, and having spectators as we traveled down the canyon made it exciting. The intermediate/advanced course is not for beginners or those with fear of heights but the entire tour was exciting.

Mark was extremely accommodating, and was a great lead for our group. I would highly recommend doing this tour if you are looking for an exciting day activity (make sure you bring a waterproof camera to capture the experience!)

What an adventure! Battered and bruised as I am Our guide Adam shared tons of geological info as well as natural history. We crawled, we rappelled, saw an incredible fragment of the entire Rat's Nest Cave. The culmination was the grotto with all the stalagmites and stalagtites. The drapes which is a fitting description of the panels of ice at the top.

Marc is a wonderful guy. We had an amazing day. He's always focus on safety while we nave fun. The activity is accessible to anyone in shape. A day we won't forget.

Canyoning is a very popular activity in some places of this world, but not in Canada, yet; however, there is so much potential for it. As we were spending two weeks in the rockies, we thought it would a great idea and start searching for it. We have been very lucky to find Mark and his team - most of us were complete rookies - and we had a really great trip with him. It's super professional, yet fun-oriented, we have discovered places we would never have access otherwise, and it's a great alternatives to the hikes in the Kananaskis region. We seriously recommend it to anyone looking for a cool outdoor activity, and you really can't go wrong with them!

Our group of 4 went on the Heart Creek Canyon Tour and had the time of our lives! Marc was flexible in adapting to our busy schedule and once on the rappels; he was very reassuring and encouraging. I plan on doing this again, it was the biggest adrenaline rush I ever had and I hope to find similar locations close to my home to do some canyoning!

Had a really great time hiking up and repelling down troll falls yesterday! Marc picked us up from our accommodation and returned us all included in the price. No experience was needed. Saw some of the prettiest sights I’ve ever seen! 100% recommend.

Absolutely amazing time. We went on the half day Canyoning Trip last June and had a complete blast! What a great trip. Never done something like before. I would go again in a heart beat. The area and hike in was spectacular, and the slides and rappelling was super fun! The last rappel was a total adrenaline rush! Would come back anytime.