Upper Johnston Canyon Falls

Johnston Canyon is located 17 ½ kilometers west from the eastern terminus of the Bow Valley Parkway (a total of about 20 kilometers from downtown Banff). Hike upstream along the paved trail to the falls in 2.7 km. There are two viewpoints – stay right for the view from the base of the falls, and left to reach the top. The trail continues upstream from the falls, so don’t expect a defined turn-around spot.While by far the most impressive of the six waterfalls found within Johnston Canyon, the 100 foot tall Upper Falls are the least photogenic of the bunch. Johnston Creek pinches through a narrows and plunges into an alcove, sometimes splitting into two or three segments when the creek runs high. This waterfall was the site where extreme kayaker Tao Berman hurtled over the edge to set a long since eclipsed world record for the tallest waterfall descended in a hard shell kayak (the current record is held at a waterfall nearly twice the height of this). While the falls and its alcove are not one of the more geologically interesting sections of Johnston Canyon, just downstream of the falls is a massive wall of travertine which has formed from mineral seeps high up on the canyon wall and can be seen from the spur trail to the viewpoint at the base of the falls.We've run across a few old photographs which caption this waterfall as Mistarry Falls. Whether this is a misspelling of "Mystery" we are not sure, but more than one source has been found using this name, so this may be the legitimate historical title for this waterfall.