Rockies resorts face a new top rate as Rimrock Banff reopens with 320 rooms

What’s happened.

Rimrock Banff has reopened as the first North American property under Emblems Collection, a luxury hotel group that until now had just one hotel anywhere in the world, Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa in the English countryside. The resort sits on a mountainside above the town of Banff, inside Banff National Park, and now has 320 guestrooms including 57 suites. The redesign kept the original building but added large windows, wood and stone finishes, and rooms laid out to face the mountains, according to the opening announcement and a report in Hotelier Magazine.

The spending is concentrated in the parts of a stay guests now compare most closely. A 9,600-sq.-ft. bathhouse holds indoor and outdoor thermal pools, a mountain-facing infinity pool, a salt sauna, a steam room, glacial cold plunges, a suspended meditation room and a sensory room. A 3,800-sq.-ft. active centre carries Technogym and Peloton equipment plus climbing and bouldering walls. An Expeditions Centre sells access to more than 50 seasonal activities, with staff called Pathfinders leading private hikes, forest bathing, alpine yoga, canyon ice walks, Indigenous cultural encounters and trips to the Athabasca Glacier. The top suite, the Infinity Two-Bedroom, comes with a wrap-around terrace of more than 1,260 sq. ft., a barrel sauna and a fire table. Four restaurants and bars round it out.

Room supply inside Banff National Park is fixed, so this is not 320 new rooms on top of the market — it is 320 rooms moved to the top of it, with a global luxury name attached and an amenity list that guests will now use as the yardstick when they shop.