In the Mountains of Madness...

Well, once again the lessons of the past were not heeded in the future. After going out for supper with Geoff's Aunt, we went and stayed overnight at his cousin's house and had a little too much of a good time. After a bit of a slow start in the morning which included losing Geoff's beloved hat (and finding it again) to having to change plans a couple times with a good friend of his. Basically we thought we could stop in and say hi, until we figured out that the brief detour was actually a four hour round trip detour, so that didn't happen.

Once we finally got on the road it was about 12pm so there was a bit of fear that we wouldn't be able to do as much in Banff. Although that was soon forgotten as soon as the vista became this:

I lost my soul staring into those peaks. Seriously, they never stop judging.

This is the single most magnificent sight I have seen yet on this roadtrip. You're driving and they just start looming larger and larger on the horizon until they are all you can see along the road. I have to say that Geoff was really excited to see these, and I was sort of skeptical at first but seeing them first hand makes you realize how breathtaking they really are.

Once we got into Banff we were really interested to try out this restaurant for lunch. It's called the "Grizzly House" and it's specialty was exotic meats. Now before the jokes start flying, it basically served non-traditional meats like buffalo, deer, wild boar. However, for the really wild at heart, they had an 'exotic tray' of meats that included frogs legs, shark and rattlesnake. It's all in fondue form, which I haven't done for a really long time so that was neat too.

When we got there it was later in the afternoon so we decided to have a late lunch/early supper. We both got the fondue dinner, which came with delicious french onion soup and a weird vegetable fondue. I got the 'hunter' tray which is buffalo, deer and wild boar. Geoff of course got the exotic tray, and loved every minute of it. We opted to use a 'granite stove' rather than a fondue pot. Basically it is a big slab of granite heated to 600C and you fry your meats on that. All in all it was very delicious.

This was right before he took a big bite of rattlesnake, which was surprisingly good.

The exotic meat tray even came with a little cheat sheet that let you know what all you were eating.

I was shocked by the ostrich section, but again apparently good.

It's all a bit on the pricey side, but the experience itself is well worth it. If you can get even one in your party to get the exotic meat tray, then you get to ogle the person eating it for the rest of the meal. I'd recommend going to this restaurant if you're in Banff for a day or a year. A funny thing about the restaurant is that it was allegedly previously a swingers club. I didn't believe the person who told me this, but then there were phones everywhere. Every table had a phone by it, apparently used to contact people at other tables in hopes of 'hooking up'.

They didn't work though, or at least no one called OUR table...

After the delicious meal (Came with soup, appetizer, meal and dessert fondue) we set off to check into the Fairmont Banff Springs. Once again the Fairmont brand shines through here, it is an excellent resort with lots of fun activities and plenty of amenities. Once we were settled in we took a hike up to tunnel mountain, which is about 1,500 metres above sea level (About 300 metres above the town of Banff) that let us get some more great pictures.

That mountain basically scoffed at the mountain we climbed up, knowing it was a far lesser challenge than itself.

Climbing that mountain was invigorating and beautiful. I have to say that I have never really seen any sight quite like the Rockies at this point in my life. I look forward to more hiking tomorrow and Lake Louise. Down in Banff you are still able to take in the sights of the mountain as it was basically nestled in a valley between all the mountains.

I have like 100 of these pictures in the camera, who knows when I'll be able to see mountains again! No judging!

Finally, from way up high in the mountains you can get a birds eye view of everything, including the hotel! If it wasn't so far away I'd come to Banff all the time, especially now that I have a Parks Canada pass.

Pretty spiffy eh? Alas this is the last Fairmont resort I'll be staying at for a while.

Tomorrow is going to bring more mountains and possibly getting as far as into BC! I can't believe we're almost there!