In the realm of the Elder Things

I think that today may have been the shortest distance travelled in the span of this roadtrip. We didn't have very high aspirations because there is just so much to see and do in Banff National Park.

We started the day with a sweet buffet breakfast at the Banff Springs Hotel, with the energy received from that we proceeded to tackle the Sulphur Mountain trail, it is a 11km behemoth that ascends 700m to the top of the summit. Fortunately, about 3km in there was a gondola that takes you up the rest of the way. Now you may call me lazy, but we were pressed for time and the views were truly spectacular.

That's the whole city of Banff down there, it looks like you could crush it with a rock if you were a super villain.



 The gondola station at the top of the mountain is about 600m above the rest of Banff, which is already about 700m above sea level. The top of the summit is about 700m so you make up the last 100km by walking a board walk that climbs to the top. It's very accessible, and there are lots of little self guided tour areas to learn about the local area that high in the air.

You had a great view of the surrounding mountains from up there, and especially the slopes downward of Sulphur Mountain.

This wasn't from the gondola, this was from the top of the whole damn mountain

What I also found amazing was that there were still trees that high in the air. I enjoyed it because it gave me something to frame pictures with.

I can see why they put these things on beer cans. They ARE pretty majestic

The observation platform at the gondola station even had a Canadian Flag, it made me feel very patriotic.

You are tourists, inheritors of all the river valleys in Canada, but this mountain, this mountain is MINE

Finally, we managed to make it across the 1km boardwalk after taking a deluge of pictures. We weren't able to get to the final summit due to stability issues, but I got a nice picture of the weather station that was at the top of the mountain. It had an interesting story, the building was hauled up one piece at a time by horse in 1903 for $975. The guy put in charge of taking weather readings was given enough blank weather sheets to last 33 years, and to take the readings, he had to hike all the way to the top of the mountain without a gondola, and he did it too! It's also the spot of a 'Cosmic Radiation' station that operated for 20 years between 1963 and 1983. Apparently the top of a mountain is a good spot to study cosmic radiation.

Unfortunately standing up here didn't cause me to gain superpowers, much to my disappointment

After that we went down a crazy side mountain trail that was full of snow. We got about 2km down that until we determined we didn't have the proper gear to tackle it so we turned around. After the sweet gondola ride back down we hiked the km's back to the hotel and left Banff, it was 3:30pm.

Along the way to Lake Louise, we had a chance to see the really awesome wildlife overpasses. Basically what happened is when they twinned the highway through Banff, they had concerns about the number of potential wildlife collisions with animals trying to get over two separate highway with two lanes each. The solution was to build an overpass, but to coax animals into using it, they covered the top with organic material and let the forest do the rest. The result is this: No animals seen though...

It's like the Green party took over the Department of Transportation, but that couldn't be possible because this is a good idea.

We stopped over at Lake Louise because people kept telling me it was the most beautiful spot in all of Banff National Park. I have to say at the very least they weren't exaggerating. Although I do have to say that if I was staying at the Fairmont Lake Louise and I expected nice Alberta weather I'd be very disappointed. Suffice to say at that elevation, even in late May everything is still covered in snow, even the lake was frozen over. My goodness though the melted parts were clear, I'd love to see the place in the summer.

If you tried to swim in that water they'd be putting you in a giant glass of iced tea, and you wouldn't be the tea.

There was a really nice trail that went from the Fairmont Lake Louise all the way around the lake to the head of the whole thing. It was a few kilometres but it gave a really nice view of the surrounding mountains. We even met a few mountain climbers along the way all kitted out in gear. They were doing stuff on a level of higher intensity than us, but on a side note, the area we were in gave us nice pictures of the rest of the lake.

That little speck down there is Geoff, of course. Always doing stuff off the main trail that Geoff.

On our way back to the parking lot, we were treated to a mini-avalanche on the side mountain. I took a video of it but I can't tell if you can hear the thunder of snow falling. Unfortunately videos are too large to upload effectively through a wireless internet connection, so you'll all just have to know it exists.

Outside the park, on our way to Golden, we were intrigued by signs promising a 'natural bridge' in the area. What it turned out to be was a really neat natural formation. Many tens of thousands of years ago, there was a waterfall, over time the water eroded a tunnel under the waterfall so the water started flowing under the rock ledge it used to flow over. Over time it has started to erode the space larger and larger until eventually it will become a gorge. For right now it looks like exactly what was promised, a natural water dam that was also a natural bridge.

There was a non-natural bridge to view the rock bridge from. It was sort of like bridgeception.

Although that was a minor detour off the main trip. Unfortunately, the rest of the trip was filled with the sort of highway I dreaded about when going through the mountains. Shortly out of Yoho National Park the highway stopped being twinned and started hugging the rock wall on one side. On the other side you ask? A step valley gorge that dropped off about 500 metres if I had to guess. It was pretty well protected by a concrete barrier, but if you went through that, you'd be gone forever. That section of the drive was only about 40 minutes, and I wasn't driving, but it was still pretty scary.

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or in our case, a rock and a brief, terrifying death.

We finally arrived in Golden, BC, a charming little mountain town that seems to subsist on the tourist trade. We stopped at a nice local restaurant called Eleven 22, I think it's a new operation but the food is top notch. Now we've ended up at another Super 8, which seems to be the patron saint of roadtripping. We were hoping for a straight shot to Vancouver tomorrow, but I quick look at the Canada: Coast to Coast book has revealed we may have quite a distracting ride tomorrow.

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!