Wednesday, 9/22/04
We flew into Calgary on Wed. It isn't possible to get a direct flight from Boston to Calgary, so we were connecting through Chicago. Despite the Chicago-Calgary leg being 3.5 hours *and* happening over lunchtime, there was no food on the flights. Other than that they were unremarkable. We had a strong tailwind that got us into Calgary almost 40 minutes early.
We took the light rail from our hotel into the downtown. The downtown of Calgary is attractive, clean and in good repair. They have a pedestrian street down the middle of the historic district that seems to be the focal point for restaurants and tourist places. The mountains are visible on the horizon, but not obtrusive.
Walking around, we saw a clever little pocket park, which was a landscaped hill and fountain, but despite being reinforced concrete, it had been sculpted into a series of angular lines manage to suggest western peaks. Unusually for modern art, JT and I both liked it. We walked all around the downtown and then through the riverfront park. An island connected to the shore by bridges serves both as a park and a festival site. The downtown itself is a cluster of skyscrapers, but not all of them are Modern Ugly- some are moderately attractive.
We sampled the notorious Alberta Triple-A Beef for dinner. High-quality stuff.
Thursday, 9/23/04
Thursday morning we set out for Banff. We drove up into the mountains on the trans-Canada highway- their Route 1. It seemed odd for Route 1 to be east-west! The mountains recalled the lyrics to a song "mountains to our side, rising like a wall against the sky- show no path to let us through". The mountains were indeed rocky and capped with snow.
We drove up into the Bow River valley and stopped in Canmore to find an ATM and get me some hot chocolate. The day before in Calgary had been a pleasant 70, but the morning was more like 40 and quite chilly. Canmore is touristy, but clean and well-kept.
Banff is even more touristy, and even more upscale. Lots of restaurants and hotels. We parked in Banff and took a short hike to the base of a gondola ride and back before returning for lunch. In the afternoon we took the scenic route to Lake Louise and stopped to hike up to (we thought) Castle Mtn Overlook. I quickly found that the increased altitude was slowing me down considerably. We hiked up high enough to get some terrific views, but upon encountering a series of steep switchbacks rising above us, we abandoned our plan of hiking to the overlook and returned to the car. The hike had a 1700 foot vertical rise, but we figure that we only did 2/3 of it.
In Banff: there was one sign that JT and I both thought was an ice-cream cone at first glance but which proved to be a snowshoe on closer inspection. (JT blames me for planting ideas in his mind.)
In the evening we had dinner with a bunch of people there for the wedding. Dinner was in the old railroad station, beautifully restored.
Friday, 9/24/04
Friday morning, we got an early start and hiked around Lake Louise. It is the most improbable turquoise color due to the rock flour ground into the water by the glaciers. It looks like something that belongs on a tropical postcard, not surrounded by evergreens and snowy mountains. We hiked around the lake and then took a trail up to the Plain of Five Glaciers. For a while it followed the stream bed and we could see that the stream was a milky white, again due to rock dust suspended in the water. I was still moving somewhat slowly, but finally found a pace I could maintain instead of stopping every couple hundred feet to catch my breath. JT seems to be much less affected by the altitude.. Not surprising, I suppose since he generally seems to react less to environmental stimuli.
After a couple of hours, we reached the Tea Room, a tiny little restaurant perched on the side of the mountain looking up at the glaciers. They have a spring, but all of their supplies are brought in by pack horse. JT had a snack and we went on to the trail that overlooks the moraine. From there we could look down on the glacier. The nearer end was almost unrecognizable- it looked like a pile of rocks. Further up, we could see crevasses opening up in the surface and ice showing underneath. On the mountain above, we could see the end of a hanging glacier. The ice really was bluish-green, and every so often there would be a crack-and-rumble, like distant artillery, that was the sound of the glacier in motion. At the tongue end of the glacier there was a tiny little pool of meltwater, the same improbable blue-green as Lake Louise.
We got an up-close look at the stands of gold-hued trees that we'd thought were aspens. It turns out that some of them are, instead, larches: non-evergreen conifers. Very striking looking.
Not surprisingly, we got down a lot more easily than we had gotten up! Though the need to avoid horse by-product and water running over the trail kept us from getting too far ahead of ourselves. We were reminded of our Grand Canyon trip and are definitely of the opinion that horse scat is preferable to that of mules! The lake was half in sunlight was we walked down and the color was if anything even more striking. I hope the pictures come out!
We had lunch at the hostel café near our hotel. This is the poshest hostel that I have ever seen! But the food was good. In the afternoon we went to Moraine Lake, which was a slightly bluer shade than Lake Louise, but just as brilliantly and improbably colored. The lake is surrounded by towering snow-capped peaks. By this time, our feet and legs had unaccountably gotten quite a lot heavier, so we were grateful the trail was flat! The views were amazing and we saw an avalanche come down on one of the distant peaks.
Our plans to follow that with a short walk out to Consolation Lake were foiled by the area being closed to hiking groups smaller than 6. They do this to protect the tourists from the bears, which are quite active in that area, and some of which have lost much of their fear of humans (but don't attack groups of 6 or more). We saw a few other people ignoring this sign, but as we did not want to become chewy bear snacks, we did not venture past. On our way back we were scolded quite trenchantly by a mountain squirrel who turned out to have a mushroom nearly the size of himself all but harvested. He quit scolding to run down, secure the mushroom, and haul it awkwardly up a tree. Seeing us still watching, he hid the mushroom behind the trunk and then came back out and scolded us some more. It was very cute.
Saturday, 9/25/04
Saturday, we hiked up Sulphur Mountain in the morning, and took the tram down. The hike up was pleasant but very steep- there was a 2300 foot vertical rise during the hike. There were magnificent views of the Bow River valley all the way up. As I reached the summit, I saw what I thought was a statue looking at me until it moved and I was given dubious looks by a whole herd of big-horn sheep. They were milling around posing for tourists, no doubt in the hopes that there might be food dropped (in defiance of the signs forbidding it).
From the summit, the panorama was amazing- they advertise a 360 degree view and they definitely have it. JT was feeling the height a bit, and opted to stay near the tram, but I walked out along the boardwalk which led across the ridge. At the end there was a cosmic ray observation station. The high altitude and proximity to the magnetic pole makes it an especially good location to collect data on cosmic rays.
In the afternoon we went to Johnston Canyon. The canyon is an 8000 year old feature where moving water has carved a deep channel through the soft limestone and sandstone of the landscape. The river had the odd coloration (green) that we had become accustomed to seeing as a result of rock dust in the water, and we hiked up as far as the lower falls. White water plunging into a jade-green pool- astonishing.
Sunday, 9/26/04
Sunday we drove up the Icefields Parkway. The morning started out very rainy, and we got quite wet walking out to the observation platform at Bow summit. The signs said that it overlooked Peyto lake, but you couldn't have proven it by us- the entire mountain was enveloped in cold wet clouds. However we continued north a bit further and saw signs of clearing and fabulous mountain views.
By the time we reached the Athabasca glacier, we had sunshine. The visitor center was interesting if not especially in-depth, and we were able to walk out on the glacier. It was interesting to note the enormous distance the glacier had retreated in recent years- there were markers showing the position of the glacier over the last century as it steadily retreated up the valley. We were able to see the distinct blue coloration of the ice and hear the water rushing underneath through a crack in the ice. The approach to the safe path marked across the glacier was lined by a series of warning signs filled with gruesome detail on people dying because they wandered outside the safe area.. the level of overkill was quite impressive.
At least as impressive is the fact that the glacier is actually only one tongue of a much larger body, the Columbia Icefield, which fills up the entire bowl of the mountains behind it. The whole icefield is said to be about the size of Vancouver.
The aspens, alders, and larches were all gold. The aspens in particular form broad bands across the flanks of the mountains, shimmering yellow.
On the way back we had more gorgeous mountain views and stopped again at Bow Summit. This time, the view was clear and we were able to see the bizarre robin's-egg blue coloration of Peyto Lake. We were very glad that we had persisted until the weather was clear.
Monday, 9/27/04
Monday- In the morning we hiked up Johnston Canyon to the Inkpots. We were on a tight schedule and weren't sure that we would have time to go all the way there, but we walked as fast as we could and were very glad we had. These are a series of springs that feed the river through Johnston Canyon. They were a range of amazing colors and quite beautiful. There had been a hard frost the night before and exposed fields were sparkling with white. There was a skim of ice over the quietest of the springs and the air was chilly and very clear.
On the way back to the parking lot, we met several people who reported that they had seen bear tracks and asked us if we had seen any wildlife. We had not- and were quite relieved not to encounter anything larger than a squirrel on our morning's hike!
In the afternoon we drove back to Calgary and went to the Glenbow Museum. It was a very interesting and well-organized series of exhibits that attempted to interpret the cultures of the area. We were very impressed by the exhibit of Remington and Russell talking about their influence on the popular perception of the West, as well as an admirably multicultural exhibit on the role of the soldier in society.
There was also extensive material on the local native cultures. This seemed to us to be less than balanced (we were particularly amused by a quote to the effect that 'horses were sensitive creatures and would allow themselves to be stolen from owners who didn't keep them well'), but in view of the historically abysmal treatment meted out to native cultures, it was hard to argue with an attempt to represent their unedited points of view.
That evening we had yet another helping of Alberta beef for dinner and strolled around the city before retiring to the hotel. Tuesday morning we were up early to catch a plane which only took us to the runway before returning to the terminal, and much to our chagrin, we weren't able to finally depart until afternoon. Our return to Boston was quite late, but we were able to make it back out of the city before our vehicles were locked in for the night, so we were at least spared that aggravation.
Altogether, an excellent trip and we highly recommend Banff/Lake Louise as an area of unparalleled natural beauty.