Banff National Park

Friday June 30, 2006

Part of the treat of staying at this condo is the satellite TV. I ate it up last night like a lost hiker in the desert drinks up water. Ferris Bueller on TBS, Anderson Cooper on CNN, The Office…I never realized how much I miss the mindless ramblings of the idiot box. But I did.

We got up early this morning and headed out for Lake Louise, and we saw 2 elk right as we left. It’s about a 45 minute drive up the Trans Canada Highway and we got there before 9:00 am. Lake Louise seems to be famous as much for the Chateau Lake Louise, which sits perched on the edge of the lake, as much as for the lake itself. The view from the hotel is stunning: Beautiful green water reflects the mountains and glaciers of the mountains above. No wonder people pay $600 a night to stay there. Sage had picked out a hike that went along the lake and then up into the valley toward the glaciers that lie way above the lake and through a valley called “Plain of the Six Glaciers”. (Not sure why it’s called “Plain”, it’s more like a valley, but whatever.) There’s actually a tea house at the end of the trail, about 4 miles from the hotel. From our map it looks like the trail ended at the tea house, and there wasn’t any other trails leading up to it. Seemed like an odd place to put a tea house. We climbed up the valley which had incredible views of the lake behind us and the glaciers in front of us. At one point in the climb we heard a huge roar up ahead. This time we’re sure it was an avalanche (we didn’t hear any booms like we did in Glacier when they were setting off dynamite) but we couldn’t see that far ahead to view any of the slide. After about 5 km or so we noticed that the clouds coming over the mountains were looking really ominous. We didn’t bring our rain gear with us, and Sage’s fear of being struck by lightning is only slightly lower than that of being mauled by a bear, so we decided to turn around before getting to the tea house. I’m figuring it was closed anyway, whatever it was. I’m glad we got to the trailhead when we did. On the way back down the trail it was just a constant stream of hikers going up, especially the 1 ½ miles right next to Lake Louise. We got back down the trail around 11:30 am and stopped in at the Chateau. It’s incredibly pretentious, which didn’t surprise me too much, and it’s not quite my style. It was also packed with tourists, so we left with the intention of going up to Moraine Lake; but we assumed that place would be packed as well (it is a holiday weekend) so we bailed. We got back to our room around 1:00 pm, just in time for the Italy/Ukraine game. (I would have preferred to watch the Germany/Argentina game, but I didn’t schedule the times.) Sage took an afternoon nap while I did a bunch of clerical stuff, getting my bills organized and such.

After cooking up a quick dinner of Baked Chicken with Spicy Rub we decided to drive up to Mount Norquay, a ski resort right outside town. It’s supposed to have a great view of the town (it does), but we also got lucky on the way up by seeing a young bighorn sheep right on the side of the road. Right near the parking lot for the ski resort was a nice pull out, and right next to the pull out was a huge open field that has a great view of Banff. We think it’ll be a great place to watch the Canada Day fireworks tomorrow night, but if it is, I’m sure half the town will be there as well. So we’ll have to see. After the trip up the mountain we took a drive around some lakes and saw some elk and a lone white-tailed deer. Then it was back to the condo for some reading, some blogging, and some cookie eating, before finding “North By Northwest” on TCM. Sweet.