Road Trippin’ Banff National Park 8.18.2015 and 8.19.2015

Road Trippin’ Banff National Park 8.18.2015 and 8.19.2015    

THE Lake Louise

I know I say this about every place we go, but Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada is amazing. Its absolutely stunning with huge mountain faces, peaks and glaciers. Before we drove through Calgary, the last big city before Banff, the landscape closely reflected that of Wyoming in a sort of Bizzaro Land kind of way. Lets just say I was very happy when the landscape changed.  I am in awe at every turn; every mile the car moves forward offers a new spectacular view.

I thought this was funny. Here we were in the heart of Canada, using time and kilometers as a form of measuring distance and then there is a sign with distance shown in mileage. 

Our first stop was to a place called Bow Falls which offered a pretty impressive rapid/fall on the river. After that we walked around the town for a bit, which seemed like an odd mix between Aspen, Gaitlinburg and Estes Park, but beautiful nonetheless. We settled at a Tex-Mex restaurant and an older man sat next to us. As cool and calmly as possible I told David, “I think that guy is famous”, swearing I had seen him play a character in some movie at some time. This is the second or third time I had done this so I’m not sure David really cared much or believed me. We ended up getting into a conversation with the guy, and his wife joined him after some time. Turns out, he was not famous, at least not for movies. He is, however, from Austin, Texas which made my heart jump for joy. If you haven’t heard me profess it before: I love Texans. My belief in them being the nicest people on the planet was reaffirmed once again by the end of our meal where we spent most of it in conversation with the couple.

Eventually we made our way to the famed Lake Louise. I have seen many photos of it, and to be completely honest, they did the place so much justice that I felt like I had been there before. It was amazing and beautiful and at the same time, no big deal for me.  It was a big turquoise green lake at the bottom of a beautiful panoramic view of mountains. My reaction here is much similar to what I imagine I will feel when I finally make it out to see Maroon Bells near Aspen, Colorado. Pretty anti climactic. The only time I have been legitimately surprised and perhaps overwhelmed to the point of tears by a view that I have seen a hundred times before in pictures was at the Grand Canyon. Obviously, I have much more world to see.

We decided to do a hike up to a tea house. We had the Upper Tea House (further, steeper) and the Lower Tea House (not as high, not as far). Let me stop to digress about a point I’ve observed in Canada. I’m used to measuring a hike by its distance and its elevation. These two factors determine the difficulty of a hike I am about to embark upon. In Canada, they are (obviously) in kilometers, and time.  “How far is the tea house?” Oh, you know, about 2 hours, they might say. Distance is measured in time, and David warned me before that if they say it will take 2 hours, it will definitely take you two hours: Canadians aren’t weak hikers. Still unsure about the performance of my foot or how it might hurt tomorrow, we opted for the Lower Tea House. I was mistaken by thinking it would be an easy 4 km or 2 miles or who the hell cares how far it was: It took whatever time it took and it was all uphill and much harder than I anticipated. I’ve been saying a lot lately that these hikes we do are hard and perhaps I should clarify as to why I say that: To the average person, they may not be hard, but when you hike with David and are actually concerned with keeping up, they become hard. That guy has more energy than an 8 year old boy. He only takes breaks to capture a photo of a flower. Often times, if there is an opportunity, we run or jog up or down the mountain.  It’s not exactly my wish or want but with my own “gotta go gotta get there” attitude I don’t mind the rushing. It’s a great workout, but it is challenging. 

Outside of the teahouse. Each day, workers carry up the supplies for the day, and use water out of the glacier fed lake outside for tea. 

No electricity, heat or lights. Cool!

The teahouse was really neat. In my head I had conjured up a vision of nice tables with white cloth table coverings, soft violin music, a waiter dressed in black pants, white shirt and a tie to take my order of tea and crumpets. Why I thought this I have no idea, since the clientele are all sweaty dirty hikers who just trekked 1200 feet in elevation up the mountain to drink tea. So, instead, it was a rustic old cabin with no running water, heat or lights. It was quaint, crowded and it was adorable. I got a vanilla burbon rooibos tea and we shared an apple crisp. Delicious! On the other end of the table sat a family of five. We caught some of their names being Dave, Katie, and Ellie (as in Ellis) and when the other couple left, we engaged in conversation. They were from Portland on a three week long road trip through Yellowstone, Glacier and Banff National Parks. We enjoyed their company and went on our way. Remember them.

Best Day Ever!

Athabasca Glacier in the Columbia Icefield. 

It took me way too long to figure out that the thing I was looking at was actually a glacier covered in sediment and rocks. 

The next day we got up and headed to Columbia Icefields to take a look at Athabasca Glacier. It apparently used to be much further down the hill than where it is now. From the parking lot (where it was in 1948 or something), we had a bit of a trekk up to the base of the glacier. When David visited twenty years ago he said you could get on the glacier and walk around, which was prohibited now without a guide. 

The people we kept seeing.  

There is a portion of the path that allows you to get closer to the river and we walked around down there. The part I want to emphasize here is that most people walking around that day did not venture down to the lower river section. Out of nowhere, I see a familiar outline in the distance. (I'd like to note for legal purposed that we were there first). Why, it was Dave, and his daughter Ellie from the teahouse! Crazy. We talked, enjoyed the glacier, and left, never to see them again. 

We started driving down the Icefields Parkway and pulled over to see a mama moose and her baby drinking from a lake. They were quiet a distance away, on the other side of the lake, and it was a marvelous site to see. In Jasper we stopped for a bite to eat at a place called Papa George’s and I got a hamburger with cheese. Literally, my "hamburger" had a slice of ham on it, which sort of freaked me out. I noted that in the future I will be more careful when reading a menu. We spent the majority of our time in Jasper at library blogging.

Apparently, I was really mesmorized by this rock. 

We went to a campground that had 700 sites and they were all taken. Dang. This campground had about 5 loops to it, and we got a spot in Loop A right next to the bathroom. An hour or so after getting set up, I see a familiar figure walking away from the bathroom. Quietly, I said, “Dave!” Nothing. Said it again, louder, and he turned around. How the heck does this keep happening! Fool me once, or so it goes… Was he stalking us? Maybe he thought we were stalking him. I have no idea. They happened to be in the exact same loop in the exact same campground. The weird part is, they reserved their spot months ago. Either way, he was a very nice guy, with a lovely family and we enjoyed our conversations with his them.