day 15 - banff

Saturday June 17  - Day 15 of trip –Banff, Canada

Travis and I woke early to tackle Tunnel Mountain. It’s only about a mile from our campsite, and stands about 600 vertical feet higher than camp.  A well defined trail leads to its summit.  We packed for “worst case scenario”, with bear spray, 3 bottles of water, GPS, compass, etc, but only needed a little water.  The hike was reasonably steep, but not particularly treacherous. On the way, we got passed by no fewer than SEVEN people who were jogging up and down the mountain.  We felt a bit lame for “merely” walking up and down. We made it from camp to the summit in a little over an hour.  Views were excellent since the skies were mostly clear.  We could actually see our camp and camper/truck/canoe combo.  I was very impressed with Deanna’s Canon SX620HS camera.  The zoom on this thing is fantastic.  No wonder she’s getting such great bear pictures, etc!!

The ladies picked us up on the way to town.  We toured the normal gift-shoppy places that every tourist destination has, and stumbled onto a “hot rod” car show and 10k/half/marathon that were being hosted by the City.    I’d have really liked to run the 10k, but my left knee was killing me after that hike. My left knee is normally my “good” knee, so no clue what has happened to it.  I’ll have to minimize my hiking and definitely “go easy” on it for a while.  Side note…… is that really where I am in life?  B%tching about my ailments?  What am I, 43 or 83? 

Leftovers for lunch, and then we headed to the local “hot springs” pool. Price was reasonable at about $5/head, but the pool wasn’t really big, and it was hotter than blazes. Effectively, it was a huge hot tub.  No one actually “swam” in it.  Everyone just sat on the edge, trying to estimate the percentage of patrons that were tattooed, or guess what country other folks were from.  At least, that’s what we were doing for the ~2 hours we were there.

On our way home from the “pool”, we drove “Golf Course Road” which goes by huge waterfall on Bow River, just northeast of downtown.  This was an awesome view, and while there we saw a wedding ceremony in progress along the riverside. It was pretty fantastic, until…… we got to the truck and my truck alarm (which I don’t know how to enable in the first place) went off, interrupting the wedding ceremony substantially. Deanna was ready to kill me. 

Kids whipped us in spades back at the camper.  Tomorrow, we get to see Lake Louise, reportedly the prettiest lake in the Canadian Rockies, which is a stout claim. Hope it’s true.  

I have noticed far less critters around Banff than we’d seen in other areas.  No eagles, etc thus far at all, although, Amanda did see a fox two nights ago.  We’d seen several eagles (all Golden) at the Teton campsite.