Banff Judith wanted to go to Antigua and I didn’t. So we compromised on a third visit to Banff to see what it looked like in the winter (although technically the Canadians apparently consider December to still be “Fall”, not winter).
Disaster Saturday - Oh no! We were off to a bad start. A snow storm in Calgary on Friday closed the airport, so our plane never left, which meant it wasn't waiting for us at Heathrow. Flight cancelled. After a fraught hour-or-so, Air Canada found seats for us on a flight to Vancover.
Vancouver We had made it to Vancouver, but we'd got a four hour wait for a connecting flight to Calgary. Fortunately the airport was nearly deserted and there were plenty of places to sit. We were supposed to be spending our first night in Canada in Banff. However, we didn't leave Calgary Airport until after 11pm, it was about -20C outside and Banff was a 90 mile drive away. So we decided to spend the night in Calgary. We made it to the hotel just before midnight, 21 hours after leaving home.
Calgary Sunday - We decided to have a quick look around Calgary before heading for Banff. And the easiest place to see most of Calgary from was the top of the Calgary Tower.
Calgary Tower They'd installed a glass floor since we were last there. It was a bit nerve-wracking stepping on to it (it is 650 feet down to the pavement after all), but once you were on it wasn't too bad.
Chevvy Finally we set off for Banff under a clear blue sky in our Chevrolet Trailblazer, sporting a 4.2 litre in-line 6 with 285bhp. It was not quite as bling as the bright red Ford F150 pickup we had the last time we were here, but it was very comfortable and quiet and definitely well suited to the freezing, icy conditions. It was a shame it only averaged 18mpg even when driven gently.
Banff Arrived in Banff. We were still pretty shattered from our extended journey yesterday, so we had some dinner and a couple of beers, had a quick look around town, then called it a day.
Brrrr! Monday - As it was still sunny, we had decided to go and have a look at Lake Louise. The car had been sitting in the hotel's underground car park overnight, which was maintained at a comfortable 21C. It was quite exciting driving outside and watching the car's external temperature guage start to fall. After we'd driven a few miles, it was down to -32C. And that's just the air temperature without the windchill, which was making it feel significantly the wrong side of -40C.The lowest temperature we saw on the car's thermometer was -33C.
Lake Louise Me in front of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.
Lake Louise Judith with the frozen Lake Louise behind her (on which someone had marked out an ice hockey pitch), with the Victoria Glacier in the distance (which we couldn't see the last time we were here because it was hidden in the clouds).
Highway 1a We took the much less travelled Highway 1a, also called the Bow Valley Parkway, back to Banff, which was a much more relaxing and scenic drive than the motorway-like Highway 1.Highway 1a runs parallel with and close to the Canadian Pacific Railway track. One of the guidebooks we read reckoned that this road offered the best views of the trains in the Canadian Rockies. As you can see from the photo, the track curves nicely through the frame and there are picturesque mountains in the background. Unfortunately, no trains came past in the 30 seconds I was standing there taking this photo and freezing to death.
Fairmont Banff Springs Tuesday - Out and about in Banff. This was the view of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel from Surprise Corner.
Snow Coach Over at the Banff Gondola, there was a snow coach in their car park. Ordinarily this snow coach would be taking tourists onto the Athabasca Glacier about 100 miles north of Banff, but it was way too cold and snowy up there for that sort of thing at this time of year. Our mid-size SUV looks tiny in comparison.
Banff View We took the Banff Gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain. We'd already been up here twice during earlier holidays, but the views were so awesome that a third visit didn't seem unreasonable. The snow covered mountain on the left is Cascade Mountain, with the town of Banff in front of it. The smaller mountain in the middle is Tunnel Mountain, with the Banff Springs golf course just to it's right.
Bow River Back down the gondola and we were off to have a look at the largely frozen Bow River, at the foot of Bow Falls. That's Tunnel Mountain on the left.
Bow Falls Bow Falls were already almost completely frozen over.
Lake Minnewanka From Banff, it was a relatively short drive to Lake Minnewanka. This is a photo of Judith standing in front of the largely frozen lake.
Judith Frost forming on Judith's scarf. Also, although you can't quite tell in this picture, her eye lashes have frozen.
Elk and Oarsman Back in Banff and we were off for a couple of beers and a bite to eat in Judith's favourite Banff restaurant/bar - the Elk and Oarsman. There was a nice view of Mount Rundle out of the window.
Smith-Dorien Spray Trail Wednesday - It was rather cloudy and we'd decided to drive to the Delta Lodge at Kananaskis, which was where we stayed the last time we were in this area.Rather than take Highway 1, we took the very much more scenic Smith-Dorien Spray Trail, which is a fantastic gravel road that's runs south from Canmore for about 40 miles, deep into Kananaskis Country.The bit I'm parked on in the photo was very wide and straight, but it's narrow, rough and steep in places. I'd driven it in a "regular" car in the summer, but you really need some sort of 4x4 for maximum entertainment value.
Sheep Bighorn sheep licking salt off Highway 40.
Delta Lodge Finally we made it to the Delta Lodge at Kananaskis, where we had a very nice lunch.
Kananaskis After lunch we had time for a bit of a walk about before we head back to Banff.
Kananaskis A picture of me yomping off into the distance.Thursday - Went to the Banff Hot Springs, which was like a really small and rubbish version of the Blue Lagoon in Iceland. Unless you have a burning desire to sit in a swimming pool full of volcanically heated spring water, I'd probably give it a miss.In the evening we also had a very nice curry in Masala, which appeared to be the only curry house in Banff.Didn't take any photos all day!
Sunshine Village Friday - Went to Sunshine Village, which is one of the three ski resorts around Banff. Despite the fact that it's name indicates that it might be some sort of "village", Sunshine Village actually appeared to be a cable car station. We couldn't see the ski slopes from the cable car station and we didn't feel inclined to pay the $58 required to travel in the cable car up to the next level. So we went to find something cheaper and more interesting to do.
More Sheep We decided to take Highway 1a back to Banff. After a while our path was blocked by a small herd of Bighorn sheep.
Sheep They didn't appear to be at all nervous of the car, so I had to very carefully pick my way through them. On my way past, the sheep in the picture and another with equally big horns decide to start sparring with each other by butting heads/horns. Fortunately neither decided to spar with the shiny side of my rental car, which was a big relief.
Banff View Back in Banff, we decided to go for a walk round the Banff Springs Golf Course, so we parked up at the foot of the Bow Falls. We got about 400 metres from the car before seeing a couple of what we think were coyotes (but might possibly have been wolves) sitting by the fairway. We decided that close proximity to large carnivores would not make for a relaxing walk and retreated to the car.
Tracks We drove the few miles to Cave and Basin, where there's a relatively short circular walk - the Marsh Loop. There were no other cars in the car park, although it was clear from the tracks on the ground that the path had been travelled by a few people and a few animals.After a few hundred metres, a set of large animal footprints came out of the trees, ran along the edge of the track for a bit, then disappeared back into the trees. The photo shows one of the footprints next to Judith's gloved hand.We completed the walk without incident, but when we got back to the hotel I checked on the internet and, as far as I can tell, it appears that this is a cougar/mountain lion footprint! More large carnivores. Brilliant. Well at least the bears are supposed to be hibernating in December.
Fenland Trail Having successfully made it back to the car without encountering any actual live cougars, we drove back to the hotel, dropped the car off and walked to the Fenland Trail, which was only about a mile from the hotel. This is a photo of Judith having a rest on the Fenland Trail.
Fenland Trail View The Fenland Trail passes close to Vermillion Lakes, shown in the photograph. Although you can't quite see it in this photograph, there's a person skating on the lake using a big kite.
Snacks Back in town in the Elk and Oarsman and it was two-for-one appetisers night, which Judith found unable to resist. Although these appetisers do look a bit like normal sized main courses!
Smith-Dorien Spray Trail Saturday - Our last day. We decided to take the roundabout and extra-scenic route back to Calgary, which also happened to give me the opportunity to drive the Smith-Dorrien Spray Trail to Kananaskis again.
Kananaskis Lower Lake On the way we detoured to Kananaskis Lower Lake, the views of which had been obscured by snow on our previous two visits. The small tent you can see just above the bonnet of the car is that of a mentalist who's gone ice fishing.Our 4x4 made the only tracks in the snow down to the lake, so this bloke must have been there at least since the previous day since there hadn't been any snow on Saturday. Bonkers.We stopped in at the Delta Lodge at Kananaskis again on the way past for a light lunch before continuing on to Calgary.
Stil Brrrr! As we dropped the car off at the airport it was still -27C out (plus wind chill). Brrr! We'd been here for 5 days before we saw the temperature rise above -20C and the absolutely highest temperature we observed all week was -8C - and that was only briefly. British winters will likely never seem quite so ferociously cold again.
Going Home Here's a picture of the approaching sunset from the terminal building at Calgary Airport.We had a great time, ate tonnes of yummy food and drank some really nice beer. We'll definitely visit Banff again, but I'm not sure we'll come back in the winter because it's just too darned cold.