Canada Trips to Canada late in the year are becoming a bit of a regular thing for us. This is our third early winter trip to the Rockies in four years. But it is fabulously brilliant.
Sunset Friday - Our flight to Calgary left Heathrow early in the afternoon. After a couple of hours the sun went down...
Twilight ...and for about five hours we flew through this pretty, perpetual twilight.
Sunrise Then, rather bizarrely, the sun came up again. Obviously it’s fairly standard practice for the sun to come up again after it’s gone down, but in this case it had gone down on Friday and come back up again still on Friday. So we essentially got two sunrises on one day. I’ve been on a few trans-Atlantic flights, but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced quite that configuration of events before.
Delta As we arrived in Calgary in the early evening after a long day of travelling, for convenience we decided to stay overnight at the Delta hotel at the airport. Once again, we were too tired to take advantage of their swimming pool...
Beer ...but we did manage to sneak in a swift pint of Big Rock Honey Brown Ale in the hotel’s bar before turning in for the night.
Highway 68 Saturday - One advantage of going to bed at about 7pm on Friday evening was that we were awake early on Saturday morning and at the Hertz desk to pick up our hire car shortly after they opened at 7am. This meant that it was still dark as we drove out of Calgary and we were well on our way into the mountains on highway 68 by the time the sun came up. This was a fabulous way to be welcomed back into the Rockies.
Sheep Highway 68 took us to highway 40 in Kananaskis country, where the almost obligatory bighorn sheep was dutifully licking salt off the road. I don’t think I’ve ever driven through here and not seen at least one bighorn sheep doing this.
Smith Dorien Trail Highway 40 took us south to my favourite road in the world - the Smith Dorien Trail, the 50-mile long gravel road from Kananaskis Lakes to Canmore. Not that you can see much gravel today, what with it being covered in snow.
Smith Dorien Trail There are many fabulous views down this stretch of road.
Smith Dorien Trail This view was particularly spectacular when I was standing there, but the photo hasn’t really captured to essence of it, which is a shame. It was pretty much straight into the sun though, which is always to tough shot to take.
Morant's Curve Having safely reached Canmore, we drove up Trans-Canada Highway 1 to Banff, where we left the motorway to continue for a while on highway 1a. It’s not a particularly scenic road (for Canada), but it’s pretty quiet and there’s always a chance of seeing some wildlife, albeit not usually in the middle of the day, which is when we were there.Highway 1a also passes Morant’s Curve, which is supposed to be one of the best places in the Rockies to take photos of the trains. I’ve stopped here loads of times to take photos, but I’ve never seen a train.As I was still shooting straight into the sun and the colours were almost completely washed out already, I’ve tried converting this photo to black and white.
Morant's Curve Here’s the almost-bereft-of-colour colour version for comparison purposes.
Morant's Curve Looking in the opposite direction, there were still no trains. Doh! Denied again. Given the number of times I’ve been here and seen no trains, I’m beginning to wonder if trains even come down this bit of track. We seem to see plenty of them everywhere else we go.
Lake Louise We made it to Lake Louise at around lunchtime and decided to stop in a deli for a bite to eat. After a few minutes we noticed that the downhill skiing on the TV was from Lake Louise. Someone had just had a big crash and the medics were trying to extricate them from the safety netting. When we left the deli, we noticed that we could see part of the downhill ski run and, on full camera zoom, we could just make out the group of people (on the right) working to free the crashed skier.As there was nothing we could do to help, we got back in our car and headed off up the Icefields Parkway.
Coyote The Icefields Parkway must be one of the most amazing roads to drive in the world. It’s certainly one of the most amazing that I’ve ever driven. Running between Lake Louise and Jasper, the Icefields Parkway is around 150 miles long and, as the speed limit is only 50mph, even if you don’t stop to take any photos, you’re guaranteed three continuous hours of mind-blowing scenery.There are often quite a few animals to be seen too (usually bighorn sheep and caribou). On this particular day we saw a pair of coyotes walking in the snow by the road. Unfortunately, not being adept at taking photos of things that move about, I was only able to get this photo of one of them.We made it to our hotel in Jasper just before dark. With the jet-lag kicking in, we were just able to stay awake for long enough to have a bite to eat and put away a couple of beers.Interesting beers sampled today were Big Rock Athabasca, Big Rock Cleopatra and a bottle of Moosehead lager (I didn’t think I quite had the space left to squeeze in a third pint).
Walking Sunday - As we’d spent most of the previous day in the car, we thought it would be nice to give the car a rest today and spend the day walking in the expansive woodland/forests around the hotel. As you can see, it’s pretty snowy out, making the trails tricky to follow. At one point, we managed to get well off the trail and were just walking goodness knows where in the forest when we saw a coyote walking a few dozen yards in front of us. Happily it seemed to have no interest in us whatsoever and we survived to tell the tale of our close shave with death.
Woodpecker This large woodpecker (it must have been over a foot long from head to tail) was entertaining itself checking out the bottom of the tree it’s clinging to in the photo. It was quite happy for me to walk to within about 10 feet of it to take this photo, which was handy as the trail went right past its tree.
Mule Deer There were a few deer around in the woods too. As they were also on the very large size, I made do with taking a photo of this one from fifty yards-or-so away. Good of it to stick its tongue out to try and spoil my photo.
"Mum" I didn’t do this. I just happened to come across it in the forest. Besides, there were signs saying not to go on the frozen lakes. This seemed like good advice as many of the lakes we saw weren’t frozen at all, which makes me think that at least some of the ones that were, perhaps were only slightly frozen over. Falling through the ice into a freezing cold lake miles from anywhere doesn’t seem like a smart move by any measure, even if you’re trying to write a Christmas message to your mum.
Squirrel A rare opportunity to photograph a squirrel. Generally you hear them squeaking, but don’t get anywhere near close enough to take a photo (unless you’re Dom - he gets some great photos of small mammals).
Sunset The approaching sunset indicated that it was time to head back to the hotel for some dinner.New beers sampled this evening were Big Rock Grasshopper and Big Rock Traditional Ale. Mmmm. Beer.
Brrrr! Monday - We were relocating from Jasper back to Kananaskis today and, as you can see, it was chilly out. It was good of the car to remind us that the -17C snow covered roads might also be icy.
Icefields Parkway We were back on the Icefields Parkway just before sunrise. Well strictly speaking, the sun has probably been above the horizon for half-an-hour, but just not made it over the surrounding mountains yet. Either way, it looked lovely.
Icefields Parkway The conditions were much improved from when we did this drive last year, when it was snowing very heavily and we were driving through over a foot of fresh snow in places.
Icefields Parkway A miscellaneous view on the Icefields Parkway.
Glacier A photo of one of the many glaciers on the Icefields Parkway. I can’t remember which one this is.
Athabasca Glacier Approaching the Athabasca Glacier. It was really cold here. The thermometer on the car was showing -17C, but there was a strong wind coming off the glacier, making it feel significantly colder. Even with my gloves on, my hands went completely numb after a couple of minutes out of the car taking photos.
Athabasca Glacier Approaching the Athabasca Glacier.
Crow This massive crow was hanging about in the car park at the Athabasca Glacier. I have no idea how it survives here because there doesn’t appear to be anything here apart from snow, ice and rocks. Maybe passing tourists feed it, despite the signs saying it is illegal to feed the wildlife.Incidentally, it’s quite tricky photographing a very black crow against a snowy white background.
Athabasca Glacier In the background is the bit of the glacier that the snow coaches drive on to during the summer. You can also see that crow, just to the left of the car, sitting on a pile of snow.
Athabasca Glacier I should send some of these photos to Mitsubishi. They make their car look quite rugged and stylish.
Weeping Wall Viewpoint For the most part, the Icefields Parkway runs down a very wide and open valley. I reckon this must be about the narrowest point, because it’s the only point I can think of where it’s possible to easily get both sides of the valley into a photo.
Num-Ti-Jah Passing the Num-Ti-Jah Lodge. You can just make it out in the distance on the shore of the frozen lake to the right of the car. We really must get round to staying there at some point. It’s just that it always seems to be closed because we tend to visit the area at relatively off-peak times of the year.
Lake Louise Once again we made it to Lake Louise at around lunchtime, so we popped into the Fairmont for a bite to eat. We stayed here for a couple of days last year and it was very, very nice indeed.
Lake Louise Looking down the frozen Lake Louise to the Plain of the Seven Glaciers. Awesome.
Morant's Curve - Again! Morant’s Curve is close to Lake Louise, so we decided to pop by and have a quick look, just in case there’s a train passing. Nope. Denied once again.
Smith Dorien Trail Back on the Smith Dorien Trail and a couple of moose (mooses?) wandered into the road. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) they were a couple of hundred yards ahead of us so this was the best photo I managed to get of them before they disappeared back into the trees.We made it to Kananaskis Village just before sunset.
Sunrise Tuesday - I woke early again (still not adjusted to Canada time yet), so decided to take a walk out to the village rim trail to see if there were any exciting sunrise photo opportunities. This was the best that I could manage.
Kananaskis Lower Lake It was a lovely, sunny day, so we decided to drive the 30 miles-or-so to the Kananaskis Lakes. We’ve been here a few times over the years, but only once in good weather, so the blue skies are a bit of a treat. The car’s thermometer indicated that it’s about -3C out, but there wasn’t a breath of wind and in the sunshine it felt really rather pleasant.
Kananaskis Lower Lake As I’ve brought a tripod with me today, it’s presented an excellent opportunity for a rare photo of both of us. And with such fabulous scenery too. It’s a shame Judith’s hidden inside her jacket like a tortoise.
Kananaskis Upper Lake A very short drive from Kananaskis Lower Lake is Kananskis Upper Lake, which is held in check by the dam that Judith’s standing on. That’s the Kananaskis Lower Lake that you can see in the background. There are loads of super, picturesque lakes in this area and I reckon pretty much every one of them is man-made.
Kananaskis Upper Lake Judith on the “beach” at the Kananaskis Upper Lake. It was so peaceful here, I would have happily stayed and stared at the stunning view all day.
Reading Judith reading a book on the “beach” at Kananaskis Upper Lake.
Judith Judith posing for a photo on the “beach” at the Kananaskis Upper Lake.
Kananaskis Lower Lake A view of the Kananaskis Lower Lake from the Kananaskis Upper Lake.
Highwood Pass Having loitered around the Kananaskis Lakes for ages, we thought we’d best go and look at something else before it got dark. So we headed back to highway 40. At the junction with highway 40, it occurred to us that we’d never really been south of here. We’d tried the first time we visited this area in September several years ago, but had been forced to turn back after a few miles due to snow. Well it wasn’t snowing on this day and the road was fairly clear. We had about 150 miles of fuel in the car and a sign said the next petrol station was 60 miles away, so we set off.The road climbed steadily, which took it’s toll on our fuel economy, such that after about 20 miles the car’s computer brain was claiming that we only had about 100 miles of fuel left. It was at about this time that we passed the sign in the photo indicating that we’d reached the top of the pass. As the next petrol station was still about 40 miles away, and it was getting late in the afternoon, we thought we’d best just turn around and head back to the hotel.
Highwood Pass View Once we’d turned back, this was the view ahead. Brilliant.
Gorge At about the point that we’d joined highway 40, there was a side road leading to a closed car park. We’d seen a few cars parked here earlier, although there were none by the time we turned up, so we stopped for a look.There was a path leading up a gorge. We followed the path for about 20 minutes, but it just went on and on and there was no indication as to how far it might ultimately go (being Canada, probably for at least 20 or 30 miles). As it really was starting to get a bit dusky now, particularly down in the gorge, we decided it might be safest to return to the car.This is a photo of Judith in the gorge.
Deer Back at the hotel, three deer were munching stuff outside. This is a photo of two of the three deer.
Sunrise Wednesday - I scoot out to the village rim trail before breakfast to watch for an interesting sunrise. It’s rather cold out and there’s a freezing wind blowing up out of the valley. I sat on a bench for about half-an-hour waiting for some interesting colour in the sky and this was the best photo I managed to get. Disappointing.
Smith Dorien Trail It’s time to switch hotels again and we’re back on the Smith Dorien Trail heading for Banff. The Smith Dorien Trail is not the only road out of Kananaskis, but it’s the only one worth driving on if you’ve got the time to spare.
Moose Along the way, we came across this moose eating salt off the road. It was accompanied by a baby moose, but that stayed well back in the trees, so I wasn’t able to get a photo of it.After a few minutes a snow plough came along and scared the moose back into the trees.
Moose After a few minutes the moose reappeared from the trees a hundred yards or so behind us, causing this fellow in his VW EOS to take evasive manouvers. This would be why they recommend so strongly that people don’t exceed the posted speed limits. “Speeding Kills Wildlife!”, as the signs say.
Canmore As we crested the pass on the Smith Dorien Trail, we got a nice view of Canmore, nestled in the valley, which is where we would be returning to in a couple of days.
Lake Minnewanka No trip to Banff would be complete without a trip to Lake Minnewanka. So here it is. Beautiful. One day it would be nice to be here when the boat tours are on. However, then I suspect that the place would also be full of a) people, and b) small flying things that bite. Probably best just to enjoy it in the cold and snow then.
Fairmont Banff Springs A short while later we arrived at our lodgings for the next couple of days - the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. This is a photo of the living room of our suite. Nice, eh?
Suite Just kidding. That was a photo of the lobby in the wing of the hotel that our suite was in. This is a photo of the living room of our suite. Which is a much more modest affair I think you’ll agree.
Suite View And this was the view from the window of the living room of our suite. It’s looking so dark and grey outside because it is in fact very nearly dark.
Elk and Oarsman Having settled into the hotel (i.e. dumped our bags and locked anything valuable in the safe), we walked into town for a beer and some dinner.We had a few nice beers in the bar of Banff Avenue Brewing before heading across the road to the Elk and Oarsman, where I had this nice bottle of beer/lager from the Steam Whistle brewery in Toronto, which we also happen to have visited. It’s based in the old railway sheds right next to the CN Tower and they used to give out free beer in the “factory shop” to anyone that wandered in. Maybe they still do.
Bow River View Walking back to the hotel, this was the view of the partially frozen Bow River from the bridge at the end of Banff Avenue. Tunnel Mountain is on the left, Mount Rundle is on the right.
Bow River Thursday - After breakfast we walked down to the Bow River to check that the falls were frozen (they were) and admire the nice view (above).
Tunnel Mountain Trail We were going to try to walk up Tunnel Mountain, but Judith had conveniently left her grippy snow/ice walkers in the hotel. So we decided to walk around Tunnel Mountain instead. The first half of the circuit was on Tunnel Mountain Road, which closes to traffic in the winter. The second half of the circuit, which is where Judith is in the photo, was on trails through the forest. That’s Mount Rundle on the left.
Bow River After a while, the trail met up with the Bow River, which was still largely unfrozen at this point.
Surprise Corner Eventually the trail joined up with Tunnel Mountain Road again at Surprise Corner, where there’s a fabulous view of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel (where we’re staying).
Black and White The same photo in black and white. I can’t decide which I prefer.
Banff Avenue Back in town I felt compelled to take a photo looking down Banff Avenue, even though I must have loads of these by now (this is our fifth visit to Banff after all and I’ve taken this photo every time I’ve been here).
Deer A few deer were walking through town. They didn’t seem at all bothered by the people or the traffic, not that there were a lot of either about.
Banff Springs Hotel This is one of the function rooms at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. The whole, enormous place looks like this.
Terrace View This was the view from the terrace of the hotel at night. So the bright thing in the sky is the moon, not the sun.
Surprise Corner - Again Friday - It was time to change hotels again and was snowing heavily as we left the hotel. We popped up to Surprise Corner again on the way out of town to try and get a photo of the hotel without the sun shining right into the camera lens. However, this photo doesn’t appear to be discernibly different from the one I’d taken the previous day. Apart from the snow, which was making the whole scene a bit fuzzy. Doh!
Vermilion Lakes On the way out of town we decide to take the short scenic drive along Vermilion Lakes Drive, where we see a pair of mule deer (or caribou?) sitting in the snow. Here’s a photo of one of them.
Vermilion Lakes And here’s the other one. You’ll have to take my word for it that it’s not another photo of the same one, just from a different angle.
Beaver? Sadly, no. We saw this swimming in the lake as we were driving by and immediately thought “beaver!”. But closer inspection (and some video surveillance) indicated that it definitely doesn’t have the distinctive, flat beaver tail. As best I can tell, it’s probably a Round-tailed Muskrat.
Skiing Having finished our animal-spotting frenzy at Vermilion Lakes, we made our way to Canmore, where Judith has booked us in for a classic Nordic skiing lesson at the Canmore Nordic Skiing Centre.It’s the first time I will have ever been on skis (albeit of the skinny, cross-country variety rather than the more conventional downhill variety), but I am immediately reminded of why I so despise everything skiing related. The private lesson itself was about £80, which seemed okay (and it would have been about £60 to participate in a group lesson). However, when we arrived we were immediately asked if we needed skis. Obviously we needed skis. If we had our own skis, why on earth would we need a skiing lesson? So they were £25 to rent for two hours. And having paid for the lesson and the skis, presumably we’d be wanting to ski then? Er, yes. Ah, you’ll be needing a ski pass then. There’s another £25. Ridiculous.
Skiing Anyway, having been robbed blind, we had our lesson, which was quite entertaining and interesting. Needless to say, I was fabulous at it.
Falcon Crest Having finished out skiing lesson, we made our way to our hotel - the Falcon Crest. As far as I’m aware, it had no association with the dire ‘80s TV show of the same name.Rather than being a conventional hotel, the Falcon Crest is what I think is commonly referred to as an “aparthotel”, i.e. a hotel made up of apartments/flats, many of which appeared to be owned by actual people rather than the hotel itself. We were staying in a lovely one-bedroom apartment, which, at a push, I reckon I could have comfortably lived in full-time.
Balcony View And this was the view from our balcony. I reckon the apartment and view were as nice as the suite and view we’d recently left at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, but it was a fraction of the price. The next time I stay in Canmore, I’m staying here.Incidentally, just after I took this photo, about half-a-dozen bunny rabbits, of the sort that many people keep at home, legged it past the hotel, followed a few seconds later by a coyote. I can only assume that some domestic rabbits must have escaped at some point. Clearly they weren’t finding the snow and freezing conditions unduly taxing. And they must have provided the local coyote population with a super source of snacks.
Cake We walked to the Grizzly Paw Brewing Company on the high street for a beer and some dinner. Having had a nice pizza, I fancied the look of their “5-mile high chocolate cake”, which turned out to be the biggest slice of chocolate cake I’ve ever seen in a restaurant in my life. We were nowhere near able to polish it off, even between us.Being a brewing company, Grizzly Paw had a wide range of very tasty looking beers available.Interesting beers sampled today were Grizzy Paw Beavertail Raspberry Ale, Grizzly Paw Rutting Elk Red and Grizzly Paw Big Head Nut Brown.
Nordic Skiing Center Saturday - We were back at the Canmore Nordic Skiing Center again. Not for a lesson, but to watch the Alberta something-or-other cross-country skiing championships, which were being contested by youths of various ages competing in hilariously named categories such as “midgets” and “mini-midgets”. As far as I could tell, none of the competitors were actual midgets.It was quite entertaining and the competitors were clearly giving it their all, as was demonstrated by the number of them that physically collapsed in the snow having crossed the finish line.
Rabbit Here’s one of the rabbits I mentioned earlier. This one’s quite unusual in that it’s what I think of as wild rabbit coloured. Most of the ones around seemed to be black or white or some combination of black and white.Anyway, we dropped the car off at the hotel and headed out for a bit of a walk.
Apartment They’d started building a large estate near our hotel and had a show apartment available for viewing, so we though we’d stop in for a look. As you can see, it was rather nice. But then it should be as, despite having only two bedrooms, this particular one was selling for about £500,000! The most expensive ones they had were going for just under £1,000,000!! I’d have liked to have seen inside one of those.
Policeman's Creek Back outside in the fresh air, there was a trail from the estate to the centre of town along Policeman’s Creek. Here’s a photo of Policeman’s Creek.
Policeman's Creek A view of the boardwalk that forms part of the trail along Policeman’s Creek.
High Street This is the view down Canmore’s high street. I suppose it’s not wildly dissimilar to the view down Banff’s high street.
Snow Bike Apparently there’s a growing trend for mountain bikers to want to ride all year round, regardless of the snow on the trails. So they’ve invented these super-sized bikes. Although it’s not entirely clear from the photo, the tyres on these bikes are much, much wider than normal mountain bike tyres - probably about 4 inches wide. It would have been nice to have been around for long enough to have had a go on one of these. Maybe next year.
Super-Size Me! This gives a slightly better indication of the size of the tyre.
The Wood We were hoping to sample some more of the wares of Grizzly Paw Brewing, but they were completely rammed (it was Saturday evening, so I suppose that’s not entirely surprising). So we walked to the other end of Main Street to The Wood, where I enjoyed this lovely pint of Rickard’s White before we headed back to our hotel for our last night in Canada.
Smith Dorien Trail Sunday - As our flight wasn’t until the evening, we had time for a meandering drive back to Calgary. In which case it would have been be madness to pass up the chance for one final drive down the wonderful Smith Dorien Trail (and our fourth of the week!).Despite the fact there had been little fresh snow in Canmore, it had clearly been snowing quite a lot up here since we last passed through on Wednesday. In fact was still snowing quite heavily and didn’t look like the snow ploughs have been out yet. For the first couple of miles the car, despite being in four-wheel-drive mode, was feeling not very well stuck to the road at all and I begin to wonder if we should turn back. Judith suggested that we try the four-wheel-drive-lock mode. I’ve no idea what it does, but it was a revelation and increased the (perceived) stability of the car very significantly.
Kananaskis We stopped in at Kananaskis Village, where we stayed on Monday and Tuesday, for some lunch. Unfortunately, when we arrived the hotel was experiencing a power cut, so they’d been unable to prepare any hot food. As we were in no hurry, we hung around for a couple of hours until they got the power back on.Before we left, we popped out to have a look at the view from the village rim trail, which was somewhat less impressive than it had been when we were here earlier in the week.
Airport We got a bit of a fright on our way back to Calgary when we got stuck in traffic on Trans-Canada Highway 1, about 30 miles from the airport. We only moved about a mile in an hour and were starting to get a serious sweat on that we might miss our plane completely.Fortunately we’d left ourselves plenty of time to spare and still made it to the airport in time for a farewell pint of Rickard’s Red before we boarded our plane.Given that we’d been here at this time of year twice in the past three years, we had a pretty good idea of what to expect when we got here this year. But we still had a superbly brilliant time that surpassed our expectations. We revisited three great hotels and discovered two more, saw loads of brilliant stuff and are already looking forward to visiting again.See you soon Canada!