Day 13 - May 26th
Slept in until past 10. Caught the bus into town and then transferred to Banff Springs Hotel. It is huge and is a very beautiful building made up of a lot of little bricks. We could just see and hear Bow Falls from the hotel. We also had a fairly good view of the golf course. We walked into the foyer and felt somewhat out of place. Very grand indeed. As we were waiting for the bus we could see the Sulphur Mountain Gondola in the distance. Took the bus back to town and then went back to camp for lunch (sandwich style).
We drove up to Sulphur Mountain. The Gondola is 1.5 km long at an average incline of 51%. So doing the maths that is a 700m rise in altitude. Well it cost something like 12 bucks to go up and is free to ride back down. What else were we to do. We decided to walk up and catch the gondola back down. Yes it would be easier to ride up and walk down but where is the fun in that. Up we went and it took us 2 hours of hard yakka, always going up. Occasionally we would look at the gondola to see if the people were laughing at us. I used this walk to try and sweat the flu out, I think it worked. At one stage I brought out the camera to take a shot of yet another snow covered hiking trail and as if on cue it started to snow. The views from the top were worth the hike. Saw a mountain goat and beautiful views of Banff. It also sleeted a bit when we hit the top. As a reward I walked into the restaurant and bought a Budwiser and an Orange juice (needed my vitamin C). I inhaled the beer. I don't know whether it was the altitude, the exercise, lack of hydration or the speed at which I drank the beer, but that was the best beer I have ever had. It was though it had be injected into the veins. After a little rest we took our free ride down the gondola and back to the camp ground for dinner. Which in itself was a show.
Jess, Angela and Luke cooked Spag Bol. It was a comedy of errors, from dropping the spaghetti on the floor to Bob burning his fingers on the pan. The old "Here, let me have a go at that" trick. A video of this would have been a treat. The nights entertainment involved having a night out in an Irish Pub where a couple of Guinii were consumed, Yum. I remember walking back to the tent alone in the dark in the woody campground at midnight thinking that a bear could be hiding around any one of these trees. It was very freaky. If anyone would have jumped out in front of me I would have made it into orbit. Later that night we had the unenviable feeling of having an animal of some sort sniffing around our tent. It freaked us out and felt like the heart was beating with the sound of a drum. We found out later that Werni heard it to and was as freak out as us.
Back to Canadian Parks West Page or on to Day 14.