Our Trip Part 2
The second part of our trip included a lot more hiking, walking, climbing, trying not to fall down mountains and trying to cross rivers that were impassable to unprepared adventurists like us. I would say that the prepared hiker probably has waterproof shoes, or ones that dry very quickly, as well as many other useful tools that we didn’t have. We prepared with a container of almonds, some pepperoni sticks, two cameras, a bunch of lenses, and three bottles of water. I had a pair of brown sketchers on and Sherry had a nice new shiny pair of running shoes. Off we went.
Our first stop in this post was Peyto Lake about a third of the way up the Icefields Parkway. After parking, you hike up to the observation area which is about a 10-15 minute walk and you come out to this beautiful view of Peyto Lake.
Of course Sherry and I weren’t satisfied by just seeing the “tourist” view of the lake, we had to make an adventure out of it. We really wanted to get down to that delta and see the lake close up and of course drink from the glacier fed stream, which is a bit of a “thing” with us, it seems wherever we go into the mountains we have to try the water from different streams and rivers, and these are as glacier-fed as you can get. (it’s delicious and freezing :D) So, we go walking around looking for a path down and sure enough there was a path heading down the hill. So we walked and walked and walked… down switchbacks, down steep slopes, trying to make enough noise so all the bears wouldn’t eat us and sure enough we got down to the delta where we took the following picture.
Just as we had taken some pictures and stooped our bodies down to drink some of the river water we noticed a big black cloud over the mountains coming our direction, so we thought it would be best to head back up the hill. Well you really find out what kind of shape you are in when you are climbing up steep mountain paths at 9000 ft above sea level gasping for air. We’ll be nice and tell ourselves that we are in mediocre shape :D.
By the way, if you’re wondering what makes the water blue, it’s a particular type of rock that is as fine as flower when carried down the river and left in the water that reflects the blue light in the spectrum, and the more of this fine rock powder that is in the water, the bluer it will be. FYI
It’s tough to relate to you all of the different fun things we did on our trip, but one of the things we did was the Banff gondola, which I don’t think was worth the money, but this was a nice shot of the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel that I took on the way down.
With wildlife everywhere, getting pictures was like taking candy from a baby.
With two days left we headed north towards Jasper, the Icefields, and Edith Cavalle… which I will be happy to tell you about in the next post 😀
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