Banff and About

This was a quick snapshot of a mother bear beside the road with her two cubs. They were practicing how to climb (not quite there yet). The photo didn't turn out very well as the camera always seems to focus on the wrong thing but we were so excited to see cubs.

This is not us in a boat, just some other Minnewanka boaters. We can't stop giggling over the unfortunate name.

Another almost tame ground squirrel/chipmunk.

Darn, Mum's hair didn't behave for very long.

This curious cheeky baby mountain goat looks like it wants to come and say hello.

The wildlife seemed to come so close.

We spent part of the day in town, looking for postcards but not buying any and sitting in the garden with homemade cookies and iced lemon tea. It was too hot to do a great deal.
No sightings of Wills and Kate yet but we've got our fingers crossed for tomorrow at the Calgary Stampede. Hopefully we'll get there in time for the parade but some of us find it hard to get out of bed.

In search of Will and Kate

Our home from home for three nights - a delightful B & B in the centre of Banff.

We started off in seach of the hot springs and the Gondola ride up Sulphur Mountain, but quickly got sidetracked to see Bow Falls at the lower end of Banff.

Looking downstream from the falls, a couple of random oddities enjoy the view.  Behind Sophie lie the rafts you can go on a slow drift down the river, wildlife spotting.

The Banff Springs Hotel - the supposed location of the visiting Royal couple whilst at this end of their visit and before they move onto Calgary tomorrow to start the Stampede fun.

This was enough to make Sophie blush!!

Hotel from the Godola.

A couple of likely fellow travellers.

The trip up Sulphur Mountain involves a 5000 ft climb in quite fast time.  The view down towards Banff was worth seeing.  Behind the town is Tunnel Mountain where cougar have recently been sited (as in released into the wild) and also site of the largest campsite locally.  Rather those campers than us given the sightings!

Decadent picnic at the top.  Sophie had spent part of the previous evening making choc dipped strawberries and Lucky Charm cereal crispy cakes with Hershey bar chocolate (and very nice they were too).

Right at the bottom you can just see the Bow Falls.

Mum stayed at the top of the Gondola while Dad and Sophie went on up to the "Cosmic Ray Observatory" right at the summit.  Sophie looks down on where her Mum should have been.

 Nearly at the top.

Banff again.  We are staying right in the middle of the picture.

Summit shots.  Dad had gone back to the car just to put on his altitude tee shirt, and got the desired reaction from passers by.

Looking up to the summit from the Gondola deck.

Who's that girl?

A quick (?) trip from here into Calgary to visit a scrapbooking oulet followed, and having driven through the city preparing for the Stampede and a Royal visit it was a case of "Let's not bother".  Fortunately, after a bout of retail therapy and managing to book a hotel (which we had been told would not be possible) the Stampede trip was back on.  Dad found a completely non aggravating way out of Calgary to return to Banff and we have just finished a fantastic pasta bolognaise completely self made (by Mum).

Tomorrow is another day - call back to find out where we ended up.

Love to everyone.

Canada Hair Dos (and Don'ts)

Our closest encounter with a bear with the car safely between us and it. We seem to be lucky enough to see bears everyday.

Early this morning, outside our cabin, the ground squirrels were busy keeping watch.

We found a lovely place to stay in Banff with great wifi (we can't keep up with the pictures loading!)
We retraced our steps back to Johnston Canyon for a 3km uphill canyon walk. This is Mum and Sophie at the start.

This is a few selected from the hundreds of photographs we took. There were a series of waterfalls on the way up.

Which way did it go? Dad and Sophie seem a bit confused.

Dad's cheating! He didn't have any food but the squirrel/chipmunk came right up to his hand anyway.

Back on the hike up the canyon or should I say along the sturdy walkway (at least that's what Dad told us).

Nearly there...
Could do with a fan and a drink though ;o)

The end of the hike up! What a reward. We'd chosen to walk up to the Upper Falls.

This was a cave tunnel to get a good (wet) view of the Lower Falls. It seemed to be air conditioned in there, what a relief given how hot we were.

Sophie about to enter the cave tunnel. You can see how close it gets to the waterfall.

We tried to capture the rainbow (no skittles involved I'm afraid). Mum could have done some windscreen wipers for her glasses.

Notice Mum's hair in this photograph...

Because all these photos of Mum have been the Before shots.

Presenting, the After shots...

Mum is really pleased with her new Canadian hair do. She's still flicking it even though there's nothing to flick.
We ended the day with a BBQ and strawberries dipped in Hersheys chocolate.

Held Captive Up a Mountain

This is our latest accommodation. A lovely cabin in the Bow Valley. It's a small cabin with a log burner. We slow roasted overnight because we just had to light it!

We went up Grizzly Mountain on a ski lift.

On the way up we saw two grizzlies in the distance; a mum and cub. They later became our captors.

This is  bear tracks in the snow right by where you get off the ski lift.

From the mountain viewpoint you can see Lake Louise and Victoria glacier.

While up the mountain we decided to take a walk down to the Interpretive Centre. When we got there, there was a radio message that we were all to stay there as the mum and cub were by the ski lifts on the path heading down towards us. Although we were all safe, we had to stay until they moved away into the trees. We were entertained by the staff with stories of bear antics.

One of the stories was about the always grumpy bear who they thought was a male at first but turned out to be female. So the name changed from Oliver to Olivia. This is she. We saw her when we finally made our escape.

This is a close up of Victoria glacier. The snow melt from here feeds into Lake Louise.

Ground Squirrels act like Meerkats in the way that they stand up and look around. They're as common out here as rabbits are at home.

We went for a picnic lunch at Lake Louise.

The lake is the striking blue colour because the sunlight reflects off rock flour in the water. Rock flour is caused when glacier ice grinds against rock.

Look I can get my leg behind my head! Do you like his yoga moves?