Sarah is writing the blog tonight but Alan will give the various facts and figures my head can't hold. He will do so in red.
We got up about 8am today and headed down to the free breakfast our Aussie check-in guy Tom had given us when we arrived. Thankfully it was free because it wasn't that good and I can't imagine having spent $13.95 on that. We still managed to eat a lot even though it wasn't that great.
We checked out and started heading to Banff. It was a lovely morning, not too cold, even by Alan's standards, and a little bit of sunshine. Before leaving the hotel I had looked up on youtube about how to combat the overexposure that has been occurring with taking photos on snow. Hopefully I was able to make some changes but I haven't yet checked the photos today.
Our first stop was at Athabasca Falls which was nice but I suspect would be much more impressive when the snow on the surrounding mountains start to melt. The next stop was Sunwapta Falls. The sign said the falls were closed but we pulled in anyway. Someone then pulled in behind us and then two others turned up. I think we started a trend. The falls were hard to see from the vantage points but we managed by leaning over the fence. There was a lot of snow and ice still in this area.
The Rocky Mountains are just amazing. We don't get sick of looking at them.
About 70 minutes after leaving Jasper, we arrived at the Columbia Icefield which has the Athabasca Glacier. We signed up for a tour out to the Glacier. It takes about 10 minutes to get out by coach to the pickup point where you board an Ice Explorer. It takes another 15 minutes or so to get out to the Glacier and then we got to get out and walk around for 30 minutes. We were lucky as we were the only group out there and there were only 11 of us. Just before we left the glacier another group arrived with about 40 or so people and then, while we were on the road coming back, another large group were on their way out and then a full coach load arrived at the pickup point and were on their way out. By this stage there would have been about 150 people out there. It's not a particularly large area where you're allowed to walk around on the glacier, so it's much preferable to be doing it in a small group like we had. The Athabasca Glacier is about 6kms long and 1km wide and it is up to 300 metres think in certain points. The company who organise the tours are very careful about where they take you, as there are always very deep crevasses all over the glacier which are hidden by the surface snow. The end of the glacier moves at around 15 metres per year. The rock hard glacier ice is a distinct blue colour, which is why a lot of the lakes around here are that magnificent light blue colour. Contrary to popular belief, it is not simply because the ice is so cold, but because when the ice is compacted so tightly, as in a glacier, it turns blue.
Alan had gone overboard on the 'keep warm' warning and had a long sleeve shirt and four jumpers on. He looked like the Michelin Man. It ended up not being too cold out there unless you found yourself in a wind pocket. It was very cold when the wind blew so I was thankful for having my 5 layers of protection on. He can't have been too cold as he went for a walk into the snow and ended up knee deep at one stage. That was funny. I just kept sinking.
As we were walking back to the carpark, we heard a rumble in the distance and just looked up to see a huge cloud of ice particles in the distance from an avalanche. I'm glad we weren't below it.
Back on the road we still had had another 2.5 hour drive to Banff. We stopped at another frozen lake, Waterfowl Lake. It looked like it was thawing but Alan picked up some rocks and launched them and they bounced. Pretty tough ice around here. We were pretty high up and there was snow everywhere so it really isn't surprising. I was really surprised. I was throwing decent sized rocks up into the air and they were coming down right on the edge of the ice and it wasn't even cracking it. It was obviously well and truly frozen solid.
We took the turnoff to Lake Louise for a look, just in case the weather isn't as good tomorrow. As we approached the car park, it would appear everyone else had the same thought. It was pretty busy down there. The lake, as suspected, is very frozen, except in one very small area. Plus the snow is very deep around there. I had my mind on a small hike (not today) but I'm not sure whether we will be able to. We hope to get back there in the next few days.
We got a little bit lucky about 8 kilometres out of Banff. I was driving at about 115kmh in a 90 zone and was overtaken by a car. Seconds later and he was pulled over by a hidden police speed trap. Thank goodness he chose that moment to pass us, otherwise it would have been us being pulled over.
We arrived in Banff and checked into our hotel. I had booked a Loft Fireplace Room which is supposed to have a mountain view. Well, I guess it does, if you stand outside your door to see the mountain, or get on your knees in the Loft bedroom to look out the window.
As we were a little tired, we took a 2 hour nap, getting up at 7.30pm and decided on Chili's for dinner. I looked it up and discovered it was 170m from our hotel, so we decided to walk. The meal was OK, albeit a little spicy. We ordered chocolate milkshakes and the woman was confused as to why we would want a milkshake BEFORE the meal. OK, it came off the dessert menu but who wants a chocolate milkshake for dessert.
We are here in Banff for three nights so we might have an easy day tomorrow and start it with a nice lie in.
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