“You Can Tell the Sun Came Out” (8.13.08)

Nancy (downloading pictures): “Wow, we shot 238 pictures today.”

Rich: “You can tell the sun came out.”

Unsuspecting Blog Reader: “Oh dear. She’s not going to post a zillion more pictures, is she??”

Haha! Not exactly!

Welcome to Banff!!! Greetings from the Rundle Manor, affectionately known by us as the Rundown Manor, little sister to the Ptarmigan Inn as part of Banff Lodging. A perfectly adequate studio apartment with a kitchen, in downtown Banff, for – get this - $109/night! In Banff! Are you kidding me? We’re 2 blocks from Safeway, about 3 blocks from the visitors’ centre, about 5 blocks from river, and walking distance to everything in town. But as you already know, as faithful readers of NancyGirl’s Journey, we’re not really into the whole Banff scene. We’re just sleeping (and eating) here.

I’m starting to think that forecasting weather in the Rockies is not an exact science. We’ve had beautiful days on days that had a chance of thunderstorms; we’ve been drenched on partly cloudy days. Yesterday it snowed in the hills around Maligne Lake (Bald Hills hike), the result of a downpour that started just as we reached our car, also dusting the mountaintops around Jasper. I believe yesterday called for variable showers.

Mt Kerkesiln, last night, with a fresh dusting of snow. The view from the edge of the Athabasca River from the property of Becker’s Chalets in Jasper.

I think we’ve seen all four seasons in the last week. Rich corrected me earlier today – we’ve seen all four seasons in a day! That’s the Rockies!

This morning called for rain mixed with snow at Lake Louise and it was pouring in Jasper when we left (I like to think Jasper was just as sad that we were leaving). I put on my wool socks and buried my hiking gear in my suitcase the back of the trunk. There was no way we would do the two hikes we thought of doing today, en route to Banff. I didn’t even feel guilty for sleeping in well past my 5:00 alarm. It looked like a non-stop trip from Jasper to Banff, with lunch somewhere, most likely in the car.

As we drove down the Icefields Parkway, we saw a patch of brightness in the distance. “Wouldn’t it be a riot if that was the Columbia Icefields,” we laughed…

This is the Athabasca Glacier at about 11:25 today. Remember my previous blog with pictures of the sleet and wind on the Glacier? Totally different day today!

So, we stopped.

We looked at stuff.

We went across the street and climbed up to the toe of the glacier with about 200 of our closest friends.

We goofed off.

We were cute in our tuque.

Then we took a walk on the Glacier…

Not! I think these guys had permits or something. They were very confident and just walked right up there with their climbing helmets and ropes and ice axes. Apparently you can also take a guided walking tour on the ice, and there were several groups on the Glacier surface, starting from the toe, while we were there. I so want to do that next time!

Look at the day at the Glacier! I was so mad (okay, mildly annoyed) that I buried my hiking gear! The Wilcox Pass hike “provides the most spectacular views around the awesome Columbia Icefield” (“Canadian Rockies Access Guide,” p. 208). This would have been a great day to do it! But how were we to know? We got a later start than planned if we were to do this hike (because of the rain in Jasper), and we still had yet miles to go before we sleep, so we pressed on, and drove to Bow Lake…

Which just happened to also be having a beautiful day in its part of the Icefields Parkway.

I think there is even a spot or two of blue sky!

Kick-kick-kick! That’s what I was doing to myself for burying my hiking gear! What was I thinking? Oh. I was thinking it was going to be a rainy, stormy day. Man, oh man, I was wrong! At least at the Glacier and at Bow Lake!

This is the destination of unfulfilled hike #2, the Bow Glacier and Bow Falls (not the Bow Falls in Banff, but the Bow Falls here at Bow Lake). This, we plan to return to sometime this week while we’re stationed in Banff.

It started raining again, incidentally, sometime after we left the Parkway. It was pouring again as we drove by the turn-off to Lake Louise, and it was wet, but not raining at the time, when we drove into Banff. So apparently, in my meteorological experience, if it is raining in Jasper and Banff, it is beautiful on the Icefields Parkway.

Our $109/night hotel room has no TV and no internet, but we can pack our computers over to the Ptarmigan and use the Wi-Fi there. That’s kind of a pain, especially after downloading pictures, doing the dishes, writing a blog, etc. So I called the front desk to ask what the weather was like for tomorrow, and he said, “more of the same – rainy with some sunny patches.”

Hmmm… sounds like a beautiful day on the Icefields Parkway to me!

 

Postscript: We have no internet in our hotel in Banff. Not even a chance of “borrowing” somebody’s unsecured connection. All the connections are secured. We have to to go the bar at the main hotel (about 2 blocks away) for Wi-Fi, but that’s kind of a pain. But obviously, we’ve made the effort every now and again. :-)