This weekend, my husband Heinrich and I decided to take a trip down to Calgary. Calgary is just a stone’s throw from the Rocky Mountains (and not far from Edmonton, where we live), and we were itching to do our first hikes of the year! So after an early wake-up call and a hearty breakfast, we made our way to Banff National Park to climb two mountains!
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| The view from our hotel room in Calgary. The mountains are so close! (Yet so far away...) |
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| Sulphur Mountain (I'm going to climb up that?!) |
Our first stop: Sulphur Mountain. Sulphur mountain overlooks the town of Banff, and has an elevation of 2 451 m (or 8 041 ft) and a prominence of 670 m (or 2 198 ft) (whatever that all means). Anyway, we set out to climb the mountain. All we had to do was follow a 5.5 km long trail. Easy peasy, right? Well…about an hour into the hike, we were woefully regretting our choice of footwear. Although it must have been close to 20 degrees outside, most of the mountain was still covered in snow. (Say “duh,” if you will, but I had honestly not thought that it would be THAT snowy on the side of the mountain at the end of May!) What started out as cute patches of snow and ice (see photo) soon became kilometres of unyielding trail. Every footstep seemed to be a gamble (will I live to take another step, or will I slip and tumble down to a rocky death?), and I was walking so slowly and with such concentration that I must have looked like I was just learning to walk. Luckily, shortly before we made it to the top, we passed a group of elderly people, who were skilfully descending the mountain fully equipped with winter hiking gear (spikes on their shoes, ski poles, the works). An elderly woman with a French accent remarked quite loudly to her travel companions “I can’t believe that people don’t realize that you can’t just walk anywhere at this time of year in running shoes!” After my initial rage (and urge to chase her down and push her off the mountain) subsided, her words provided me with extra motivation to make it to the top. “Oh, yeah? I’ll show you, you old bag!”
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| When the snow and ice was still cute. (Heinrich is standing off to the side smiling.) |
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| Almost at the top... |
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| View from the top. Always worth the effort! |
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| View over Banff townsite |
Once we made it to the top, we were greeted with a huge (at least, huge for a mountaintop) welcome centre. Here, people got on and off the gondola and could then buy gifts at the gift shop or eat at one of the two restaurants there. (Oh, yeah, most people who visit Sulphur Mountain have the good sense to take the gondola to the top. For the low, low price of $33.95, people can spare themselves the 5.5 km hike up the mountain and wander around the summit with their Starbucks still piping hot!). A well-maintained boardwalk led to the summit and the Cosmic Ray Station, and only here did we see the following sign:
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| Because this semi-paved path is where it gets really dangerous. Never mind the kilometres we just hiked up the mountain! |
Would have been nice to have had a reminder before we started hiking in our sneakers. At least we were warned about wintry weather before embarking on a 10-minute long trail over smooth boards.
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| This kind of looks awesome. I wonder if they rent out this little hut? (At the very top of the mountain) |
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| We took the gondola down because I was not about to risk my life again just to get to the parking lot! |
Our next hike was up Tunnel Mountain, which was a far less death-defying and much more relaxing hike. Under an hour to the top and back down again (walking at a leisurely pace), but beautiful nonetheless. Here, I added something new to my List: someday, Heinrich and I will hike to the top of the mountain before daybreak and watch the sun rise over Banff while eating breakfast. A rather simple and mundane item to add to the list (we could do that any old weekend!), but I imagine it will be quite breathtaking!
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| Not a bad view! |
The next morning, it was back off to good ol’ Edmonton to start planning the next trip. A trip to the gopher museum in Torrington perhaps? Or perhaps a longer trip to Golden, BC, to visit the Bear sanctuary AND the Wolf sanctuary? Or will we finally partake in a cattle drive somewhere in rural Alberta? So much to see, and so little time!
Until next time…
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| I love this picture! (It's from one of the books in the gift shop.) |
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