Canadian Rockies, Day 2

Peyto Lake

The theme of the day is “inappropriate footwear”.  We woke up early to head toward the Columbia Ice Fields.  We had a big breakfast in Evergreen Restaurant in the hotel.  It took longer than expected, but we were still on the road before 9am.  We did have to make a quick stop into North Face so that I could buy a fleece.  (Who goes to Canada without a jacket?  Me.)

The GyPSy took us down through Banff National Park, past Lake Louise, and on to the Ice Fields Parkway.  We passed some truly amazing sights along the way.  Apparently Canadians love road trips, because there were scenic pull offs in every direction.  One of the particularly amazing sights was Peyote Lake.  It was named after some explorer named “Wild Bill Peyto”.  It was a glacier cut lake turned a beautiful blue thanks to glacier flour. 

Snow

As we continued down Ice Field Parkway, it actually began to snow. Considering its well over 100 degrees in Austin some snow was perfectly welcome.   We stopped at some other lovely turnoff to take pictures, of course.  We saw some sweet glaciers along the way, too. 

The Columbia Ice Fields are beautiful.  Apparently, ice fields are like lakes, and glaciers are like rivers.  So, there were a bunch of glaciers near the ice fields.  

We took an awesome glacier tour. These cool atv/ bus things drove us down this steep ridge onto the ice field.  They let us out on top of the glacier.  Mom and I both had supremely unfit footwear.  Tory Burch did not have glacier walks in mind when she made flats.  Neither did Sperry.  So we were slipping and sliding all over the ice, but neither of us ever ate it.  I did get to drink glacier water, which was also awesome. 

 

After the glacier walk, we headed back down the Ice Fields Parkway.  We saw some more awesome stuff, and stopped in at Num Ti Jah Lodge for lunch.  The building, which sits directly on Bow Lake, was actually built as the home of some early explorers.   Lunch wasn’t particularly remarkable – backpacker fare, but we took some really beautiful pictures on Bow Lake. 

Once we made it back to the town of Banff, we swung by the hotel to change, and then hit up the Banff Gondola.  Since my flats were covered in mud, I changed into Rainbows.  When we got to the top of the Banff Gondola, I realized that I made some really poor packing decisions.  The gondola did provide for some truly beautiful views of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, and the Bow River. 

Bow Lake

After the gondola experience, we went to the upper hot springs.  The springs are fed by sulphur, but it doesn’t smell.  We got to enjoy the magical rejuvenation power with like 100 other people.  It was like relaxing in a really awesome hot tub for 45 minutes. 

The last stop of the night was a restaurant called The Maple Leaf.  It was the typical Canadian fare we were after.  We started with a Game Platter.  Think of a regular meats and cheeses platter, except that instead of prosciutto, we had bison sausage, elk pate, double smoked duck, venison salami, and pepper-dried bison.  It was such an awesome appetizer.  The bison prime rib was not quite as good as the platter, but it was still awesome. 

In the morning we ate breakfast at some hippie coffee shop called Wild Flour and then headed back to the Calgary airport.  I really didn’t get to see any of Calgary, but I guess I will have to save that for next time.