Sunniest day in the Rockies 24-25 June

Yes another great weekend in the Rockies - the sunniest (and hottest yet). We had planned to walk Paradise Valley but upon checking in with the visitor centre discovered there was an (uneventful) grizzly sighting there yesterday so we decided to head up Mt Fairview instead. The mountain is 9002 feet (2800m) and overlooks Lake Louise. It's a lovely walk to the saddle - but then you go straight up the scree slope! The hardest walk we've done since Mt Bartle Frere!! But the view from the top is absolutely stunning. We hung around on the summit for a good hour before tearing ourselves away!

This tough walk ruined us for our planned walk the next day though! We had planned to hike Gargoyle Valley but just wandered around Banff instead checking out the sights. We went to Cave and Basin hot springs which was the forerunner to the Banff National Park - so is a historic little place. Took about a thousand photos this weekend - especially the reflections inthe glacial lakes are just sensational!!

Oh and news from the Oilers camp - the beloved hockey team played the Carolina Hurricanes in game 7 of the best of 7 on Monday. Down 2-1 with a couple of minutes to go they dropped the goalie for the power play and sadly went down 3-1 - not a true reflection of how close the game was. But finally Edmonton streets can get back to normal!!!

more piccis - mid June

A quick pic for the Geo's, magnificant folds along the David Thompson Highway - especially important because these are the rock Ian is studying for work - very exciting!!

Otherwise known as the Upper Scollard aka Ardley Coal zone (and believe it or not he can sub divide into 4 separate coal-sandstone sequences due to periodic uplift in the Tertiary - do email us separately for more info!!!)

And a piccy of the spectacular vista of the Bow Glacier Falls (for some reason wouldn't upload image in the previous post??) Here you can see the glacial moraine from the Wisconnsin Glacial advance - took us about 1/2 hour to walk to the base of the falls from here. Yet another unbelievably beautiful wander in the mountains!

Mid June update

Friday 9 June we went out to watch the Canadian Football League. The Edmonton Eskimos (who won the cup last year) are playing the Saskatchewan Roughriders. We were shocked to discover people everywhere – what we thought would be a quick park and walk to watch the pre-season game turned into a huge venture. We had to park miles away – but a stroke of good luck got given free tickets in these great undercover seats (prime seats!) as we were lining up!. The crowd must’ve been getting bored also because the ‘Go Oilers” chant came up!!

17 June - we walked in to Siffleur Falls. Its about a 4km each way walk in. About 1 hour in and 40 mins out. Pretty easy over flat montane land with one short ascent. The falls were formed where the river flows over a particularly erosion resistant layer of limestone and quickly wears away the softer shales of the Banff Formation. Its really spectacular – but clearly could be deadly if you fell in – there are 2 memorials at the car park for people who have done just that!

Saturday afternoon we set up camp ($24 for the night) at Lake Louise campground (complete with it’s newly electrified fence!). It’s a great campground but too near the train line! Tonight we went to the Post Hotel (which has these gorgeous cabins on the river) to watch the Oilers game. A much more refined crowd than the Edmonton brewery! The Oiler thrashed the Hurricanes 4-0 to level the series 3-3 – it’s goin to the 7th game on Monday!!

We headed off at Num-Ti-Jah to hike the Bow Glacier Falls walk. It’s VERY cold leaving the car park! A lovely 5km each way walk – mostly along the Bow Lakeside. A short steep climb leads to a fork in the trail where one path goes up to the Bow Alpine Hut – but to get there you must cross over a huge wedged rock in the canyon!! Not likely!!! The view opens up into this magnificent vista of the mountain bowl. You can see 2 glaciers (one of which is Bow Glacier and the start of the Bow River) and numerous waterfalls – the main one – Bow Glacier waterfall. It took us 1 hour to this view point – then another 30 mins over the glacial moraine rubble to the base of the falls. We spent a good 30 mins up here just taking in the sights.

Its Summer time - hike in Jasper 3 June

1 June is the official first day of summer. Except for the 3 day heat wave though we’ve barely got out of warm gear. We’ve had a few walks of an afternoon in shorts and t-shirts, but mostly it’s too cold of an afternoon to go out without a jumper. It’s also Ian’s first day at work! No longer the stay at home house husband able to sit and admire the wildlife in the park across the road at lunch time! We took our first excursion to watch the local Crackercats baseball just across the road at the Telus field (they thrashed the Calgary Vipers).

We headed out to Jasper on Saturday 3 June-started with the Valley of the 5 lakes walk just south of Jasper. It’s only a 4.2 km return but we got a little lost and back tracked about an extra 1 ½ kms. It is true that Jenny was navigating at the time we got lost,,, but in her defence she was actually on the right path – it just wasn’t a very well worn one!! In the afternoon we drove out to Pyramid Lake and Patricia Lake. On the way we came across several male and female Elk – the male had huge horns and we were careful not to get too close!!
We’d earlier set up camp in our new flash tent that we can now stand up in!,,, AND we have a new foam mattress. So we are camping in sheer LUXURY! Tonight we went in to the Jasper Brew Pub for a delicious meal of Crawdads (a thing kind of like a prawn tail) and calamari. On Sunday 4 June we got ready to hike the 9.6km return hike to Sulphur Skyline. We loaded up the bear mace, bells and newly bought ‘Bear Bangers”, but seeing as we weren’t exactly sure what to do with them or how to use them Jenny made doubly sure by checking with the nearby park ranger (MUCH to Ian’s disgust! Of course he had it all worked out!) who was also just packing his bear mace to walk to the summit aswell. The last push up to the summit is bloody horrible. The wind is blowing the pack of our backs and biting cold. We had planned to have a nice lunch on the top but only stayed about 10 mins as it was too windy and cold. At the top are VERY bold gold barred ground squirrel. They were humoring Ian by licking his pack – then they tried to steal my camera out of my pack – very cheeky indeed! It’s been another long weekend – our 4th in a row in the Rockies!