Sunday 13 September
When we arrived at the Dining Room we were advised there would be a wait for a table this morning so we decided to have a light breakfast from the small cafe – coffee and cinammon rolls, we were keen to get out and back on the road for our drive to Banff National Park. However, Waterton had one more surprise for us… as we were driving out to the entrance Neil spotted a young bear by the side of the road! We stopped… and he stopped to look at us… Despite the fact that he was brown, this guy was a Black bear ( rather then a Grizzly)
After that excitement, we left the park and had to backtrack several miles along the road we’d driven to get down to the park the other day. However, eventually as we continued north we reached new territory. For many miles the landscape was the same wide , windy grassy plains that we’d encountered on Friday but at a small town called Longview we detoured along Highway 40 which is also known as the Bighorn Highway and Kananaskis Trail. It runs through two Provincial Parks ( they’d be called State Parks in the USA) and is very scenic with the peaks rising high on either side of the road. We passed several trailheads that were busy with hikers setting off on this fine Sunday. It’s also striking at this time of the year which is known as “Larch Season” – for a few short weeks the many Larch trees in the area change to a lovely golden yellow before they drop their leaves for the change of season.
Finally the highway joined with the Trans Canada Highway and we turned West to head into Banff National Park. The highway runs right through the park and drivers have to either stop at an entrance station to purchase a park pass ( if they wish to stop anywhere within the park) or to choose the outer “drive through” lanes if they are only heading straight through the park towards the west. As we already have our annual park pass we, fortunately, could also use the “drive through” lane and avoid the big bank up of traffic at the entrance gates.
Before we headed into Banff we turned off to visit Two Jack Lake and Minnewanka Lake. These are both very popular with park visitors and under the mostly sunny skies were a very pretty shade of teal blue. We stopped at Two Jack lake to find the Red Chairs there. There were many families who looked like they had settled in for a big day of picnicing and swimming and boating.
Next we drove on to Minnewanka Lake. It’s the larger of the two and there are small boat cruises that run hourly during the summer months to take people up the length of the lake. As we drove across the reservoir wall towards the parking area entrance we realised we weren’t going to be stopping at Minnewanka today, it was super busy and the parking lot was full! I did manage to catch a photo of the lake as we crossed the reservoir.
We drove on closer to Banff Town but deoured again up to the Norquay lookout, as we climbed up the hill we came across some mountain sheep that had drawn several onlookers. The view across the town from the lookout was very hazy, there is still lot of smoke in the air from the recent wildfires.
We drove down into the town and into a LOT of traffic. Banff was really buzzing this afternoon. We passed the Welcome to Banff sign which was mobbed and then headed to the overlook where you can see across to the Fairmonth Banff Springs Hotel.
Te town was absolutely packed with not a parking space to be had so we decided to head for the hotel, the Buffalo Mountain Lodge. It is situated in a pretty setting part way up Tunnel Mountain , away from the hustle and bustle of the town. We look across to a nice park with the mountain behind it.
We checked into the room and I enjoyed sitting out on our little terrace while Neil caught up on some work. I had great entertainment as I could see chairs setup in the ark across the road, clearly a wedding was in order! Sure enough guests and aviolinist arrived and at last a mini bus arrived and out came the bridal party and parents. It was a no-nonsens affair, the bride was wearing short cowboy boots under her dress and the wedding itself lasted for no more than 15 minutes!
The hotel offered a great package when I booked, for Dinner, Bed and Breakfast so we went down to their restaurant “The Prow” for dinner. I’d fully expected a limited menu but we were welcome to eat anything on their normal menu, 3 courses! So I chose the Bison poutine for my appetizer and the steak special for main. Neil had a big bowl of steamed clams and pork belly. It was delicious and filling! So we took our desserts “to go”. Poutine is a concoction of fries, gravy and cheese curds and is one of the most quintessential Canadian dishes, many restaurants add their own twist by adding other ingredients, the prow had a lot of game meats on their menu and have added Bison to their Poutine. I liked it!
Monday 14 September
This morning we enjoyed a tasty breakfast in the restaurant and then set out to see Bow Falls before we drove up to the Banff Gondola. We got to Bow Falls just before the first tour bus arrived for the day.
Banff Gondola rises 698 metres (2,292 feet) on an 8-minute journey to the summit of Sulphur Mountain. It is one of the most popular things to do in Banff and we were keen to see the views from the summit. It didn’t disappoint! The ride up was smooth and quiet and at the top we walked out along the boardwalk to the old Sulphur Mountain weather station. It was very cold up there and extremely windy in parts but we loved the views. We also found another set of Parks Canada Red Chairs .
WE had alook at some of the exhibits in the main building and then headed back dwon to our car. Speaking of the car… it has started showing a warning light that the oil needed chaging, so neil wanted to go to the Avis office in town and see if they wanted to give us a new car. The guy on the desk said that he couldn’t change the car today but if we came back at Midday tomorrow he would “definitely have a car for us”. It means we have to change our plans a bit tomorrow but it’s feasible. We wandered down the main street of Banff and did a little souvenir shopping before we decided to go to visit the Cave and Basin national Historic Site. Cave and Basin has been a special place for Indigenous peoples for over ten thousand years and continues to be so to this day. In 1883, three railway workers found the thermal springs, sparking a series of events that led to the creation of Canada’s first national park. WE walked in to see the cave and it’s thermal pool, which smelled stronly of rotten egg gas! Then we had a look at the exhibits and the outdoor thermal pool, bubbling away. The outdoor pool is the natural habitat of a unique water snail that doesn’t exists anywhere else in the world, so people are no longer allowed to swim in the pools.
After this we decided we would drive out to Lake Minnewanka to see if we could get a parking spot this time. Because it was a Monday and much colder than yesterday we had no trouble this time and strolled down to take a look at the lake and to find it’s Red Chairs.
Back at the hotel we relaxed and did some more blogging. I was amazed to see another wedding party arrive across the road. This one was a much smaller affair with only about ten people as well as the bride and groom. For dinner we had a really tasty charcuterie platter with local cheeses and smoked meats and pate. Neil had Pork ribs which he enjoyed and I had a really delicious local troat baked on a plank with a really delicious side dish of marinated garbanzo beans.
We had a quiet evening and were about to go to bed when I checked my Aurora App and also some of the websites I’ve been using to track the Aurora, I didn’t really expect much was amazed to find that we were, once again, right on the edge of a really good Aurora area. So we decided to head outside just to check. We timed it perfectly! We were so lucky that we could go across the road to the big open park , away from the bright lights of the hotel. The display was fabulous! back in fairbanks the Aurora had been low to the horizin and we’d only seen it through a veil of cloud. Here we had clear skies and could see it moving and dancing right up from the horizon to directly above us. Once again though, the colour to the naked eye was very faint, it really looks so much whiter to our night vision than the colours the camera picks up. We were still thrilled and stayed outside for nearly an hour. We tried a few different portrait options, using a long exposure for the aurora and a brief flash of light from a torch on our faces so you could see us. in the end we found that the light from the hotel was enough to light up our faces. We chatted to a local who said he had seen it many times, sometimes much more colourful than what we were seeing ( however he said that was rare).
It was a little hard to get to sleep after all that excitement!