More Family Days
We had hoped to see Neil, Paula and Adam out here last year but overlapping work commitments meant that holliday had to be put on hold for a little while. So it was great to finally see them stagger off the plane, bleary eyed, into Calgary airport.
The weather was still misbehaving so after settling, day one was confined to seeing a little of the downtown core shopping centre and trying to come to terms with the jet lag. On day two we headed out to Drumheller (a place Sarah and I hadn't visited ourselves) The target for the day was the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology or the 'Dinosaur Museum' as it is more usually referred to. We also took a walk on a short interpretive trail around the badlands in the colourful canyon where the museum is sited.
The weather was still misbehaving so after settling, day one was confined to seeing a little of the downtown core shopping centre and trying to come to terms with the jet lag. On day two we headed out to Drumheller (a place Sarah and I hadn't visited ourselves) The target for the day was the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology or the 'Dinosaur Museum' as it is more usually referred to. We also took a walk on a short interpretive trail around the badlands in the colourful canyon where the museum is sited.
The museum is set in a beautiful valley in Midland Provincial Park about 5 km west of Drumheller town centre and boasts the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in Canada. It is a great museum and well worth the 1.5 hour trip to the prairies north-east of Calgary.
The canyon is a lovely place to wander and has a number of mountain bike trails which look very appealing, I might even throw the bike in the truck and take it out there for a spin sometime, if I can find a map and some better info on permissions etc.
Our next visit was to the beautiful mountain town of Canmore. It is a regular haunt for Sarah and I, and an 'ever present' on the family visit destinations list. We did the usual tour of the stores and made a nice short walk along a flat riverside pathway, where skimming stones was the order of the day. We also sighted a nest with a pair of Bald Eagles and a chick before heading to our usual lunch spot in town for an alfresco experience in the sunshine.
After lunch we took a long circular route home along highway 742 (the Smith Dorrien Trail) where we stopped off at the dam above Canmore and then a few other spots along the way. We had hoped to walk the trail beside the Kananaskis river from Canoe Meadows but unfortunately the June flooding has washed it away altogether so, after a short wander we took to skimming and fossil hunting for a while before heading home.
Our next major outing was part of a planned trip to the Columbia Icefield, first we set out to Lake Minnewanka where we wandered the short lakeshore trail being entertained by the chipmunks that live there, and we took to the jetty for that 'here's the family at Lake Minnewanka' shot, before heading into Banff for lunch.
Lunch and a little shopping around banff (and the entertainment of a minor punch up in the street) was followed by a short journey to Lake Louise where we met all of the other 15,000 people that visit this place PER DAY in the tourist season. The place itself is no less beautiful even when extremely busy and after a short people watching tour we had dinner in one of the bars in the Fairmont hotel there before heading up to the Icefields Centre where we had booked a hotel for the night.
We arrived in time to see the sun dip below the western horizon, foreshortened by the huge mountains that guard the Columbia Icefield. Directly across the road the Athabasca Glacier spills out toward the hotel....this is where we'll be walking tomorrow.
In the morning the cold light and low cloud brought some real atmosphere to the glaciers opposite, in direct opposition to the light from the evening before. This black and white shot is the same glacier you can see bathing in the golden light of sunset in the shot above.
Once the sun had risen and we had set ourselves up with a good breakfast in a lovely dining room overlooking the glaciers we set out on the short walk to the toe of the Athabasca Glacier
Staying in the hotel meant few people were there before us and as Neil walked down to the toe I grabbed this panoramic shot of the wonderful morning developing over the icefields.
The day just got brighter and brighter as morning moved on and we explored the area around the toe where quite a good sized a river had developed as a result of the wet June. In the shot below you can just see the squad wandering around in the centre of the frame.
Downstream a large blue cave had opened up in a lateral moraine which, from a distance. looked like the permafrost was melting but it was in fact , a covered glacial remnant showing that there is far more ice here than you may first suspect.
After exploring the icefields we set off back toward Calgary along the stunning Icefields Parkway, stopping occasionally for a photo opportunity. Here an overlook shows the incredible scenery that greets us as we travel along.
Our next stop was at Peyto Lake, just to prove that it really is that colour. One of the most well known and well photographed lakes in the world it is a beacon for tour busses and travellers from all parts of the globe and, no matter how often you see it, still amazes and inspires in equal measure.
After the icefields we took an 'easy day' and did another shopping mall trip while taking time to settle a little. The next day we were making the short trip down to Heritage Park for the steam train ride, the old fashioned town, a boat ride and some local entertainment.
On our way back from the Icefields a few days ago we were going to call in at Johnston Canyon to make the short hike to the upper falls and back but there were so many people there it would have been ridiculous so we drove by. Today we drove back to explore the canyon, there were still quite a lot of people about but not enough to make us miss it.
Our next day out was to the chinese festival in downtown Calgary, Sarah and I had attended this last year and enjoyed it, we combined it with a visit to Calgary Tower where lunch in the revolving restaurant was the order of the day.
Our final trip for the Welch family holiday was to Upper Kananaskis Lake where Adam and I decided that swimming in your undies and travelling home commando was far more preferable to not swimming at all. The glacier fed lake was cool but it was one of those 'must do' things and it was great fun on a hot day in a beautiful location.
When we asked Neil, Paula and Adam what they liked the best about their holiday as we headed to the airport, they struggled to pick out a winner and eventually ended up naming all the places we had been .........you can't get a better holiday than that.