The Iceland Parkway

Off to Banff courtesy of a stopping-all-sights day tour with Sun Dog Tours.

They picked us up at our accommodation about 9, and headed off down the Iceland Parkway, built on the path of an old glacier, and used as the fir trapper's trail to the railhead in the days before real roads. Our tour guide was Harry, and he was very good. Stopped at a plethora of lookouts, saw numerous snow covered peaks, and visited lots of coffee shops so the oldies on the tour could take on coffee, or get rid of it.

First major stop was Athabasca Falls, obviously not as big or impressive as Niagara, but it's sheer power as it thundered over the edge reminded me a lot of it.

About lunchtime we arrived at the highlight of the day - the Columbia Iceshelf which spawns six large and many more small glaciers, and we hiked for almost an hour to the toe (we'd call it the foot) of the Athabasca glacier. As with most glaciers, it's rapidly diminishing, and has been diminishing since long before climate change really kicked in, but we certainly haven't helped. It's lost 60% of its area in the last 100 years, and will probably be all gone in another 30. For an exorbitant fee you could ride onto the glacier itself on a small snow mobile, but we got up close and personal enough on foot.

Saw pictures of some of the early expeditions mapping the mountains long before roads and rail, and they were seriously impressive adventurers. They even carried bags of cement up the peaks to build surveying cairns at the top. One of the cairns amongst the clouds was a really important one for a couple of reasons. First it marked the official border between the province of British Columbia and the province of Alberta. If the vagaries of history has ended up another way, it could have also been significant as the border between two countries - Canada and Britain, but that's another story. It's also significant for a geological reason. Three rivers issue from the sides of that mountain. One flows into the Pacific, one flows into the Atlantic, and the third flows into the Arctic Ocean, so it's a very serious watershed in the scheme of things.

Turned up at the village of Lake Louise late afternoon, and drove up the hill to the famous Fairmont Hotel. Whilst some passengers unloaded, we went for a walk down to the lake itself, and a little way around the shoreline. The lake is still so cold that there is lots of ice left in it, and some of the ice has turned to shards, which reflect the sunlight and give the lake an iridescent blue colour. Just lovely, though rather nippy.

An hour later we were in Banff. Tourists everywhere of course, but it feels very 'happening'. Did a bit of a tour through the town and up to the Hot Springs as the driver delivered various couples to their accommodation, and we were finally delivered to our B&B.

Unfortunately that's where the troubles started for the day. Our host wasn't answering the doorbell, and her cell phone kept going ringing out. So we kept sitting around hopefully and waiting. At 7pm I left Mandy with the gear, and walked all the way back into town to find a public phone just in case the problem was with my cell provider, but after feeding dollars worth of coins into the phone I got the same problem. Back at the apartment 8pm ticked by, and we decided to lug all of our gear back into town and find a free wi-fi service to see if there was any mail - and there was. Sent after we had left for the day, it told us her new cell phone number, and where she had hidden the key. So back we trudged again, let ourselves in, greeted the dog, and decide that given it was now 9pm we'd have to eat out, so we turned around and walked back in to town yet again for pizza.

About the only bright spot was that our waitress swore that I reminded her of a New Zealand comedian that we'd never heard of. Guess I shouldn't have been surprised. There are lots of them.