makeshiftmind

Day two in the mountains. Nobody around for help. I think we may have to resort to cannibalism.

Oh wait, we landed safely in Canada yesterday, right.

This morning’s excursions began at the hotel lobby where we officially signed in and got a nice map of the area.  The clerk gave us directions to Canmore, where we ended up buying a week’s worth of food and other provisions since our luggage wouldn’t arrive until mid-day (thanks United!).  Everything is definitely more expensive in Canada.  I did notice, however, that there are Starbucks coffee shops everywhere.  People here like their coffee I guess.  The grocery was pretty much what you’d expect — self-checkout and everything.  Canmore is a very nice little town with lower-than-necessary speed limits and quaint architecture.  We passed by several people on special roller blades, propelling themselves down the sidewalk with ski poles.  Somewhere there was a sign that said Olympic athletes are in training here.

After we loaded our fridge and prepped our gear, we set out to our first official hiking destination: Banff Cave and Basin.  The drive to the park was magnificent — mountains loomed everywhere.  The day was sunny, and our spirits were bright.  Road signs everywhere insisted that there were large animals afoot, but we didn’t see any on our approach.  Eventually we arrived at the town of Banff, which is like Canmore in quaintness, but an order of magnitude larger.  People were everywhere, as everything was pretty much in walking distance.  Since mountains could be seen from every street corner, you could seriously never leave the town and still feel like you communed with nature.  We followed the signs for several miles until we arrived at the site of Banff Cave and Basin.

Basically, during the late 1800’s, a few people found an underground hotspring in a pretty sweet cave that welled up into a pool in the mountains.  They thought it would be an awesome idea to let people swim in it and charge a little on the side.  Like all tragedies, the government didn’t want people peeing in the pool and nationalized ten square miles around the site, effectively establishing the Canada National Park system and simultaneously violating the rights of the individuals that found the thing.  But I digress.  In 1886 an entrance was burrowed underground so people could access the vaulted cave and observe its beauty, and in 1914 the site was open to the public as a swimming hole.  In the 1980’s, a giant building was established on the site and a mammoth swimming pool was erected, into which steaming water was piped for public enjoyment.  The pool was open until 1994, but the building still stands and contains a nice historic museum, complete with regularly scheduled showings of a poorly acted docudrama on the history of the site.  After we toured the museum, we meandered along the boardwalk and saw a few tiny waterfalls and the naturally occurring pools of sulphur water on the site grounds. (Oh, did I forget to mention it is a sulphur spring?  Yeah, imagine a day at the beach in that.)

Feeling encouraged by our outdoorsmanish experiences, we decided to travel to another big attraction in Banff, Sulphur Mountain.  Now, believe me when I say that the Disney-theme-park-ride-sounding name is entirely misleading.  True, there is a wonderful gondola trip you can take to the top and back down again, but as Brittany pointed out with fiscal shrewdness, the gondola ride is free if you hike the 3.4 miles to the top of the mountain and ride it back down.  That’s right folks, we decided to hike fucking Sulphur Mountain — all 2,148 vertical feet to the top.  We wanted to own that mountain.  The guide rates it as an “intermediate” hike with roughly 28 “switch-backs” up one side. (The path zig-zags in a slightly sloped, horizontal fashion to make it easier to travel.)  I would like to say that I tackled that monster with vigor, but the truth is that much panting, wheezing, and muscle torture later, I seriously reconsidered the wisdom of the trek.  Brittany performed much more admirably than myself, but she encouraged me to keep going and I plodded along, one painstaking step at a time.

The total ascent took us roughly 3.5 hours, which was still under the maximum estimated time for the trail (4 hours).  The hike was quite serene.  We saw a few people here and there, but mostly it was just us, alone with the forest and miles and miles of mountains on all sides.  We didn’t see any large animals, but on a few different rest stops, we were accosted by a large bird and a tiny tree chipmunk who were very much interested in our snacks. (Seriously.  Some guy hiking down the mountain told us to be careful because birds will take stuff straight from your mouth.)  We were a little scared when we heard some distant loud growling sounds — Banff does have a substantial bear population — but we soon realized that the noise was the Gondola ride far overhead and we felt a little silly for our fears, even though we didn’t have a bear bell or bear spray with us — they were both in our luggage (thanks United!).

When we finally reached the top, at 7,334 feet above sea level, the view was really beyond anything I can describe.  And the fact that on the last three “switch-backs” it began to snow ever so lightly made it all the more vivid.  There was definite victory to be had — a fellow hiker (who passed us on the trail, but was still taking in the view) congratulated us.  We could pretty much see forever at the top.  Every little town, every river, every new mountain growing from the valley — my mind could not fathom the distance or the scale.  It was too much beauty to take in.

We finally jumped into a gondola and began our descent.  It felt like a slow moving roller coaster ride, suspended hundreds of feet in the air.  It was slightly disconcerting at first, but the winds were kind and did not toss us about too much.  We were able to look down below and actually see the trail we had taken.  It felt good to know we had mastered it.

We had lunch (actually, more like dinner — it was 4 PM by the time we returned to town) at a nice restaurant called Melissa’s.  Burgers never tasted so good.  We both immediately ordered water (for hydration) and coffee (for warmth), and decided to sample a Canadian beer together.  I can’t remember what it was called, but it was local fare, smooth and dark — a much needed reward to round out our day.

Once we returned to our hotel, we retrieved our delayed luggage at the front desk (thanks United!) and then crashed.  I started feeling a bit sick, and after some online research, I concluded that I have mild altitude sickness.  I should have remembered from my trips to Colorado: go slow up the mountains stupid!  Luckily mild altitude sickness only lasts for about 12 hours, so tomorrow I should feel revitalized.  Although I’m counting on Brittany’s thorough planning to deliver up a somewhat less rigorous experience so I can recover!

Check out our Banffventure 2009 Day 2 web album for the pics.

*Note on the use of the word “sulphur”.  Apparently the “ph” spelling originated in the United Kingdom, and I can only assume that since Canada has many Old World influences, this one was also retained.

We finally made it.  It only took 13.5 hours, but we are now in the Canadian Rockies.  I was so right about the  washing machine being an omen though.  Here is the official list of travel trials and tribulations we endured yesterday:

• Flight in STL was delayed by an hour and a half.  We knew we were going to miss our Denver connection because we only had one hour between flights anyway.  The plane was cramped and the seats were uncomfortable, and the flight, which was supposed to take only two hours went long anyway.  We saw our Denver departure gate as we taxied in after landing.  Sure enough, our plane was gone.
• The nice man at the United desk in Denver was able to get us on a flight at 6:30 PM.  It was 2:30 already, so that meant a dreadful four hour wait.  In the airport.  We grabbed an unnecessarily expensive lunch, but at least the airport had WIFI.  But it sucked, and kept popping up ads and dropping my signal, but oh well.
• Our Denver flight was on-time.  The plane was much more comfortable (B737) and I actually had a free seat next to me so I could semi-stretch out and attempt to sleep (attempt being the operative word).  We DID get to see the sunset over the Colorado Rockies from thousands of feet in the air!  Which was amazing because the cloud cover broke up the sunlight into a ghastly red haze over the city.  All I could think was that Mount Doom was certainly down there in Mordor somewhere.
• Our Canadian pilots must have been badass because they took a two-and-a-half hour trip and condensed it to only two hours.  We had some epic turbulence trying to land in Canada though — my stomach was in my throat most of the time.  It was like a really crazy roller coaster ride… you know, except you could actually see the houses and buildings that would be destroyed when the plane crashed and your life ended.  Luckily we touched down without incident. *whewh!*
• We grabbed our carry ons and were met outside the jet ramp by a lady in a cowboy hat riding a golf cart.  She asked if we wanted a lift to customs, and we were like, hellz yeah!  We got lucky too, because the walk to customs seemed like it was miles long.  By this time it was 9:00 PM Canada time, and we were due to pick up our rental car at 9:30.  We both had to pee like crazy, but when we got to customs we knew that would have to wait.  The lines were long.
• We filled out the customs form — checked “no” on all the questions about bringing guns and knives and instruments of sin (e.g., alcohol and tobacco) into the country.  No, we haven’t been to, or plan to go to, a farm on our visit either.  The man at the customs station was a tattooed brute who had no sense of humor.  Yes, we really do live in St. Louis.  Yes, we really *are* only going to Banff for six days.  Know, we will not steal your maple leaves.
• When we finally got to the luggage claim, we ran over to customer service where (wait for it)… we were informed that our luggage did not make the connecting flight and would be arriving tomorrow… around noon.  It is a very good thing that I picked some clothes in my carry-on, but we have no toiletries and other necessary amenities.  The only silver lining was that they promised to deliver our luggage to our lodge… which, incidentally, is an hour and a half drive from the airport.
• We dashed over to the car rental counter in the exterior garage, where there were like three people working, none of which seemed to be in an especially motivated mood.  We waited in line at the appropriate counter, behind an oriental fellow who was picking up his car and getting his direction finder set up.  We spied bathrooms down the hall and took turns holding down our spot in line while the other did their duty.  I was second to go, and when I came back Brittany had been moved to another line (which had been empty the whole time we were standing there) because our scheduled car rental wasn’t available.  We ended up paying about $15 more, but hell, it was almost 10:00 PM and we were ready to LEAVE.
• The drive to our hotel wasn’t bad… except it was pitch black, and we were negotiating mountain passes at 110 KM/h. (Yes my friends, it’s Canada, they use metric and we have to drive by it!)  After about an hour, we started to see a slightly different shade of black on the horizon.  We guessed that it was probably mountains, but weren’t really sure until the roads started getting topsy-turvey.  I turned on the brights and laid on the metal… we wanted to get to our room, into our bed, as quick as possible.  We were tired, hungry, and cranky… and then noticed that snow was falling ever so slightly.  I slowed down and mozied along for the remainder of the drive.  We finally pulled into our hotel parking lot around 11 PM.  The lobby was closed but we buzzed in at the door–luckily they left a key for us in the lockbox out front.  We found our room, dropped our crap, took a shower and crashed into bed.  It was nearly midnight.

We finally woke up around 8AM this morning.  We threw open the windows and looked outside.  I definitely think it was worth it.  Check out our first photos here!