Banff & Surrounds

This morning I woke up at 9am. I was quite surprised I had slept in so late. Scott was already awake and said that I was fast asleep so had let me rest. We ate yoghurt for breakfast and made a coffee which was much nicer than the coffee at the hotel in Yosemite.

We decided we would head into Banff and stop by the visitor centre. I had also forgotten to bring my hiking pants so I wanted to buy a pair. It was also a lot colder than we realised with a dusting of snow in the mountains surrounding Banff, so we thought we should also buy some gloves.

We drove the 5 minutes into town and parked near the visitor centre. We paid for 2 hours of parking. We walked into the visitor centre and we were given some maps and a day hiking pamphlet around Banff. The guide said that to do the walks around Lake Louise and Lake Moraine we would need ice cleats as there was snow. He said we could hire them and gave us some recommendations of where to go.

We walked around the town and went to a store recommended to go to to hire ice cleats but the salesperson didn’t think we needed them. We went to Mountain Wearhouse and looked at some pants and gloves before heading to Columbia to buy gloves and hiking pants for me. We then walked to grab a coffee, which was absolutely delicious.

It was after midday so we thought we should head back to the accommodation for lunch and then decided what to do for the afternoon. We looked at the Gondola tickets and thought we could head up there for sunset so purchased some tickets.

We drove out to Lake Minnewanka which is the largest lake in Banff and walked around the foreshore while taking photos of the mountains surrounding the lake. We then headed to Two Jack Lake which was a smaller lake but still quite beautiful.

We decided that with the whether rolling in and rain around it probably wasn’t the best time to get the Gondola to the top of Mt Sulfur. As it was close to the reservation time I couldn’t cancel so we drove up to the Gondola parking area and saw someone is person to change our day to Tuesday which was supposed to be a sunnier day.

While there we stopped by the Banff Hot Springs only to read that they were closed for maintenance! We were quite disappointed as they were supposed to be really nice. We drove to Mt Norquay ski resort which had views over Banff from the lookout and could see a dear in the clearing.

We headed into Banff to buy some cider with dinner and I noticed a rental ski shop next to our park. We headed in to ask about Ice Cleats which could be rented from the shop. Unfortunately they didn’t have any to purchase so we headed back to Mountain Warehouse, who recommended the shop next door. We finally found some to buy and two of the salespeople recommended we buy some for where we were walking. I

We headed back to the accommodation and made taco bowls for dinner, before organising ourselves for the next day.Read more