Thought I'd bring this thread back up to tell of my experience a couple weeks ago. It was perfect weather every day except for one day in Vancouver and I was gonna be doing indoor stuff that day anyway. First day was spent just walking around Canmore and then the town of Banff, taking a few trails there around the Bow River and seeing all of the town. Second day was Lake Louise & Moraine Lake. The bus setup they have for those two places worked out great -- don't have to worry about jockeying for parking and also paying for it. The sights at those two lakes were beyond outstanding. I tried to do one of the hikes to a teahouse but it was an all-uphill start and I had to stop a half mile into it. I'm not at all out of shape but what I had forgotten about was the elevation -- 5500 feet. So I worked my way back down and just hiked the lakeshore trail. Saw a couple of people climbing the rock at the far end of the lake. It's amazing to see the dexterity involved with doing that. I'm not a heights guy (as I'll mention later in this post) so that's not anything for me. The next day was a trip to the Icefields and the walk on the Athabasca glacier. What an amazing experience. Water as pure as you can get and just a serene atmosphere. The drive to and from there was filled with amazing views all around. I used to be a 'beaches are better' guy but after this trip through Alberta, I'm on the mountains side now.
I then flew to Vancouver and on the first night there, I went to the Saskatchewan-BC CFL game. It's certainly a different game in terms of rules and clock scenarios than our game but the play is pretty similar, just with a lot more passing. The game wasn't anything to write home about but it was nice to get a taste of it. Saturday there was spent on a bus trip to Whisler and a stop at the Sea to Sky Gondola. Remember that part about not liking heights? Yeah, that gondola ride up to 3000 feet was not the greatest but fortunately, I had someone in there to talk to in order to keep my mind and eyes off of it. The overlook of Howe Sound and the surrounding mountains was ridiculously good, even with some cloud cover. The ride down on that gondola was ok until it stopped about 500 feet from the station, about 200 feet high. That was a solo ride and for those 15 seconds, I was pretty frantic inside and sweating. I couldn't get out of that gondola fast enough when the door opened. The ride to Whisler had plenty to look at and then we had about 3 1/2 hours in Whisler village to do whatever we wanted. So I walked and I hiked. Probably put on about 5 miles but I ended up going to the wrong lake instead of Green Lake. But since I'm a sucker for golf courses, I wanted to go check one of theirs out. The village was pretty interesting with all of the pubs and eateries there as well as a dirt bike course setup where I saw one guy bite it into the metal gates trying to stop. They had gondolas to the top of Whisler and Blackcomb Mountains. I decided to leave those alone. Before I left Vancouver, I spent some time at Granville Island which is a great public market and restaurant area across the river from downtown. The display at Stuart's bakery in there almost caused me to miss my flight because I was just staring at all the good stuff. My only complaint about Vancouver was that it's not exactly the easiest to get downtown. The main highways don't have exits right to downtown. You have to exit early and work your way through city streets to get to the heart of town. If you know the Harrisburg area at all, I equated it to exiting I-83 at Union Deposit and having to work your way from there down to 2nd Street. It added a little time to the drives but all in all, not too terrible.
It was a great trip overall and I'd recommend Canmore/Banff/Jasper to anyone who loves the outdoors and loves seeing something a little different than what you get on the East Coast. Oh, and here's the best picture I took all week. It's of Moraine Lake. It'll be going on my wall as soon as I can get the right size and frame.
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