In the morning we got ready for a slight scenic drive. At this point we were anticipating rainfall. Technically the Weather Network predicted rain all weekend, so the fact that it hadn't rained until the last day, was pretty good!
We drove around Banff town site and took a few snapshots here and there.
Banff Hot Springs Hotel in front of Tunnel Mountain: The Stoney Plain natives called this the "sleeping buffalo" before hand.
Bow Falls: Same falls I went to see on my surgery day.
With nothing more to see, we drove to Lake Louise. It's the standard touristy spot yes, but Darryl hasn't been there, and well... it's a must. There was still a lot of ice/snow on the lake. Darryl was brave enough to go hopping along the ice/snow path. I on the other hand liked staying dry and warm.
On our way back down south towards Calgary, we took a different highway - the highway 1A/Bow valley Parkway. This was the old scenic highway before the new multi-lane transcanada was built. Along this drive you pass a lot of different wild life patches, and point of interest stop offs. It also runs parallel with the train line, so at times you can get a good scenic shot. But we weren't that lucky.
This is a photo of Castle Mountain. After WWII it was briefly known as Eisenhower Mountain, but then re-named. However, the far right peak/pinnacle of this mountain maintained the name of Eisenhower peak.
There was also an interment camp monument that we passed. This was once the location of Castle Mountain Camp which confined immigrant Canadians of Austro-Hungarian decent (mostly Ukrainians) during WWI. These prisoners were paid very little and used hand tools to make the roadway that we drove down. Crazy, eh?
Finally we arrive at Johston's Canyon. This was a short hike. Once again, I still never made it to the ink pots, but the two have not seen the falls before, so hiking we did go.
From there, we went to the Lake Minnewanka area. Cascade ponds was the first place we stopped off at. Funny thing was it was SOOOO dry there... barely any water! However, there were a lot of ground squirrels.
Next stop was Johnston Lake. It started to spit/rain. There was a nice easy path to walk around the lake... but we decided hiking in the rain = not fun.
We passed this area known as Lower Bankhead. This was the site of a thriving coal mine in the early 1900s. Over 1000 people lived here and there were lots of shops and saloons. In 1922, due to the slump in coal prices, the town was abandoned and the mine was closed. To this day you can still see residual ruins.
Last but not least, we decided to quickly do a drive by to Lake Minnewanka. It's quite pretty, but too bad it was still very frozen. I hear that this place is swamped with people come summertime.
After this long weekend, some of us were restless, some of us were exhausted, some of us just were cranky. However, in the end, I think we were all glad to have done this trip. I know I was :).
Final thought: Glad I'm finally done this post. Time to update you on all this other stuff that been going on in my life: Drumheller, Kelowna, Radium/Rafting, Kananaski country hikes and more! Yeah... a months worth!
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