I woke up today around 5am feeling like I was hit by a truck (not a big truck, maybe just side swiped by a Tacoma), but nothing that a little coffee and aleve can’t fix. I used a new strategy of physical harassment to get the girls up today. It consisted of rolling around on top of them while singing, then physically picking them up to move them to the couch. They are both are much heavier than I remembered them being 5 years earlier. I must be getting weaker in my advanced years.
The strategy worked and we were able to leave right on schedule at 7:45. We have a fairly long morning drive today of about 1.5 hours, so let’s get going. We weren’t going to be doing a ton of hiking today, so we all just wore our most comfortable tennis shoes.
We passed by the city of Banff and Lake Louise (that we’ll be coming back to later) and jumped on the exit to Icefields parkway. Icefields parkway is an interesting drive with lots of stops you can take at many sights. If you go all the way to the top, you can see glaciers and ice, but we just don’t have time to make it up there and back. We passed Herbert lake, which is supposed to have a diving board you can use to jump in the water on a hot summer day. It’s about 40 degrees out right now, the lake is probably just above freezing, and we forgot our bathing suits. Maybe next time!
One thing that we’ve been really unsure of is the state of the weather and the lakes for the area that we’re going to see. When you google Banff and Lake Louise, you get tons of pictures of people viewing beautiful light blue water and canoeing across a pristine lake. With the timing of our trip, the season is still changing depending on the elevation, and honestly I have no idea what the status is of the thaw for the lakes or surrounding area. In my head, in late May, I assumed that maybe there would be a few patches of snow around, but everything else was going to be pretty much thawed out. Herbert lake that we just passed was completely thawed out, but as we are driving further, we start seeing more snow covering everything.
The next lake we passed was Bow Lake, which was still frozen! Well, it looked kind of half frozen, half slush in some areas, which made it look kind of like a frozen ocean with the waves frozen in place. It did look beautiful, but we were expecting more blue lakes. We didn’t stop here though – our destination is the next lake up – Peyto lake!
We parked in the visitor parking, which was clear, and started hiking up the trail. The first 5 feet of the trail was cement, but after that it was all snow and ice! There was snow almost everywhere except a patch here and there of dirt underneath the trees. The walk-way had been clomped on by many tourist feet, which made it more like a compact sheet of ice in most places, and it was an up-hill climb. Imagine this: 4 southern folks that see snow a couples times a year at most, wearing their most comfortable sneakers that have smooth rubber bottoms not designed for climbing, trying to walk up hill on a sheet of ice. Yep, it was just like you imagined. We had to do a kind of sideways duck walk to try to get up the hill, walking very gingerly to avoid busting it. Progress was very slow, and we had tons of close calls and a few slips from the girls when they got overly confident or just plain reckless because that’s what you do when you’re a teenager, but we eventually made it to the top.
The top had a great viewing platform with minimal ice that gave a beautiful view of the lake and mountains together. If you squint your eyes, you can see that mother nature made the lake in the shape of a wolf head. It was 80% frozen and you could tell that it still had a ways to go to fill up all the way, but it was still amazing to see. We snapped a couple pictures then started to head back.
I had read there was a great rock just up the trail to take even more pictures – let’s go see if we can find that! We tried to hike up that way, but the trail up hill to my perfect picture rock quickly went from icy, but manageable to more like ice/deep snow mix and our feet started to fall down in 3 feet of snow, so we turned around with our tail between our legs and walk back. The hike back down was scarier than the hike up was. You had to do a sideways slide/shuffle and just expect that you were going to slide and let gravity assist in the descent. At the steepest section, I put my coat down for Victoria (like a gentleman) so she could slide down on that. Overall, it was a ton of fun – it was like we got a bonus trip in!
We got back to the parking lot and dropped by the pit toilets they had there. Noelle was gagging in there and told me not to look down, but that’s not how it works for men. It looked to me like they were about 95% full and needed to get pumped out asap!
We turned the car around and drove back the way we came down to the biggest attraction in this area – Lake Louise! It’s so attractive a location, that they can’t accommodate parking there. You have to reserve a spot at the park & ride, a big parking lot next to the Lake Louise ski lodge and they take you on a bus over and drop you off next to Lake Louise. As we were getting close to the parking lot, Noelle screamed “PULL OVER PULL OVER!!”. I thought I just ran over a different family of 4 and slammed on the breaks and pulled over and there she/he/they were – A BLACK BEAR! The majestic bear was right there on the side of the road snacking on some flowers and grass on the side of the road. We didn’t pay us any attention – just minded his own bear business. That’s what bear down, now Noelle has moved the goal posts and wants to see a grizzly.
Now that Noelle’s trip has been made, we pulled into the parking, showed our reservation and got on the shuttle.
The scene at Lake Louise was fairly crazy. There were a ton of tourists being dropped off left and right all clambering to go run to the lake. On the way there, you pass the massive castle of a hotel – the Fairmont Hotel, where the richy riches stay at $1000 a night, then you walk up to the lake and a hundred people taking pictures in front of it In summer, it is a turquoise blue color from the glacier water. Today, it was mostly frozen, but thawed around the edges and you could see some of the blue under the ice from different angles with towering mountains on several sides. When it’s fully frozen, people come out and ice skate on it.
With all that natural beauty, you’d think Lydia and Victoria would be in speechless awe, but nope, they were complaining about the cold. We figured it was more a hangry situation, so we sat down on a bench with the lake in front of us and ate a picnic lunch of sandwiches and chips. After that, everyone was in a better mood for some pictures. Victoria and Lydia waddled out to a snow drift that looked like an iceberg to me for some danger shots.
The girls wanted to go checkout the way the upper class lived, so we walked around the special roped off area for guests and walked into the main entrance of the Fairmont past multiple people with dressed up fancy dogs and poor bell hops loading unloaded 20 bags for 1 lady from a limo. It was nice inside – kind of what you’d expect for $1000 a night in the lobby. They had a little coffee shop right there, so we grabbed some overpriced cookies, coffee, and hot chocolate and enjoyed them in the bustle of the crowds in there. They also have a tea house where you can get afternoon tea, but it was $100 per person. We’re not white trash, but we’re not high class – we’re wild and a little crazy too, but not paying $100 for some tea – back outside into the cold!
There are several great trails you can do around here, but the best ones are 5+ miles (plus 5+ miles back again), and we didn’t have enough time, so we did a half walk around the edge of the lake. The layers of ice and snow against blue of the water underneath framed by the mountain were definitely something to behold. Some crazy guys stripped down to their boxes and walked out into the lake for a picture. I heard them say it was cold. I’ll take their word for it.
After we reached the halfway point, we turned around and walked back to the shuttle pickup area. Lake Morraine is close by and is suppose to be an epic view, but the shuttle to it doesn’t start running till June and the road is closed. Next time!
We shuttled back over to the ski lodge and ran inside to visit the “wash room”. There was a stuffed grizzly inside, but Noelle still wants to see the live version – maybe not this close though.
We jumped back in the jeep and started an hour drive west to a city called Golden to visit a spot Noelle found called Golden Skybridge. It’s a commercial adventure park with a number of different things you can do. We bought the “adventure pass”, which gives you access to pretty much everything except one thing called the “Canyon swing”, which we purchased individually. If you can’t tell by the number of pictures, it was really, really fun.
The whole place was built on top of a huge canyon with a waterfall going through it and epic views of the canyon and mountain. They built two skybridges between the two sides with the valley below. Skinny suspension bridges that wiggle a little bit are one of the things that scare me most in life. I tiptoed across at yelled at the girls to stop shaking the bridge.
It had a very nice ropes course with 3 different courses with a mix of little zipline course and more standard balance on the platforms types. Noelle wasn’t feeling it and sat it out, but the girls and I had a ton of fun. They learned how to navigate through the course with their equipment very quickly and even figured out how to put their zip line attachment on their own by the end. We had to skip the very last zip line only course due to time to make sure we didn’t miss our scheduled time at the canyon swing!
They warned us when we signed up to make sure you show up exactly 15 minutes early for your time at the canyon swing since they had a tight schedule and were booked solid for the day. Well…we took a little too long on the ropes course and had to sprint over to the canyon swing section. Sprinting was not easy since we had to get over to the other side of the canyon to be able to do it. We ran past the other rides and I briskly walked across the second lower suspension bridge and arrived at the Canyon swing 10 minutes before our time. The guy checked his watch when he arrived and rolled his eyes a little, but still accepted us.
Canyon swing is a bit like it sounds. They put you into a sitting harness with a helmet and have you walk the plank out over the valley so they can put you in a swing so you can swing over it. I was doing this tandem with Lydia and Noelle was strapped in Victoria. Lydia and I volunteered to go first. After they get the equipment on you, and walk you out, they have you sit down on a metal platform so they can attach all the ropes and safety ropes to you. I was close to frozen with fear sitting there looking down the canyon. They were giving me some kind of instructions to adjust myself in the harness, but I was close to catatonic and probably wasn’t following what they were trying to get me to do.
After they strap you in, they lower the platform down and you’re just dangling there over the canyon. To release you, you can either do a countdown or have it be a “surprise”. When they asked that, I said I wanted the surprise, and they immediately pulled the rope to release us. I was definitely surprised. You free fall straight down for a little bit, then the swing catches you and you swing out a long way above the canyon towards the trees on the other side. I screamed like a stuck pig the entire first swing while Lydia handled it like a champ. You swing back and forth several times and get more crazy views sitting there swinging back and forth and they eventually pull you back up with a winch VERY slowly.
Noelle and Victoria went next. Knowing Victoria, I thought she might have gotten nervous and asked to back out (she tried to do the same at her last dentist visit), but she was all smiles the entire time while Noelle was more the nervous wreck. Noelle and Victoria went next and you could hear Noelle screaming across the entire canyon that made the audience laugh.
We found out later that they just replaced the cables a couple days ago. I’m glad I didn’t know that ahead of time. I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing to have new cables. They strapped you with video cameras to create a video of your face as you go down. We’ll probably have to buy at least one of those videos since that face has to be priceless.
Now that we’re done with the Canyon swing, we can go back and do the rest of the activities that we skipped. I had to go back across my nemesis the suspension bridge to the other side of the canyon over to the mountain coaster, a little roller coaster they have on the side of the mountain. They give you a brake that you can operate yourself if you want to slow it down. I was worried that I’d fly off the mountain at full speed so used it occasionally. I know the girls didn’t use their brakes at all. Not quite six flags, but it was a fun little coaster.
Next was the big zip line. You put your zip line harness back on and then climb up a big tower where they have 4 different lines where you zip line across the canyon together at the same time. The world is really built for a family of 4. If you have a fear of heights, this is a great place to get over it. An Australian lady at the top snaps you onto to zip line, but before she does that, she puts a safety rope on you. Then once we we all ready to go, she was supposed to remove the safety rope since it’s hard tied to the tower, which would have made it a very short trip (probably stopping us after 1-2 feet of zip lining. With the safety rope still attached, she started the countdown while me and the 2 people waiting behind us scream to “WAIT – safety rope!”. She turns her head sideways and said in an Australian accent, “I would have owed a beer for that one”. Yep, you would have.
She removed the safety rope and we did the regular countdown and released. Another exhilarating across the canyon! I was so exhilarated that when I got to the bottom and it autobraked and you started rolling backwards and are supposed to stand up on the platform, I didn’t standup and ziplined backwards another 20 feet back over the canyon, along with Victoria. I think Australian girl forgot a few lines of her script with additional instructions… They threw me a baggie and pulled me back in using that. A little chaotic, but still fun!
They had 2 last activities for you at the end if you aren’t worn out enough already – Axe throwing and a wall climbing. Axe throwing was was fun. We all landed a few axes into the targets a couple times. Noelle managed to get her axe to bounce up and get stuck in the top of the building and I had to climb up there to get it down.
We did the rock climbing next. Me, Victoria, and Lydia strapped in and the girls went flying up the rock wall, ringing the bell each time they made it to the top. I did it one time, made it almost all the way to the top until I ran out of hand holds to use, then climbed back down and busted it when I tried to jump down the last 5 feet and the auto-belayer caught me a little late. Only my pride was hurt.
What a day! Golden Skybridge is definitely something cool to checkout if you’re looking for a little more concentrated adventure. We’re all starving at this point, so we grabbed some burgers at Bear & Bone Burger in Golden. I’ve been tracking the cities that i’d be ok moving to and Golden is definitely one of them – beautiful little town tucked between mountains. We were all beat at this point and the drive back is going to be 2 hours, so we head out.
We did have one more bonus stop on the way back as we were passing Emerald lake, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful lakes here on Canada. It was also not frozen which was nice. Someone was having a wedding reception there at a building across the bridge there. Lydia ran up to see if she could be an honorary maid-of-honor, but ran back when it looked like they the role filled. The lake was another beauty – but we were all too tired and cold to enjoy it for long and headed back. The girls slept in the back, and Noelle helped keep me awake by talking about the epic day that we had! We leave tomorrow and will definitely miss everything the Banff area had to offer. I would say it’s unquestionably the most beautiful parks that I’ve ever seen in my life.
