Around Banff

Bud and I decided to take the short hike up to Silverton Falls. We took the Bow Valley Parkway to get to the trailhead. This has a pretty low speed limit, and that’s good because we were able to slow down and not hit this black bear as it crossed the road in front of us. This is the third bear that’s crossed in front of us on this trip to Canada, but the first time I’ve gotten a decent photo.

Soon after we started our hike we could hear what I thought was the falls.

It was not, it was just pretty Silverton Creek hurrying downhill.

To get to the falls we had to walk quite a bit higher and come across this section of questionable trail.

I could see the terrain was steep and was happy to stay on the trail.

The creek was now far below us…

but as we came around a shoulder of the hill we saw the small, but fairly spectacular falls descending from far above us.

Turning my phone I could get what we could see of the falls diagonally in the field of view.

I think the view of the far valley would have been stunning, but there was still smoke.

Later that day I set off down snake hill into town to check out a laundromat.

Right in town I came across this female mule deer grazing at the side of the street.

I was following a walking route on Apple Maps. I wondered what this was about.

Oh the tracks.

I crossed…

despite the warning…

as this was obviously a well established path.

Unfortunately this was a commercial laundry, strike number two; the laundry closest to our campground was out of business.

But the walk was not a total loss; on the way back I saw the fawn and just past it I saw mama deer again.

I had the return route on my phone but wasn’t watching it. It buzzed and I looked and it said I had arrived.

Yes I had. Scarily accurate!

The next day Bud and I took the bus back into town, The ride to town is free. We stopped at the Visitor Center and each got an all day pass for the busses in and around town for $2.50 Canadian.

We walked the few blocks down to the pretty little park museum. It was almost entirely the old fashioned natural history displays of stuffed birds and animals. A lovely setting but a bit depressing to me.

We then took the bus up to the Cave and the Basin. Walking into the cave…

you come to this hot spring of mineral water.

This is the first part of Banff to be protected as a National Reserve and two years later, in 1887 became the core of the first Canadian National Park, Rocky Mountains National Park, which in 1930 was renamed Banff National Park.

Outside, there is a larger, cooler and less sulfurous spring fed pool called the basin.

There are nine springs on Sulphur Mountain.

These thermal springs are the only place where the Banff snail lives. The snails are quite pretty up close and cleaned off but in the pools they are these little blobs of slime.

We took the bus back to the center of town and went to the beer store. Bud took his beer and headed to the bus stop to catch the bus back to the campground.

I opted to walk, first through town,

then on a lovely walking path…

along the Bow River.

I was just able to see the falls from above.

I then got on the trail to the Hoodoo Viewpoint that took me back to camp.

I’ve done two more big walks. Sunday I walked into town on the Surprise Corner to HooDoos Trail. It was a lot easier going down this trail.

I walked by this raven, he was huge, almost twice the size of a crow.

This time I took the time to walk down the lookout trail at Surprise Corner.

The parking lot is always full here,

so much so that there is a warning sign on the street because cars might be stopped in the road waiting to turn into the lot. So I thought I should take the time to see what was there.

The main trail took me down to a place where a side channel joined the main channel of the Bow River just below the falls.

Raft rides started there.

You could see the huge Fairmont Banff Springs across the river and you could hear the falls,

but no matter where I climbed on the little paths, I couldn’t see the falls.

I gave up and continued to the parking lot. Across the street I saw these stairs to a viewing platform. Oh, I thought, that’s where you see the falls.

But no, just a better view of the Fairmont,

and you couldn’t see the falls at all, not even a glimpse of river. Surprise Corner? Yes, I thought, you can hear the water roaring, but surprise, you can’t see it!

Anyway I continued on the nice trail along the river,

past the bridge…

and up into town. I did a bit of shopping, saw the striking town hall,

passed this well disguised parking garage and came back up snake hill. Altogether it was a nice six mile hike.

Today I drove to a nearby town to do laundry. I also taped rodent barriers under the front of the trailer. We’ve tried small containers of moth balls and an electronic rodent repeller, but watched a squirrel go right past those, up inside the cap of the trailer and then heard his little feet walking in the space above our heads over our bed. I banged on the wood there and he came out, but we decided a real barrier was needed. This is foil window insulation cut to fit and duct taped over the openings under the front of the trailer. We’ll see if that works.

I still wanted to get a walk in so took the path around the Tunnel Mountain campgrounds. It was 4.2 miles long and I was never more than a couple hundred feet from a campsite. I saw this spruce grouse along the way.

Looking up you could see the sunshine,

and you could sort of see the nearby mountains,

but the fires in British Columbia are worse than ever and so was the smoke. I’m grateful we came through when we did, because the road we took to Kelowna has been closed for the last three days. Tomorrow we travel north to Jasper and we may leave the smoke behind.