Calgary and the Rocky Mountains

We flew to Calgary last week and met up with Jeff and Gill, who kindly let us stay with them while in Calgary, and took us to see Johnsons Canyon. This was a beautiful (slippery) walk to a frozen waterfall - stunning and blue!

We have hired a car to travel the area - with our "tour guides" jeff and gill helping plan our itinerary. Thanks!

Spent a couple of days down in Fernie - Canada's best kept secret mountain of brilliant powder dumps! Here we spent Nick's b'day, snowboarding by day, hot tubs at night - that's the life! Loved it there.

We then drove to Lake Louise, via some natural hot springs little known about by tourists, called Lussier Hot Springs. Well worth the drive off the main highway, quite bizarre getting into bathers in subzero temperatures, to sit in sulphury stinky 40 degree water!

Lake Louise was FREEZING!! The coldest I've been! Obviously it wasn't the stunning blue lake you see on all the Canada travel posters - as it was frozen (something I only figured out when we got there...). So we walked around it, and over it, and could have ice skated on it if we wanted(but I have discovered I have a huge fear of slipping over on ice, coz it HURTS!). Also had a very cold picnic lunch in the snow. The scenery there was amazing.

Next we drove the Icefields Parkway up to Jasper through the Columbia Icefields. Probably better enjoyed in summer as all the lakes and waterfalls were frozen, and many of the hikes and services along the way closed for the season. Despite this, it's one of the most amazing drives due to the endless rocky mountains and glaciers, and the views at Peyto Lake, the Athabasca glacier, and falls, were brilliant.

We hiked a little around Jasper, saw some wildlife - sapsuckers, red squirrels, big horn sheep, mule deer. The views from the island on pyramid lake, and from the top of Old Fort Point overlooking Jasper, were breathtaking.

On the way back to Calgary we stopped in Banff to check out this famous ski town (the mountains in this area hadn't had much fresh snow so we didn't bother snowboarding). A very beautiful town with a great bakery!

Now we are back in Calgary, we are going to go out and try the famous alberta steak or maybe bison, then to the ice hockey again tonight. We fly to Toronto tomorrow for a couple of weeks to explore Niagara falls, and up to Montreal.