Very recently, my wife was booked to go to a conference in Calgary Alberta. Having lived in Banff for 5 years back in the eighties, I knew it was my duty to make sure that she saw the beauty of Banff National Park. I don’t think there are any more picturesque mountain views anywhere in the world! So I did what I had to do and booked a long weekend on to the end of my wife’s conference and took her to Banff.
Day 1 was off to Lake Louise. Our first stop of the day was to go up the gondola (or rather chair lift) up the mountain at the Lake Louise Ski resort for a great view of the Ten Peaks Valley. My remembrance of the off season gondola ride was that there was a restaurant at the top of the gondola where we could get something to eat and a beer. That is no longer the case. Now, what is a restaurant in ski season is a nature interpretative centre with complimentary coffee the rest of the year. Here we learned about the local grizzly Bears. The rules, when hiking on the mountain:
- travel in groups of 4 or more;
- and, make lot’s of noise .
So, wanting to hike, we said we are only a group of 2. The interpretative centre man said, “No worries. The bears all denning (getting their dens ready for hibernation) on the other side of the mountain. So off we went on the Kicking HorseTrail. This video is a quick overview of our trip up the Lake Louise and our encounter with a Grizzly Bear.
Needless to say, it was very exciting start to our tour of Banff National Park. From there, we went to Moraine Lake, Chateau Lake Louise for drinks and snacks, and back to the Banff Spring Hotel for dinner with friends. What a day!