This morning Natalie tricked me into waking up at 6:15 by opening the curtains and letting the sunlight in as she does every morning but not telling me the actual time. When I enquired about the time and I was told it was “6:30, but look at the view” I possibly replied with something that I shouldn’t write on a blog and tried to go back to sleep for a bit while Natalie popped down to the hotel coffee shop to get supplies - cup of tea and a croissant. This didn’t work, mainly because the phone kept ringing with a wake up call neither of us had booked, so I was awake and getting dressed at 7am. This is not a holiday. It is a boot camp!
The view was nice (as it had been yesterday), and the sky was clear blue, which helped me see the point of being up this early a tiny bit. We had two attractions on the agenda; explore Johnston Canyon with an extension trail to the Inkpots and visit Moraine Lake, which has ten peaks at one end and is probably the most used photo in any Canada promotional material, it’s everywhere.
As the sky was clear we decided to go to Moraine Lake first to see it in all it’s glory, just like the photos show it. Mother Nature did not like this plan and as we drove up the highway, big dark grey clouds started to form in the direction we were heading. It started to rain a bit. Then a bit more. It was 7 degrees, I’d forgotten my wooly hat, I was cold and tired and now, Moraine Lake looked rubbish. I was not enjoying today. I took a photo in case we didn’t make it back there before we leave but was pretty disappointed, it looked much smaller than the photos and without the sun it didn’t have the awesome colour that it usually does, it was quite disappointing.
So, we left Moraine Lake and drove to Johnston Canyon. I had a tiny snooze on the boring big highway but woke up to bear hunt when we got back onto the Bow River Parkway. Obviously, we didn’t spot any bears. As it was so early there wasn’t too many people there (when we’d passed it yesterday at midday there were loads of cars on the road, we’d been warned by Scott on the kayaking trip that it got really busy), we put on the layers we had, I grumbled about not having my wooly hat again, then we headed into the canyon.
Johnston Canyon is different to Maligne Canyon that we did up in Jasper as you get to go deeper into it rather than look at it from above, which was pretty cool, also the water was lovely and clear, and even in the rain it looked blue rather than brown so it was quite attractive. We got to the lower falls and was surprised to find a cave that you walk through which opens up to a close view of the waterfall which was impressive. The viewing platform was pretty small and when we saw it on our return there was quite a few people queueing to get a look - we were glad we’d gone earlier then.
During the walk up to the Upper Falls, the gradient meant we warmed up a bit, I was no longer wishing for my wooly hat. We got talking to an Australian woman on the walk which was nice but she had to wait for her husband so we left her to it. The Upper Falls were also pretty good.
We broke off from the (slight) crowd and joined the trail to the Inkpots, I raised a concern that an 8k round trip on a croissant might not be the best idea, but we had a banana so it would be ok…and then it started to rain again, it was pretty heavy and didn’t take long before our waterproof matching coats were not-so-waterproof. The hike was quite tough, we were getting hungry so we decided to eat the banana - which we realised we’d left in the car, so now we were cold and getting hangry. After quite a long time of going up we saw a girl coming in the opposite direction and asked her if it was worth it, she replied “yeah, it’s pretty cool down there”…wait, down there? Not long after, we started the descent, which seemed to go on forever, knowing we would have to come back up put me in an even worse mood!
Eventually, it levelled off, and soon we made it to the Inkpots, which were…really underwhelming. I imagine if you’d done the walk in the sun (with food) and the sun was shining on the Inkpots when you got the them, they’d look great, maybe even spectacular, but today they just looked like a few ponds in a field. It was disappointing because you could see the different colours, blue and yellow, some of the pools clearer than others, the rings where the water filters up and the quicksand at the bottom , butit was just too cold and dull to enjoy them.
We walked around the different pools and quickly made our way back up towards to the car. We walked pretty fast, with as few stops as possibly and decided that although there was some moaning, we’d actually done quite well do do the trail in the conditions we did - poor weather, no food. I decided I could probably survive a Bear Grills style quest and wondered if there were any ants around I could snack on.
Finally, we made it back to the entrance, it was midday - the canyon didn’t feel too crowded, I think Canadians really think a group of 50 people is too many! We were going to head into Banff for some lunch but decided to stop in at the Johnston Canyon resort restaurant where we both ordered sandwiches which turned out to be huge with fries on the side. They were yummy. I was happy. Now that it was all over, I was quite glad we’d done the hike, it wasn’t very enjoyable and it had turned out to be around a 12k hike in total, but it was a good work out and I was focusing on that.
While we were eating, the sun had come out - typical - and we considered going back to Moraine Lake but as we got to the car and looked in that direction we realised the sun had come out over Banff but the other direction looked like an end of the world movie, very dark clouds covered all of the mountains.
We quickly changed our minds and decided the afternoon would be much more successful if we spent it in the pool area of our hotel. This turned out to be the best idea ever, we spent time hopping between the different areas; had a bit of a swim (I floated) in the cold pool, hot tub, pool, sauna, pool, steam, pool, hot tub…it was nice and relaxing.
After we relaxed we came back up to the room and enjoyed the view, then I had a lovely nap, where I woke myself up by snoring at least twice, while Natalie caught up with some blog posting. We got ready for dinner and decided we should probably head down to Banff rather than hide in the hotel again. Obviously the minute we decided to go out a big grey cloud appeared, we waited it out and went as soon as we saw a bit of blue sky creeping in.
We drove down, found a parking space (after driving around for about 15 minutes, which would probably annoy other people but I don’t mind because it gives us an opportunity to licence plate spot). We were heading for a Mexican restaurant but at the last minute changed our mind after looking at a menu for a basement bar called Toque which was quite trendy inside. We sat down and who should we see at the next table but Martina from the teahouses hike two days ago, she was sat with a few lads but we had a quick chat and then they carried on with their conversation and we got on with reading the menu. Nat opted for meatloaf (it was ok, a bit dry), I went for a steak (it was nice, and had lovely cripsy onions on top).
Once we’d placed our order we got on with the serious matter of card playing. Nat beat me in yet another game of Scag, then we had a fairly even few games of Rummy - I think I came out on top but we lost count (coincidentally).
After we’d ate and paid, we said our goodbyes to Martina again and headed out to have a walk around Banff, but it was cold and my jeans were feeling tight, plus there was a pretty good sunset going on so we thought we’d get back to the hotel. We made a quick detour to the Fairmont Banff Springs which is a fancy hotel that people go to look at or pay loads to stay at. We had a look but were more interested in the licence plates in the car park, no luck spotting one of the few left.
We got back to the room just in time to watch a few of the pink clouds out of the window, once they were gone I got back into my Rear Window position to do a bit of people watching and finish the blog before heading to bed. It’s been a long day, perhaps we’re just trying to drag it out and get as much out of it so that our last day in Canada doesn't ever get here!
