Sunday May 31st

Today we started by taking lunch with us before swinging by Vermillion Lakes for a little while before heading out to the Sulphur Mountain Gondola. Heading up Sulphur Mountain was fun, although I am not great with heights, especially in cable-cars. I hated it when we passed by a pylon as it made the entire cable car rumble....! NO!! I faced where we had some from. It seemed easier! The photos came out nice too!

Once at the top, we went outside to walk to the top, known as Sanson’s Point I believe, named after the guy who climbed Mount Sulphur very regularly (most days I think!) and often stayed at the top, especially if he got snowed in. Apparently his epitaph read “Gone higher”!!

The wind was chilly but it was a fine day and we had a great view, also seeing golden ground squirrels. Looking at the view I felt I was starting to understand how large these mountains were. The view was expansive, endless, and impressive. I still wanted to have the mountains looming over me rather than look at them from a distance at the peak of another. My mind was struggling to grasp scale and perspective here.

Descending the mountain in the Gondola was not much different than the ascent, although I preferred to see where we were headed rather than where we had been. One thing we noticed was all the sterile burnt lodge-pole pines – which make up the majority of the forests here, and they regenerate after burning. And there had already been a good few forest fires already, since we had been here. We saw one later on in the evening outside our room window.

We next decided to do the “Sundance Canyon” trail. We took our lunch and sat by the Bow River which ran alongside the trail. I was a little conscious of bears, but we saw none. Although we did see a mule deer and a female Elk later on. The Sundance Canyon trail was quite dull after passing the river. Again, my feet were hurting so I got grumpy. The rest of the walk was incredibly long and uneventful with the exception of seeing the deer and Elk. We finished the walk with a lovely well needed ice-lolly and went back to the B&B where we watched a cloud of smoke rising and expanding quickly from behind one of the mountains.

Later, we went out for food and had an Italian meal. I had tagliatelle. Before going to eat, I popped into a couple of shops looking for t-shirts and after trying one which I really wanted, I discovered that all the nice interesting patterns are on the men’s t-shirts which did NOT fit me!! I felt like I was wearing a t-shirt which belonged to my brother. And again, I was seeing millions of ladies t-shirts with nothing on except flowers and “Banff”. This was seriously irritating me as there were no end of men’s t-shirts with very, very nice designs which I could not buy. Ladies usually had about 6 designs to choose from, all totally un-Canadian or plain.

I did, however, spot a nice t-shirt with a moose on which I might buy tomorrow. Otherwise, I guess it is mow my task to try and find a ladies t-shirt with a bear on it. If I don’t find any I will assume Canadians don’t think ladies like Canadian-looking t-shirts or t-shirts with nice designs on. Oh and I have to find one in a nice colour. (Seriously – orange? grey? yellow? Please! I don’t want to look anaemic!!).