Cross Country to Banff

Cross Country

Saturday 15 Sept 2007

We leave Drumheller and head East towards Banff and Jasper, following Hwy9, which also drops down South at times towards Calgary. At some stage we miss a turn Eastwards and end up much closer to ‘civilisation’ than we want to be in the ‘Country Hills’ area Northwest of Calgary, fighting through road construction and traffic jams.

We drove through this area 12 years ago when moving from Ottawa, and it was ranch and some ‘hobby farm’ population. Now it is a sprawling mass of thousands of cookie cutter yuppy homes in huge developments, not that they aren’t nice, as most have a fair-sized lot and 2 double garages!

We get onto Hwy1A and follow that for some while, rather than Hwy1, and drive through some nice country and a few reserves. Eventually get back onto Hwy1 just before Canmore. We drive through to Banff and head straight up to the Hot Springs on Sulphur Mountain.

We find that today they are celebrating their Centenial, and they have a huge cake floating around the pool! It appears that it was meant to have 100 ‘candles’ which the kids were given squirt-guns to ‘put out’, but the candles did not light up at all, so the kids just followed it around squirting water at the cake in general.

They also had a ‘guitar and singer’ combo performing poolside, which we could hear as we approached from the parking lot. Thankfully, they finished their act just as we got to the pool terrace, as the singer was chronically BAD (a female singer trying to sing well known ‘three tenor’ operatic pieces that she could not do justice to, if you will forgive the dangling participle.)

We luxuriated in the pool for a while, and then I got out and read the Parks pamphlet to plan what we would be doing. (The hot pools send my blood pressure soaring, so I can’t stay in for too long).

Then we head off to look for a campsite for the night. The only one in the Banff area that is located on a lake is ‘Two Jack Lakeside’, on Lake Minniewakka, a few miles back along Hwy1. When we get there they have only 2 ‘tenting sites’ available, which the Parks attendant says are too steep for RVs. We go take a look, and decide that we can fit in, and return to register. We fit in quite nicely, thank you, due to the relatively small size of the Roadtrek, which I back up the slope into the tent site, with only a slight ‘downward sloping angle’ once in position.

Denise wants to ‘walk around the lake’ and sets off. I follow after grabbing the parks pamphlet, which I seem to remember shows a somewhat bigger body of water than we can see. As it turns out, a stroll around the lake will probably take 3 or 4 days (!) as we are only seeing a little thumb-spur where the campsite is located. So we take a walk alongside the lake to a point where there is a public, grassed park with a boat ramp and facilities, which is obviously used by ‘locals’ rather than visitors. We return to the campsite and consume our standard fare of ‘bread & marg with chunky soup’ which is supplemented by potato chips and cheese to taste.

The plan is now to do ‘brunch’ at the Lodge hotel in Banff, gas up and head out of Banff National into Kootenay National to get to Radium Hot Springs, where we hope to spend the night, as I was unable to reserve a camp site there because they work on a ‘first come first served’ basis.

Plans change.

We drive back up Sulphur Mountain to see the more ‘historic’ Hot Springs Hotel, which, paradoxically, is not where the public Hot Springs pool is located, and does not appear to have any springs closely associated?

It IS a grand old building, and more recent additions appear to have been made with keeping the original architecture and stonework in mind, although it is fairly easy to spot the difference in the newer stone and stonework.

We decide to ‘have a fine dining experience’ for breakfast and head on into the imposing edifice of the Hotel, which just oozes ‘rich class heritage’! As we get to the entrance of the ‘Grille’ (which is, according to the Events and Happenings board, the only place which serves breakfast, the finer dining establishments being reserved for ‘Dinner’ only), the people in front of us are advised that the Grille is ‘FULL’ and they will NOT be taking reservations as they have to start preparing for serving Lunch.

However, the girl at the reception desk intimates that we ‘might’ be able to get a buffet breakfast in the ‘Rundle Room’, another level higher. We get into the elevator and head upstairs, only to find that we are definitely looking at one of the ‘finer dining experience establishments’ of the complex!

Although we admit that we are ‘interlopers’ when asked whether we are staying at the hotel, we explain that the Grille personnel have referred us here, and the Hostess (Supervisor/Maitre’D/Lady) at the desk says she will admit us, and asks for our names (which we find a little odd, but comply).

After making an entry in her register, we are bid “Welcome Mr. And Mrs. Currie, will you come this way?”, and follow our hostess to our table, at which at least one of us has a fine view! I look at the front wall of the next wing and the bowling green. Denise looks out at the mountainside scenery.

Our serving waitress arrives ‘toot-sweet’ and again addresses us as ‘Mr. And Mrs. Currie, giving us orange juice & coffee fillips and fetching a glass of water for Denise (who does NOT drink OJ). It is a buffet service, with the food servery in a small room adjacent to the lounge in which we are ensconced.
The cold food (fruits, breads, muffins, etc) is all displayed on silver platters and the hot foods (scrambled egg, sausages, bacon, potatoes) in silver covered, heated pans, with a Chef on-duty to prepare to-order omelettes. We help ourselves and return to the table to eat. Constant checking from our server, Renee, that we are enjoying everything?

When we have both ‘had our fill’ we indicate to the server that we are ready to depart and she takes the bill-fold (with our credit card inside) and returns it a minute later. When I check the bill, she has not run it through the Mastercard system? The Hostess sees me looking strangely at the bill and hurries over, takes the bill-fold, goes to the front desk, does her thing and returns with the expected credit-card slip for Denise to sign (my card having been left in the ‘tray’ in the van after paying at the campsite). What has happened is that our server is obviously ‘new’, and it is equally obvious that this lounge does not normally accommodate non-resident guests, so she had not ‘run the card’, expecting that our room-number would be on the original bill-slip!

Although most likely the most expensive breakfast we have ever had, it was undeniably a ‘fine dining experience’.

We take our leave of the Hotel, and head on up to Lake Louise, where we first go to the campsite and register, then head up to the Lake itself. The Lodge here, which we did visit in 1994 (for a beer for me and ginger-ale for Denise & Angus), is imposing, but not as impressive as the old Hot Springs establishement.

We do the lakeside walk (4Km roundtrip) and head back to the van to visit Lake Moraine, a few Km further up the road. Still quite a few Km from Lake Moraine, the traffic is stopped head-to-tail. We wait a while, then I get out and walk ahead about 0.5Km to find out what is going on. It appears that all the cars and RVs are actually PARKED on the side of the road. Since this is a fairly narrow, twisting, mountain road (from which oversize RVs and 5th-wheels are supposedly barred), I find it odd, but walk back to the van, get in and then negotiate down the hill to the lake (having to pull over to avoid the oncoming traffic, since MY lane is full of parked cars!!).

When we reach the lake, it is obvious that the parking issue is as a result of too many visitors and not enough parking spaces! We are lucky to snag a spot, which has a BIG sign saying NO RV’s, which I ignore, since the section reserved for RV’s, which aren’t supposed to be up here anyhow (??), is FULL OF CARS!

We take a look at the lake, spend some money in the ‘Shop’ and retire to the van, returning to the campsite. Since it is quite quiet at the moment, we take the opportunity to ‘dump the tanks’, since there is usually a long lineup for the sani-dump(s) when people are leaving in the morning.

At our site we park and organise, and Denise heads for the bed to do a Soduku while I sit at the bench and write this log.

By the way, Nan says ‘WRITE MORE’, while Denise says ‘You spend too much time writing’? Angus says ‘Post more pictures’ while I find that the network sites that I can hack into usually choke when I try to upload images! ‘Two Bars’ seems to support accessing Webmail, but not anything more intensive?

Tomorrow, we will head for Radium (which is just outside the Kootenay National Park) and the Radium Hotsprings (just inside the park), after which we will return to Banff National and head North to Jasper National Park.

Pretty noisy camp site! Trains, cars on Hwy1, sirens, …. But we still slept and are up, ready to get going towards Radium.

The road to Radium is covered with signs warning you not to hit the elk! We don’t see a single elk the whole trip, but we do see 3 deer on the way and a couple of goats (right in the campsite at Radium).

The good weather that we have enjoyed to date has packed up and left! Clouds, cold and quite heavy rain at times, but the sun comes out tentatively after noon, just as we have left the Radium Hot Springs pool to have a bite of lunch in the van. We have day-passes, so we can go back later, not that there appears to be anything else to do in Radium!

The hot pool is located in a nice setting at the base of a steep cliff (with a few chain link fences higher up to stop falling rocks from diminishing the enjoyment of the patrons). Not as hot as the pool at Banff, but OK, and much bigger.

There is a ‘cool pool’ next to it, but nobody is in there. Must be a summer thing? There is also a 5 degree C ‘surprise plunge pool’ next to the hot pool. A few people try it, but not us!

We are going to go look around Radium, which should not take too long. After that, we’ll probably hit the hot pool for an afternoon swim before retiring to the campsite for the evening. I’ll have to see if there is a network available in Radium to post this and check emails.