September 20, 2004

Morning in Banff, sleeping in Toronto

The last day was a blast.. Although it was a slow start, waking up at 6:00 AM MDT after only 2 hours sleep. We checked out of the hotel, swung by Kieron's apartment and picked him up. We hit the Trans-Canada Highway and started heading west for Banff. The scenery is very hard to describe as you approach the park. Just over an hour after leaving the city limits of Calgary, we were at the gate of Banff National Park. It cost us approx. $14 for a group to enter. The scenery just kept getting better and better. The mountains were everywhere, and a lot of them had snow caps. I won't waste my time in the descriptions, as the pictures will tell the story better than I can. We ended up parking at the base of Sulphur Mountain and taking the Gondola up to the top. It's about a 10+ minute ride up, and from what I heard to be an escalation of anywhere between 7000-8000 feet. When we got to the top, the ground was covered in snow and it was quite a bit colder. It took a little while to get used to breathing the air up there as it was so thin. After taking many pictures we decided to head back down the Gondola. We drove back to Calgary and went back to the noc with Kieron to get all of our affairs in order before hitting the airport. Aside from a small hickup with a flat tire on the rental car (another story) we were at the airport well ahead of schedule. The flight back on WestJet was great. We even ended up scoring a few free cans of beer from our friendly flight attendant. Now I'm back at home, and I'm dead tired. I am going to see if I have the energy to up my newest pics now.

Posted by mike at September 20, 2004 12:30 AM
Comments

Heh, cool trip huh? Too bad I missed on that. Tabarn4c...

Glad you guys had fun though! Next time I'll tag along & we'll hike a mountain (or 2) together!

Posted by: Sylvain at September 25, 2004 12:07 AM

For sure... I'm going to be out west again soon ! I still have to see BC.

Posted by: mike at September 25, 2004 1:51 AM