BANFF

We left Bear Valley after the morning feed. Ringo, the dog was half in the car, with his paws on my lap as Mike pulled him away so we could depart.

Bye Grover!

Kathy drove us to the airport in Calgary, where we could pick up a car. She would then head to pick up a new set of two volunteers, probably not as good as us.

After a long schlep to find coffee, while Sandra (now known as: Cheat Day) and Snakes waited in line to pick up our car, we found ourselves in the swank mobile’.

It was a fancy model. Fancier than us and well above our station, but we needed a four wheeled drive for the possible icy conditions in Banff.

It was and hour and a half to Banff from Calgary, and a drive that took us away from the odd suburban flat-pack housing and flat fields, to imposing snow cover mountains, full of majesty. Cheat Day was immediately bored of the speed limit.

As soon as we saw mountains, Cheat Day asked me to ‘make this picture, I told her it would be crap.

My Mum has decided that ‘Banff’ sounds more like a fart than a town, so that’s nice.

We drove straight to lunch, at Earls, remember Earls? Our favourite hang out in Calgary, but now in Banff (pardon me). Well, you’ll be sad to hear that Earls Banff (excuse me) wasn’t a scratch on Earls Calgary.

We drove a kilometre (we now have to revert back to kilometres) out of Banff (oops!) up Tunnel Mountain to our new lodge home for three nights.

After a short time meggling and settling in, we left for the Fairmont Hotel. Snakes has, in the last few months, developed a desire to visit big, old, grand Lodges. I comply with her desire to visit such locations as it sits well with the continuous Agatha Christie dream-world in which I live. We’d been tipped off to this posh hotel, which boasts its grandeur and stature through celebrating its 130 year infancy.

Pretty dishy eh? I’m sure hundreds of people have been murdered here.

We were guided up to the bar on the second floor and enjoyed posh cocktails in crystal glasses where the ice jangles around your glass like in a swanky film.

We taught Cheat Day how to play the card game:’Shit Head’. And unfortunately, due to her inexperience, she was at a tactical disadvantage and remained the ‘Shit Head’ throughout. Poor shitty Cheat Day.

The next day we enjoyed a 3 miles walk up Johnston canyon. And when I say 3 miles, I mean 3 miles, round trip if that. Mainly I enjoyed being able to turn around and go back to the car whenever I wanted. It was raining and a little smeachy, so I arrived at this point fairly soon.

Long gone are the 28 mile days of the CDT.

We returned home for lunch, and more shit head, in which Cheat Daybecame decidedly less shit.

It was the Bannf Mountain Film Festival launch night. I was particularly excited that we were in Banff for the film festival as I’ve attended for the last 8 years or so when it tours in the UK, and often wondered how much better it must be in Banff.

The Bloc Party opening night was a few pathetic stalls downtown, poorly attended. I won a HH karabiner for throwing a thing into a thing. It was a nice atmosphere and all the swanky overpriced outdoor stores were still open.

Needless to say we were in the brewery before long. Cheat Daywas desperately trying to make her head less shitty. She’s was doing pretty well.

Snakes and I were over the limit on three beers and began making all manner of future life plans.

The following day we began by the usual meggle, coffee and such. After the trail I bought a few books relevant to the areas we’d hiked through. I wanted to learn some of the history around the areas we’d spent so much of our time. I’m currently reading a book which I believe every human should read.

Take note if you’re a human: ‘Bury my Heart At Wounded Knee’ is a year by year account of the turmoil between ‘white man’ and the Indians after the west was ‘won’, and of course by ‘won’, I mean lost.

Its shocking and horrible but you should most certainly read it.

We left for downtown Banff to walk along the wetlands. It was bloody cold, but that didn’t matter as weren’t camping, the walk was about 4km and we were only really doing it so we could feel good about lunch.

Beyond burgers are sweeping through the nation and massively growing in popularity. They are vegan and I’m told taste as good as meat. I’ve been with two meat fans while they’ve eaten one, and one of those was Bear (the hiker) and they both approved. They will be in dirty Tescos from September, I dare you to try it.

From lunch we drove up to Lake Mimmewanka (‘Water of the Spirits’) and it was most spectacular. The wind was ripping through my clothes like a sharp knife.

The lake is the second longest in the Canadian Rockies. I was long inhabited by Aboriginal people. shame its so ugly.

We had tickets booked for a night of Films at the film festival. We took Cheat Day with us of course and it was a stonking selection. If you haven’t heard of the Banff film festival, allow me to explain:

The Banff Mountain Film Festival is an international competition and annual presentation of short films and documentaries about mountain culture, sports, and the environment.

Immediately after the festival in November a selection of the best films entered go on tour. You should go.

In Banff, dressing up in ones warmest outdoor appropriate clothing seems sensible, given the below freezing temperatures outside. When we attend the film festival in Bath (UK) it’s annually recurring joke that the attendees all dress up in their finest outdoor wear to attend a night of adventure related films in a heated theater. We joke that one year we will both turn up looking like this:

Y’know, just so its perfectly obvious that i’m a keen outdoor type…

On our last day in Banff we ventured further out to ‘Lake of the Little Fishes’. This lake was renamed years later after some broad. I’ve been before but last time I didn’t have the opportunity to go to the Fairmont Hotel as I was with minors. The lake is spectacular, and mainly filled with under-dressed tourists taking pictures of their under-dressed selfies.

After being seated and waiting for 20 minutes to be served in The Fairmont, we decided we liked the Banff Fairmont better and that we would return and go there instead. Which, we did.

In the Fairmont, you receive a gift of Japanese crackers and pretzels with your drink. A simple gesture. One which Snakes became over the moon about and even more so when she asked the waitress if she could fill our snack pot and she conceded.

Snakes was less amused when she noticed the table next to us (which was clearly filled with people who could actually afford to be there) had a snack pot bigger than ours.

We departed the following morning early, Cheat Day was kind enough to drive us downtown to the bakery for coffee before dropping us off at the bus station.

We said our goodbyes and Cheat Day, who left to enjoy two more days in Canada, she spent another night in Banff, then returned back, all the way to Bear Valley Rescue to spend her final afternoon with Grover, Ruby and the boys. Good old Cheat Day.

Snakes and I waited for the bus which runs from Calgary to Vancouver. Once it arrived the amiable but extremely flappy bus driver began the process of checking the bags on. For the 4 passengers waiting this would have been a 4 minute job, but Mr flappy couldn’t focus on one person at a time and moved rapidly between the 4 of us half asking and half answering questions, not really achieving anything.

I mounted the bus to get seats leaving Snakes with Mr Flapps. The journey was a pleasant 4 hours or so and a good chance to get through a chunk of my extremely depressing book.

Once in Revelstoke, our final destination, Mr Flapps used the same inefficiency to release us as he did before. While under a seemingly pointless instruction to wait for our baggage which was sitting as the only two bags in a compartment under the bus, with the door already open, while he flapped about from passenger to passenger. We picked up our bags and made for the black car with the blonde lady sitting in it over in the car park.

I suspected this was Janine. I suspected correctly.

Our next placement was in Trout Lake. A 30 minute drive, a 30 minute ferry and a 30 minute drive away. Janine welcomed us warmly and we sat and chatted in the car while she unknowingly covered her self in falling globules of Mayonnaise, escaping from her Mcdonalds.

The journey was pleasant and Janine was easy company. We arrived at Trout Lake and she took us on a drive-by tour of the 43.5 strong village. A great many holiday homes stood empty as they do for all but one month of the year. The lake was the centerpiece and Janine and her Husband John lived on the edge of it, all year.

Two French WWOOFers had arrived two days ago, Bénédicte and Charlène . We introduced ourself to them and John and began the tour of the cabin.

We will be here for 4 weeks and, upon arrival, I decided I was perfectly happy about that.