There's a Bear in There ...

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..... and we've been hiking through Banff National Park for days on end, giving onlookers the impression we're a bunch of loonies escaped from some sort of mental institution. To avoid bear attacks, (& believe us, we knew there were definitely a handful of grizzlys roaming our immediate vicinity thanks to ranger warnings and fresh bear droppings), we were instructed to talk loudly, sing constantly and let the bears know we're there. Apparently this gives the average bear the option to take a wide berth.... Yep, the 'average' bear avoids humans, but there are still those random few who like to attack our kind out of self-defense or even fun. Needless to say we spent half our hiking time operating the eyes in the back of our heads.

Banff was unfairly written off as 'a hole' by Penny on the first day, thanks to our arrival into miserable, grey, frozen sleet. The clouds were so low we felt trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare of tacky tourist shops & 19-year-old beer swillers. But praise the Lord, on day 2 the heavens above opened up, the clouds magically disappeared and we were blinded by majestic sunshine reflected off snowy mountain peaks surrounding us on all sides. Absolutely awe-inspiring.

We made the most of the perfect weather (& saved ourselves $52) by hiking to the summit of a gondola-serviced mountain, then sneaking onto the gondola for the return trip. Yesss! We followed this with a stunningly beautiful 3-hour stroll along Bow River, passing wild elk, deer and gazillions of squirrels. Still no bear sightings, but we did see a number of suspicious looking animal bones laying about. What the?!?!

The sad end to this story is that Pen & Dave split the very next day. Pen headed back to Sydney for her Greencard interview whilst Dave stayed on to experience his very first solo travel adventure, to hike more mountains, & to swill beer with 19-year-olds.

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Comments

[Pat]

Sounds like photographers Heaven
Love the photos, keep them coming.