Day 16 - Waterfalls, Mountains and a Spa.

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We both slept quite well last night, but were woken early by the young child next door. Well, I had woken around 06:00 and was reading quietly, but Susan hadn’t stirred before the crying started around 06:30, and was a bit put out that it wasn’t even 07:00!

Anyway, we got a reasonably early start, with yesterday’s blog sorted and granola bars and bananas for breakfast. After filling Megan’s fuel tank, we headed off to Johnston Canyon about 45 minutes away. The day was warm and sunny, and we were dressed in shorts and T-shirts. We paid our park fees as we entered the Banff National Park, and drove past signs warning of wildlife on the road and the risk of avalanches. I doubt much wildlife gets anywhere near the road as it has high wire fencing on both sides with the occasional wildlife crossing built above the road on the top of short tunnels.

One the other side of the fencing are acres and acres and acres of fir trees, millions of them! Google tells me they’re very good in regard to oxygen release, so thank you Banff National Park.

Johnston Canyon is a very well marked and paved trail following the River Bow about 60km above Canmore where we had our float yesterday. It’s much narrower here, with the shallow waters flowing fast over the rocky river bed. The river is apparently called the Bow River because of the many Wolf Willows growing along the banks which the indigenous people used to make arrows for their bows.

The hike to the Upper Falls is approximately 2.6km with an elevation gain of 344m. It’s a relatively easy hike with no requirement to carry bear spray. There were several hundred people with us on the trail today, of all shapes, ages, creeds and colours, and we both commented that we were glad it isn’t peak season; it was crowded enough today! We started the trail at about 10:30, and even at that time we passed many people already heading back down the trail. The views of the river and the seven waterfalls were spectacular in places, and we stopped frequently just to look. The Lower Falls has a small tunnel through the rock next to the falls which takes you closer to the water as it plunges down into the pool below, and the waiting time in the queue (line) there was around 20 minutes. Still, it was worth the wait for a selfie!

As we carried on we came to a bench where a couple of people were resting. A ground squirrel was being very brave and scampering around in the open, getting really close to them and us. We wondered whether people have been feeding it, something which is quite rightly forbidden by signs along the trail. It was really cute though!

The trail has quite a lot of up and downs on it, although obviously more up on the way to the Upper Falls, and some of it is along narrow metal walkways built out of the rocks. We were both really impressed with the engineering and amazing hard work that must have taken place to design, and build them. Simply getting the resources there would have been a massive challenge!

The queue to get to the viewing platform for the Upper Falls was much shorter and quicker moving than the Lower Falls. I guess some people decided not to go that far, in the heat. It took us around 2 hours to get to the Upper Falls, at the top of the trail, but that included our looking and queueing. The Upper Falls have a higher drop than the Lower Falls but with less density of water. They’re not as loud either. Pretty though! To the right of the main Upper Falls is a smooth cliff of yellowy and brown rock with tiny streams of water running down it. The streams had made small clefts in the rocks which snaked down to the main river. I’d love to know more about it, but sadly I didn’t have a pet geologist with me.

The journey back down took around 45 minutes, but that was more of a march than the wander up had been. About 15 minutes from the top, we passed a couple of people who were keen to know how much further it was. However, they didn’t seem too keen to carry on when I pointed out the nearby sign which said that the Upper Falls is 990m away. We encouraged them though, saying it was worth the effort!

Cake and a chai latte downed, we headed back towards Banff. We managed to park after a couple of trips around the carpark, and joined the queue for the gondola. It wasn’t too much of a wait, and we were soon admiring the views as we travelled approximately 1 mile up Sulfur Mountain in 8 minutes. Once at the top we were 2281m above sea level, admiring the views over Banff and across to the surrounding mountains. We also spotted rain in the distance!

We did an Adventure Lab cache which took us up to the Cosmic Ray Monitoring Station, which is now an historic site. As we walked along the boardwalk Susan spotted some really cute baby fir trees growing from cracks in the rocks. She chose the one she’d like for her next Christmas tree and we carried on up. We did the traditional selfie, took photos of another peep at their request and on their camera, read the information boards, had another look at the amazing views and headed on down.

If you’re minded to, more info about the station can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur_Mountain_Cosmic_Ray_Station

As we walked back down we heard a bird peeping. We couldn’t see the bird, but identified the tree it was hiding in. It was hiding really well! We must have been watching the tree for 5 minutes, but it just stayed put. I have now installed an app called Merlin as my Bird Nerd app doesn’t cover Canadian birds, so I’ll be prepared next time!

We sat and wrote some thank you cards to Marg and Marg for sharing their homes with us, feeding us and all their amazing hospitality. We’ll get them in the post tomorrow.

We joined the queue for the ride down just as a few drops of rain started falling. Luckily it was literally only a few drops at this point as Susan had left her rain coat in the car. It felt like everyone on the mountain was trying to get down at the same time, and we followed the queue as it snaked around, both thinking we were being herded like cattle. We had a couple of the catering staff join us in our gondola. One was a young man who had washing dishes for the last year and smelt of bleach, the other a young woman carrying a chef’s style jacket and who didn’t stop chattering the whole way down.

The rain hadn’t really increased as we left the gondola terminal, and we walked the few minutes to the Upper Banff Hot Springs. This is very different to some of the natural springs we visited in New Zealand; rather than being several different pools built into the rocks, each with different temperatures and ‘recipe’ of minerals, this is like a very hot hotel swimming pool. It was quite busy, and as we got into the water the raindrops started falling again. We spent some time watching them bounce, ripple and as the rain got harder, form bubbles. Although I’ve swum in the rain on many occasions, actually sitting and watching this was fascinating, and I’ll be attempting to find out more about how and why this happens.

After about 35 minutes in the water we got showered, dressed and headed into Downtown Bannf where we ate a rather delicious Greek meal before driving back to Dead Man’s Flats.

We wondered why Dead Man’s Flats is called this, all a bit creepy really. This is what I found on t’internet:

‘Dead Man’s Flats didn’t always go by this ghastly moniker. It was originally named Pigeon Mountain Service Centre, but after a gruesome 1904 murder, locals unofficially adopted the name. The story goes that Francois Marrett axed his brother Jean to death while he was sleeping, and then threw the body into a nearby river. On trial, Francois said he tossed the body in the river because he was afraid his brother’s ghost would haunt him. Francois was found guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life in a Calgary asylum. That said, it wasn’t until 1985 that the name Dead Man’s Flats was formally adopted to encourage tourism to the hamlet. In 2014, the community again wrestled with changing its name; councillors voted unanimously to leave it undisturbed.’

Sleep well!

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Photos

Lower Falls.
We're in the queue!

Here they are! Ever present.
At the hot springs.