To the mountains!

(this has been a work in progress all week, writing a bit here, a bit there, and therefore a bit out of date)

Really fun, active weekend for Jeff and I. Saturday we woke up early (ok, early by my standards) and hit the open highway to spend some time in the gorgeous rocky mountains. We went to Banff for a day of hiking. It is the first time Jeff and I have been hiking since living in Calgary and I can’t believe it took us so long as we had a fantastic day. Wandered through town and then hiked the Bow Valley/Hoodoo trail.

The trail was not too exerting with only a 60m elevation gain over 5km but just enough of a gain to get a nice view of the mountains. We took our camera but didn’t get any amazing shots as there was some cloud cover. Started to clear as we were arriving back to the car but the wind was also starting to pick up so our timing was great.

Normally (as least what I remember from all the hiking I did with my family growing up) the end of the trail, at the highest point, is the most spectacular. This was not the case with this hike. The Information Centre in Banff said to do this trail “Hoodoo Trail” to see the hoodoos at the end. Wow. Deceptive. They were NOT worth the hike (luckily the views along the way were). The hoodoos (all 2 of them) were way off in the distance and not much to look at. Thumbs up for the nice hike, thumbs down for the hoodoos.

Here are some pictures from the day:

View of the Banff Springs from the parking lot