Short trips from Calgary

Here is a list of some of the interesting visits we made around Calgary:

Banff town is in a valley of the Banff National Park. It is at the right distance from any place (Calgary/Golden/Jasper) and a good stop over for some delicious food or drink. For all the foodies, this is a go-to place as the town is filled with all kinds of restaurants, bars and cafés due to the high volume of visitors all round the year. People like us would love to just drive to this place as both the drive and the meal would be worth the visit. Being a tourist place, there is something for shopoholics too. Also, in winter, Banff is close to many popular ski lodges.

Lakes of Banff National Park: If heaven is a place on earth, it probably would be in the Canadian Rockies and Banff is in the heart of it all. This bewitching place is a must visit for nature lovers. This park is home to a host of flora, fauna and lakes. Be it the massive Lake Minniwanka, serene Lake Louise, pristine Bow Lake or the blue-green Moraine Lake, each comes with its own charm and grandeur.

Columbia Icefields Experience: One doesn’t need to fly or sail to Alaska to experience Glaciers. Situated on the ice fields parkway of Jasper National Park, Athabasca Glacier presents a unique opportunity to visit a glacier on specially designed vehicles. The trip from the base to the glacier also allows one to experience the glacier on foot once you reach the summit. Though the glacier is slowly receding over the past decades, the colossal Athabasca Glacier is still quite a spectacle.

Note: A Glacier is a perennial mass of ice which moves over land. It forms in locations where the mass accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation over many years. Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. Glaciers move constantly. So every few years, they have to make a different approach road to the Glacier. Receding glacier is different from a moving glacier. (Source: Wiki)

Edmonton: This is the capital of Alberta province. The North Saskatchewan River flows right through the city, giving a panoramic view of downtown Edmonton. Though not many people like visiting Edmonton, we’ve always found it to be a pleasant place. We visited the Royal Alberta Museum and Muttart Observatory apart from checking out the Legislature and Old Strathcona area (including the very popular Whyte Avenue known for its resturants). There is a good arty feel about downtown as well. Edmonton houses 1 of the largest shopping malls in the world (largest in N.America) – the West Edmonton Mall. This mall hosts more than 800 shops, a hotel, an amusement park, a water park and other attractions – all indoors. We also managed to go for a late night standup comedy show as well. (Refer an older post on Edmonton here). 

Drumheller: Also known as the dinosaur valley, Drumheller has the largest deposits of dinosaur fossils in the world. The Royal Tyrell Museum here is considered as an authority on the subject and is often invited to other parts of the world during excavations, symposiums, etc. Allow for at least 2 hours at the Museum (we took 3), which has an excellent collection and is very well maintained. Apart from dinosaurs, Drumheller is also known for its unique terrain – the badlands and hoodoos.

Badlands is a type of arid terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind and water. It can resemble malpaís, a terrain of volcanic rock. Canyons, ravines, gullies, hoodoos and other such geological forms are common in badlands. Badlands often have a spectacular colour display that alternates from dark black/blue coal stria to bright clays to red scoria. (Source: Wiki)

A Hoodoo (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, and earth pyramid) is a tall thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. Hoodoos are composed of soft sedimentary rock and are topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column from the elements. (Source: Wiki)

Saskatoon Farm, Okotoks: A 45 minute drive from downtown Calgary, this place is a 1 stop shop for organic needs. The farm is mainly known for growing Saskatoon berries and hence you get ample of jams, sauces, pies, ice creams - all made from Saskatoon berries. The farm has a huge nursery selling seasonal & perennial flowers, plants and trees. They have an interesting shop sells bits and odds including garden accessories, paintings and furniture. They also sell farm products and their Saskatoon berry food items. Apart from all the above, they have a lovely restaurant on site. We had a scrumptious brunch here before we toured the farm.

Head-smashed-in-buffalo jump: A UNESCO world heritage centre which showcases customs followed by native Indians for 1000s of years. Due to their vast knowledge of topography and of bisons in general, they killed these bison by chasing them over cliffs and subsequently carving up the carcasses in the camp below. They would use the carcasses to make food, clothing, jewelry, items for trade. Though the cliff itself isn’t a great sight, the interpretive centre is definitely worthy of a visit.

Waterton Lakes National Park: Also called as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, is to the South of Calgary and borders US. Infact the huge Waterton Lake is mostly in Canada (Alberta) and partly in the US (Montana). If you take a cruise around the lake, it is probably one the easiest borders to cross without paperwork (just kidding). This park is popular for wildlife including hosting a Bison Paddock. A variety of camping sites and hiking trails are available including Crypt Lake hike which is one of the most popular hikes in Canada!

On the way to Waterton or Head-smashed-in-Buffalo Jump (or Southern Alberta) and you have the time, it is worth dropping by the Aviation Museum in Nanton. This museum has a decent collection of war planes including Lancesters. The other place worthy of a mention is Cardston which is home to the Remington Carriage Museum. It is the largest horse drawn carriage museum in North America and gives a wonderful insight into travel before cars.

Apart from the above mentioned sights, there are a host of other national and provincial parks worth visiting. Apart from their sheer beauty, nature and outdoor lovers have plenty of activities they can choose from in these parks. Experiencing and exploring this part of Canada can easily take weekends off your calendar very easily.

Places of visit on map:

View Folks visit Calgary in a larger map

Folks visit Calgary

I have always lived with or been in the same city as my parents. Hence after moving out (read: after marriage), there were hardly any opportunities for either of us to stay over. Drop-ins and occasions were always there but it was a first time experience to have my folks staying over for long period of time and I was quite looking forward to it (I will ignore the one time they stayed at our place in Bangalore when I was recuperating from a surgery – it cannot be counted).

I was also a little anxious on how it would go. Firstly, I work from home these days. I would be busy with my work (teleconferences, emails, office internal messaging and MS Office – I’ve worked just using these 4 tools ever since I started working from home. It is amazing that I have had no issues in delivering what is expected of me ). But it meant no distraction or noise while I was working.

Secondly, I wasn’t sure how I would entertain them on a daily basis. They were staying for 6 weeks (Apr-May 2010). They have always been such social bees. I hardly knew anyone in this city we moved into just over 7 months ago when they arrived. Who would they call upon? What would they do everyday? Will I be able to work with them around? So many questions kept popping in mind.

Luckily for us Sharan works 10/4 so all weekends could be considered as long weekends. Hence we made an itinerary for 6 weeks with heavy-duty long weekends so that it took them most of the weekdays to recover from it :)

My folks took around a week to fall into routine. As expected, Mom took full charge of the kitchen. She was churning out different dishes three times a day - a gastronomical bliss for the rest. We managed to get Dad our friend’s spare laptop. He would get up late in the morning and then get on to his usual ‘computer’ing business. The only instruction given to both of them was that there should be absolutely no noise during my telecons – that means no using blender, pressure cooker, telephones or shower (they are really noisy in our guest bathroom), no talking loudly, so on and so forth. A difficult proposition but they followed it diligently :)

After my office hours, we would usually watch the telly for a bit, snooze for a while (yea I got into the habit, thx to them!) and then go for a walk by the river (weather permitting of course). Once Sharan got home, we would go out if there was a need (grocery, sight seeing, etc). But most days we would just stay at home watching a movie or a documentary or play Settlers of Catan – a board game we have got addicted to (also check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_of_Catan).

We took them around sight seeing in and around Calgary from Friday through to Sunday. By the end of 6 weeks, they would’ve probably seen more Alberta than an average Albertan  . The net result was that my folks had hectic time (and I thought they would be bored), they got to see some really unique places and we still were left with some places of visit which they could go to - Jasper and Waterton National Parks were pretty much closed as it was still Spring and not completely opened after Winter Closure.


Some of the places visited with folks have been covered in this post - Short Trips Around Calgary

Bow Pass and Mistaya Canyon

JJ wanted to go the mountains for the last time as a Calgarian and before he relocated back to London. JJ, Anne and we set out on a Sunday morning (18/Oct/09) having a quick Cafe Beano's coffee. It had just started snowing in the mountains. So we could see the snow capped mountains. But it hadn’t yet snowed enough for the Skiing season to begin. The tracks hardly had any snow.

We first went to Bow Summit which is a viewpoint for Peyto Lake and glacier. It’s on the Icefields parkway road within Banff National Park - around 30 minutes from Lake Louise. We drove up to the Bow Pass/Summit. The lookout point is a short trail from the parking lot. The path was icy and slippery. Sharan and I didn’t have shoes which could be used on this terrain. JJ being the English gentleman that he is, very kindly offered to help me walk. Sharan was on his own with his Camera. The viewpoint is that of Peyto Lake and Glacier. The lake is turquoise blue and shaped like a dog (or that’s what it looked like to us). It was stunning. We could also see the half melted glacier which forms the source of this lake. We hear it in the news and read it elsewhere but really the affects of global warming is clearly seen around these areas with glaciers melting. The lake is surrounded by lush coniferous forests. Behind the forest are the Rocky Mountains. The place looked absolutely enchanting. As we hung around having hot “Chai” (tea) brought by JJ in a thermos, it started to snow. So we quickly drank up and left for our next destination - Mistaya Canyon

Mistaya Canyon is also on the same highway as Bow Pass. But it’s further up and took us another 30 minutes to drive to that place. A trail off the highway led us to the Canyon. One cannot miss it as it is well sign-posted. Along the trail we saw the wrath of storm that lashed this region last year. Trees were uprooted and ripped apart. Mistaya Canyon is formed by the Mistaya River whose source is a glacier around Peyto Lake. The white water of Mistaya River roared down the Canyon and a spray of water surrounded the place. The Canyon was really deep and one could easily notice the path the river had taken, eroding and curving the rocks along the way. We hung around the place for a while enjoying views of this boisterous river in a tranquil background before heading back home.

We had seen the mountains in summer and fall. It was our first time in the mountains after it had snowed. The 2 places were exquisite in their own way and nothing like what we had seen before. I suppose it was a good day for JJ - to say goodbye to the mountains. I guess he’ll miss the proximity of the mountains the most for he'd be back for the skiing season(s) but that's a different matter.

More Information on these 2 destinations:

http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/visit/visit1c_E.asp  

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/viaggi/canadabanffpeyto.html  

Link to our Picasa album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/akshatakaranth/BowPassAndMistayaCanyon#  

Johnston Canyon – Banff National Park

Sharan informed me that we would have the car over the weekend. Since the office rental car was shared between 4 colleagues, we had to wait for our turn to take the car. I suggested that we go to Lake Winniwonka (yes, sounds like it’s from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, isn’t it?). Sharan’s colleague Mujir had suggested Johnston Canyon. We finally decided to take a call after we reach Banff. We initially wanted to go on Saturday – but with all the cooking, cleaning, groceries, etc – the plan didn’t materialize. So it was Sunday, 20th Sep’09.

It was drizzling all the way through making us wonder if we chose the wrong day. It would be a good drive if not anything we agreed. We stopped at Lac De Arc (lake) – the 1st “viewpoint” you see when you approach Rockies/Banff from Calgary. After a couple of quick shots, we left to our next destination – Banff National Park gates to buy a pass. We now have a year around pass – given that we were going so often and with all the promised visits from folks n friends, we thought might as well.

On reaching Banff village we headed to the information centre. The lady said it was beautiful day to hike up the Johnston Canyon. The sun was coming up after all. So we took a map and headed for some breakfast. Once we got done with that as well, we headed to Johnston Canyon. The drive up to the trail was a long one – amidst dense coniferous forests. The sky cleared up and the sun was out in all splendor. With the fall having set in and all shades of green to yellow colors splashed across the place, it was beautiful. One could teach shading and mixing colors to aspiring artists from just here I think.

We finally made it to Johnston Canyon parking lot. Surprised to see that there were lots of hikers there, we started our ascent. The trail itself was well laid with wooden/metal railings on and off. This is something a trekker from India isn’t used to. The trail had the mountain towering on 1 side and the river down the canyon on the other. So sometimes it was great to have the railings after all.

The hikers were accommodating – followed “right of way” even while walking/hiking. Received an occasional “hi there” or “hello” (they got to be Brits – who else would say that in today’s world? But it’s great).

We saw many cascades all along the way. The water was crystal clear – well after seeing all those ads on glacier fed mineral water bottled, we can now say it could be true. In some sections the water was deep blue and in other sections it was turquoise blue – effect of the stones beneath we were once told. But Johnston Canyon has 2 main waterfalls – upper and lower. You hike longer for the upper. It’s also the bigger one. You need to walk through a cave tunnel for the lower one – very exciting. The ice-cold water just sprays at you. It actually is a welcome feeling after the hike for unfit people like us. Though the trail promised, sadly we couldn’t spot any birds except A raven.

We decided not to climb further up to Ink Pots as it would get late. So we headed back to Banff Village for a late lunch (or early dinner). We decided to try the tex-mex restaurant. It was worth it. With yummy fruitless Sangria (yes you get fruitless sangria here), quesadillas and salsa dips, it was a perfect ending to a wonderful day. A good drive, a good hike and good food definitely makes a good Sunday.

More details are available at: http://www.banff.com/hiking/johnston_canyon.shtml

Link to our picture album:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/sredir?uname=akshatakaranth&target=ALBUM&id=5386734871504858417&authkey=Gv1sRgCI-V5KSFlKn9OA&invite=CNvXlscN&feat=email

First visit to the Rockies

Our new friends Mujir and Avanti were really keen to go out of town since they just got a car. We instantly jumped at the idea. Always ready to go somewhere, see a new place or do something different. So we met on Friday over some really sad Chinese dinner to plan it out. We decided to go for the GlobalFest’09 on Saturday and to Lake Moraine/Louise on Sunday.

We planned to leave early so that we could cover both the lakes and also get back into town to get ready for yet another work week. We finally left at 7:00AM. Our first impression of the Rockies was that they were really rocky. It reminded me of one of my most favorite trips - to Uttaranchal. The towering Himalayas seemed just as or rockier. There were hardly any snow capped mountains on this fine summer day, making it look more barren than ever I suppose.

Our first halt was Lake Moraine. The cold hit us as we got of the cozy car. I was shivering to the bone despite having a pull-over and a bandana. So we decided to start with a packed breakfast from home and HOT coffee from the café there. Soon Avanti and I got busy making sandwiches and little did we notice a squirrel quietly sneaking behind us to steal one of the sandwiches. Only when some of the other visitors squealed did we realize. We hastily tucked in our breakfast as the squirrel didn’t seem scared to take more. We then decided to take the walking trail around the lake. As we walked by, the weather seemed to get better and that’s when we realized the turquoise blue color of the lake. It was stunning. Apparently the rocks beneath the lake give the color effects. We soon heard a cascade/water falls nearby. We walked to the end of the trail to realize that the sound was of the white water river which fed the lake. The source was a glacier nearby. We walked on the wild side for a bit and for some photos before retracing our steps to the car.

Our second halt was Lake Louise. This was more “touristy” than Lake Moraine. There were thousands of visitors around. The lake was bigger than the one before. It was blue too – but a deep blue. The lake was surrounded by coniferous forests on 2 sides, glaciers on the 3rd side and we stood on the 4th. It was a spectacular view. We decided to return to this place every season as we are sure each season will bring in a different charm to the place. Hunger and huge crowds made us leave the place soon.

Our final destination was Banff Village. We basically went there just to eat. We found a quite French restaurant where we devoured our Fish n Chips, Veg Pizza (made on a bed of potato, not bread) and sandwiches gleefully. We did realize that Banff is a very picturesque place with lots of eateries and stores showing how important tourism is for the village economy. But we didn’t go around the village much as we had to head back home.

We reached back by 18:00, a day well spent in the Rockies. Hopefully the next time we visit, it would be for camping.

Here is a link to our photo album: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/akshatakaranth/LakeMoraineAndLakeLouise#