The hills are alive with the sound of bears and avalanches

Howdy all

Basically our time in the west has come to an end and now we are preparing to head to Toronto. Over the last week we have travelled down from Jasper to Banff along the icefield parkway and nothing could have prepared us for the mountains that we drove through.

driving along a section of the icefield parkway

Along this drive we have been treated to the sights of Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Emerald lake and many more that we will have to tell you about when we get home (that is if anyone will listen!) as sadly time and space on this does not permit.


The view from the top of the rockpile at Moraine Lake (As you can see we were well prepared for the walk!)

We are both so glad to have experienced the rockies at this time of year as it is both before the big tourist rush but also it is amazing to see the mountains covered in snow. Yoho is considered to be the coniseur's choice of resorts in the rockies, and as we are very cultured people we decided to spend a few days here walking and exploring the area. When we arrived at the campsite we saw all these posters warning us not to walk along the path beside our tent site as there was a female Grizzly with cubs who wouldn't take to kindly to stupid tourists. We gathered that we fitted this bill quite well and didn't move too far from our tent! The other campsite that we stayed in was surrounded by an electric fence to keep the bears out! The Mckinley's only stay at the classiest of places........it's ok though we can bear it......
From this campsite we did probably one of the worst and probably one of the best walks we have ever done in our lives. Before arriving at the rockies we had all these grand plans of doing lots of alpine walks, of course neither of us had really fully understood how big these lumps of rocks are! There is also the other little detail that most of these are closed as they are deemed unwalkable due to the snow. However, on this day we set off on this walk that was described as a steady steep climb with good views (we were walking to two old fire look outs ontop of this mountain). We had no doubt in our minds that we would make the upper lookout so we set out with high hopes and full of energy. Very soon this was gone and both of us were puffing like anything, i can't remember the last walk that i found so difficult. I like to think that my suffering was a result of carrying the backpack and the alpine conditions rather than my advancing years. Well that's my excuse and i am sticking to it! To make things worse every step we walked we encountered piles of bear droppings and scrapings in the ground. Thankfully between a mixture of stubbornness and mutual encouragment we reached the upper look out and whilst doing an impression of a hyperventilating pig we were rewarded with the most magnificent views. Basically we were looking down this corridor of huge mountains and just sitting there with this view infront of us everything seemed right in the world!


At the top, it was worth it!

We also did this other walk which took us a bit off road and led us into this natural amphitheatre (produced by a ring of mountains) and the foot of a glacier.


Arrivial at the amphitheatre

Once again the national park wardens had given us good news about this walk and filled us full of confidence with more talk of bears and the added spice of avalanches! It was during this walk that i became the most worried about the threat of our furry friends and i decided to grab two rocks and bang them together to make noise. I was always told at school that my musical talent was severly lacking so for once in my life i was confident that i could make a worthwhile noise. Jess on the other hand picked up a stick. It was only on our way back that i decided to ask her why she had decided to pick up probably one of the smallest sticks available. She said that it was her intention to find another one but she couldn't (admittedly they are hard to come by in forests) and therefore decided that she would hold onto it in case she had to defend us against a bear. My wife is talented in many many ways but i have to admit i had no faith in her successfully fending off a bear with what was essentially a glorified toothpick and therefore continued to bang my rocks together.
As you can probably guess from us writing this that we have managed to stay clear of bear attacks (we have now seen 13!!).


Jess and her toothpick

The other thing that we have done since our last post is the horse riding. I managed to last 3 hours and it was actually quite a pleasurable experience. We were able to see the rockies in a different way and Jess was in her element. So much so that Jess decided to have another go in Banff, i thought i best quit whilst ahead and had a wee potter about town on just the two legs.


Jess and her trusty steed

In a couple of days time we are flying to Toronto and we are not sure how much internet access we will have so our blogs may start to become less frequent. This has seemingly come at a bad time as we have gathered a bit of a cult following (of one, my brother who actually has started making demands regarding the content! So at the end of this blog we will put a few wee additional pictures of wildlife to make him happy, after all he is a Chelsea fan and needs a good cheering up!).

Oh and a wee side note, a couple of weeks ago we went to see the new Narnia film (Prince Caspian). Look out for the bit that the kids step back into Narnia for the first time, we were there on that exact beach and walked under the stone arch (Cathedral cove, New Zealand). I also swam where the kids swam, infact this is where i went swimming and realised after i got out i had the hire car keys in my pocket!

See you all soon

Gav and Jess


BONUS BLOG FEATURES (Especially for those feeling a little blue and needing cheered up!)

Animal Gallery


Elk


Mountain Goat


Golden crested ground squirrel


Bald Eagle


Mule Deer


Elk Stag


Bighorn Sheep

P.S we have finally saw a Moose, Jess was thrilled but unfortunately the picture we got didn't make the McKinley blog grade as it was too far away. But with our trusty binoculars we could see it perfectly and identified it as a female.