Day 6 - Doing the Bear Minimum
Day 6 - Doing the Bear Minimum
First sighting of a black bear in the wild today. Well I say in the wild, it was on the road down from where we are staying, about a mile from our apartment. A mother and cub which I believe is the combo not to be messed with, so it focused our minds on getting tooled up. Typically, this was the first time that we didn't have the camera in the car, so only managed a quick phone snap...
Seems like a good day for critter spotting as we bumped (almost literally) into these guys later in the day.
But today is about the ascent of Sulphur Mountain - our first decent walk.
Not so much.
After the 2 hour drive to Banff there wasn't a single parking place to be had near the trail. Well, that's not strictly true. There was one, but whilst I was being polite and letting the previous occupants manoeuvre out, some (lets say for the sake of argument) gentleman in a pick up shot round and stole it. I was dumbfounded. It seemed very un-Canadian. I imagine that they even have laws about this sort of thing. I looked around for a peace officer to whom I could report a serious breach of parking etiquette, but no luck. Move on Tony, move on...
After a brief pit stop to pick up supplies, we decide to abandon the Banff portion of the day. A Plan B is hatched and we are off to Takakkaw falls. We had planned to visit here anyway and it is on the way back to Kicking Horse.
Pipe dream. Road closed.
Plan C: Emerald Lake. We are nothing if not adaptable. Success! Parking and an opportunity, albeit on a lesser scale, for a walk. I think that the lake lives up to its name. Ethan feels that it should be called Emerald-From-Certain-Very_Specific-Angles Lake. Stickler.
As an added bonus, whilst walking arond the lake we found a trail leading to Takakkaw falls. As the road to the falls sometimes doen's open until mid-June, this may be our best chance to get there. Its about a 20km round trip. Totally doable!
Consideration will duly be given.