Day 8 - Snow Day
Day 8 - Snow Day
Snow Day? Yep, snow day. In June.
We woke up to a sprinkling of snow and no mountains in sight. Could have been worse: apparently Banff got 25cm. Mad weather. It was 29C last weekend, down to about 3 or 4 today and forecast to go up to 30 by the middle of next week. Mad.
So, not an ideal walking day. We decided on a day of rest,or at least a day of only driving 60 or 70 miles. We are on the trail of some good souvenirs. First stop, the shop in the Kicking Horse resort. Not bad, probably a solid 6/10.
We decide to branch out and look at Golden (the town in the valley below - 3/10) and also at Field - a small village that we have past several times on the road to Banff. Set in the middle of Yoho National Park, with a little trading post, it looked like just the place to pick up details of trails within Yoho Park, and potentially some good tourist tat. Much like the weather, things are not always as expected. 2/10
Historical interlude:
Apparently Field was originally a railway siding (original name Third Siding) on the CPR. It was developed into a community by William Cornelius Van Horne, railway magnate. Again flying in the face of appearances, the name of Field was not a nod towards a complete lack of imagination, but was in fact in honour of Cyrus West Field, a wealthy business man who Van Horne hoped to encourage to invest in the rather expensive business of building a railway across a continent. By way of a sweetener, Van Horne named the village and a nearby by mountain after Field, who subsequently decided to leave cheque book in pocket. His reluctance to get involved in the mad venture is now immortalized. So it goes.
At the trading post we are passed by a convoy of RVs who then manoeuvred around in a manner reminiscent of circling the wagons. We beat a hasty retreat before we were conscripted and forced to join a party of settlers heading to Nunavut.
