Day 6 and Day 7
Trip Start
Jul 11, 2012
1
6
10
Trip End
Jul 22, 2012
Where I stayed
Banff, Alberta, Canada
Monday, July 16, 2012
We had an early morning start heading out of the Painted Reflections Tipi Camp and making our way towards Banff National Park. About half way through the trip, we stopped at the Okotoks Glacial Erratic, which is a massive rock that was left behind in pretty much the middle of nowhere by a glacier. This was just a quick photo opportunity and then we were back on the road.
We arrived in Banff around lunch time. We had a pizza picnic next to Bow Falls. After lunch, we checked into our lodge and then went to downtown for a little shopping. From shopping we headed to catch our gondola ride for dinner. The gondola took us to the top of Sulphur Mountain where we took a short walk to the Cosmic Ray Station for an even better overlook of the Rocky Mountains and Bow River. We had a vegetarian lasagna, salad, fruit, and brownies for dinner in an all window restaurant overlooking the scenery. We then went to the top of the restaurant for one more overlook before taking the gondola back down the mountain. From here, we took a short walk to the Banff Upper Hot Springs where we spent an amazingly relaxing 45 minutes in the hot springs. Then we headed back to the lodge to clean up and get some much needed rest.
Day 7:
We had a very early morning to start our adventure to the Athabasca Glacier. In efforts to save time we even had breakfast on the bus or bagels, apples, granola bars, and juice. On our way, we came across three black bears that were just on the side of the road and we were able to watch them all cross the road. After about 3 hours we made it to the glacier where we took an ice explorer down the second steepest grade to the glacier itself. We also saw two big horned sheep on the side of the road between the main building and the actual glacier. We were able to walk around and fill up our water bottles with fresh water. It was so pure and clean- definitely one of the top highlights of the trip for most of the delegates! Then we headed back to the main building for lunch.
On our way back home we stopped at four different lakes. The first was Peyto Lake which we got to see from a deck from above. It was a great way to see all the vibrant colors reflecting from the lake. The second lake was Bow Lake. We walked down and put our feet in the water while enjoying the beautiful scenery. Then we headed to Moraine Lake, which included a short hike to a lookout point above the lake- again providing an incredibly view of the colors in the lake. Our last lake was Lake Louise named after the Queen's daughter, Alberta Louise (same person the province is named after).
After our lake adventures we headed back to the lodge for a Shepard Pie dinner. We ended our day with a presentation from Don, a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. He told us all about the uniforms, history and his experiences as a policeman. We were able to enjoy the presentation with another delegation of People to People from Michigan and Maryland. Then we headed upstairs to pack, journal, read our workbooks, and attempt to get a good night’s sleep.
Comments
Great pictures! !
Hey, can I come too?
how cool is this
Loved the black bear, the glacier pics and lake peyto, lake louise and lake morraine pics. Really enjoyed looking through these with elizabeth's grandma and grandpa!!