s07e21 - Woah, Those Things are Mountains!

Every day that I walked outside you could see the mountains off in the distance, but that's all they where, a distant mystical mountain range that seemed to hold the weather back from unleashing itself all over Calgary (trust me, it did a few times as Vancouver was lashed for the last 2 weeks with crazy snow storms while just on the other side of the mountains we enjoyed some very cold, but sunny days)

The weekend before I headed home we had organised a trip into the mountains, mainly to Banff and Lake Louise but due to some crazy weather on the Sunday or trip up there was delayed till Monday when the roads where closed with excessive snow covering and ice.

On Monday, the party of 6 that was heading into the mountains was trimmed to 2 and a half with myself, Naomi and Sebastian braving the improving, but still icy conditions.

Banff is about an hour a bit away and the early half of the drive is a little flat and uninspiring, but the second half once you get into the mountains themselves is just amazing. The mountains that earlier looked pretty flat and not overly mountainy where now towering over head and where as intimidating as any landscape Ive ever been too.

The road slowly got a little icier as the trip continued and while Naomi's driving got a little more cautious (and fair enough too) others continued to fly by us as if the road was in perfect conditions. What was nice to see (and its unfortunate to say) was when 2 cars passed us like we where standing still only for us to pass them while they where standing still, parked precariously on the shoulder of the road after sliding out in the ordinary conditions ... I gave out a giggle or two on the way by.

Lake Louise was the first port of call ... WOW.

Ive seen pictures of Lake Louise in the summer and so wasn't sure what to expect during winter, but I was presently surprised at how beautiful the place was covered in snow.

The lake, which a startlingly beautiful blue colour in summer, was now an ice covered skating rink with its very own ice castle. Over looked by the Fairmont hotel the lake and the far off glacier where as good a place as any to try out my new DSLR camera (which I'm super happy with by the way)

Fish 'n Chips at the Fairmont was nice if not a little posh, but was all part of the experience I guess of going to a Chateau.

Banff was on the way home, so we stopped in there for a "quick" look and some retail therapy for Naomi. So it was a quick look around and then back onto the road. Not amazingly interesting really, but the experience of driving through the mountains was amazing.