Get ready for some other great adventures in the Canadian Boonies!
We will start this epic episode in Taber, where we started the Hoff on Wednesday morning for a 50 k drive to Lethbridge, a small city where the Greyhound took our Notorious Sander away for a wedding of Kaylee's girlfriends sister. Jasper and me continued towards Calgary, where a join-up with my other uncle and aunt, Jake and Ann, failed. Banff was the next stop for us, we bought a map, picked some day hikes and planned a 4-day backpacking trip.
The day hikes were nice, we stayed at a campsite near Castle Rock. The day hikes at Lake Lousie though were spoiled by the mist and rain. A beautiful viewpoint was just a beautiful viewpoint on the picture at the info-sign. At Saturday we drove to the town of Banff in the morning, skyped and got some food for the backpacking trip. Around 13.00 we started the hike up to the first campground, a trip of about 12 k. At the campground, we put up the tent and did a small hike to Elk lake, a very desolate and silent place with the rainclouds above the high ridges. Back on the campground we teamed up with two couples to build a fire and had a very pleasant evening with these young folks from Calgary and Vancouver.
On Sunday, we walked a trail of 26 k to the next campground. This distance is quite big but with a nice trail with good views, some challenging slopes and bends this distance wouldn't matter. The fact was though that the trail decided to go right through the forest without bends and without views. So it became a hard, hard game. Our dinner wasn't that good either. The frozen pre-made hotdogs were gross already at the first day and the second day the zip-loc bag of pasta salad was totally crushed and awakened the nice feeling of nausea. This was also the meal of the third day so we decided to combine the third and fourth day into one long day-march on Monday. At night it rained, so a muddy day followed, with some showers and a lot of mosquitoes. Pretty tired we arrived at the Hoff and after a short stop at the Starbucks and Safeway we planted ourselves at a campsite near Canmore. The toilets at the campground had the same effect as the crushed pasta salad.
Tuesday we did a dayhike to the middle sister, one of three high peaks on a row. We started in the valley of the Bow River, followed a trail up through a creekbed and had to climb the rest of the way over steep debris slopes. The view from the top was marvelous and amazing. The peaks of the Rockies looked like waves of a ocean (the were all thrust facing the east) with some snow on top like the foam during a steady breeze.
Then, finally, a big day was there for Nienke and Jasper, as they were reunited again on Calgary airport. Maybe a bigger day it was for me, as we did some laundry and bought the new George RR Martin book. More of the adventures will be told now by Nienke. Enjoy!
And here speaks Nienke
My Wednesday was a long one. It started at 6:50 a.m. in the Netherlands, with lots of rain and me panicking over plane tickets, backpacks and whatever you can worry about when about to start a journey. In spite of all my panic, everything went well. My first flight brought me from Amsterdam to Frankfurt. My second flight took off at two and brought me back to Amsterdam (well, we just flew over the city) and then Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland. By the time we reached the American continent, the timid Swiss guy next to me had dared to accept the stroopwafel I offered him and would even talk.
And then at four, after a flight of nine hours, I landed in Calgary. Stealth and cunning bought me a place in the front of the queue, and a chat with some customs officer entrance to the Promised Land. Jasper waited for me outside with a band playing country music behind him. Frans was sitting somewhere else in the hall, while reading the new GRRRRM book.
That same afternoon, I acquainted myself with the Hoff, its noise, and all its rules (keep the fridge from opening by strapping elastic band around the opening, push down the little metal thingy while closing the closet above the stove in order to not break it, and most important of all, the rule that Some Hard Object Will Be Wherever You Put Your Head So Watch Out. As of yet, I haven't really figured out that one). We drove all afternoon to end up at Crow's Nest very late and with me sleeping through most of the bumps in the gravel road.
Thursday proved to be shorter and quite uneventful. We spent most of the day reading, chopping wood with our extremely blunt axe (I still have blisters) and washing ourselves in the COLD river next to our campsite. By then, the competition between Frans and me had started in earnest: who would finish GRRRRRRM first? It was all for the greater good: so that Jasper and Sander could start reading. (of course, in the end, it wasn't necessary because those yups both bought an e-reader)
On Friday, Jasper and I made a hike, but the weather seemed to be turning foul and we didn't want poor Frans to be sitting there alone in the woods with only a book, a folding chair and an axe for company, so we started back without having seen any pretty views. We did however succeed in buying the very necessary new roll of toilet paper at the local chinese shop.
We got back to find 'Poor Frans' gone. We yelled and searched, and only when we sat down to weep and mourn him did some unknown truck drive up to us, miraculously revealing our lost friend. The others (all the Canadians plus Sander) had arrived at one and decided that our campsite wasn't good enough so had moved to a place which supposedly was better but there were many more horseflies and other horrors as well. It was, however, a great camping trip. There was lots of BBQ, lots of campfire, 'smores' (I hope I spelled that correctly), and LOTS of fireworks. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Hundreds of millions of dollars must have gone up in smoke within 40 minutes.
We left Canada on Sunday. Another customs officer (U.S. this time) decided to question me thoroughly with questions such as 'Where are you staying?' (uhm... everywhere) and 'Why did you fly to Calgary?' (uhmm.. because I could?) but we were allowed to continue our journey to Glacier N.P. The picturesque RV campground we found had free showers (most people would call those sprinklers) and much less mosquitoes and horseflies. We slept blissfully, woke at 7.30, and went for a hike – my very first one during this trip!
So far, it has been the only one as well so I can't judge how it relates to other hikes but I thought it was really beautiful. We started at Two Medicine lake, and hiked up a U-shaped valley (geologists!) toward Old Man Lake (which happens to sit next to Boy and Young Man lakes). It was really hot, but quite a lot of snow still remained near the lake and the sky was clear so the views were amazing. It was a long hike as well, 24 km for my untrained legs, and in the end, we all agreed that we deserved: a) a bath in the cold stream running from the lake, b) a huckleberry ice cream and c) a good night's rest. We succeeded in everything, although it took quite some time before we could sleep. Efficient young people as we are, we decided to drive for a bit, so by the time we drove into the very first KOA campground of the boys' trip, we had already crossed 40% of the distance from Glacier to Bozeman, where Sander's uncle still lives. To make the most of the 42 bucks it cost us, we stayed in KOA's hot tubs until we nearly dissolved, took long showers and free firewood which we didn't use in the end. And we slept like babies.
Then came another driving day: uneventful, apart from the road constructions that seemed to have gathered all along our route especially to vex us. The 300 km took us six hours, but we arrived in Bozeman in time to do some serious shopping. I bought a bra and Sander and Jasper both an e-reader (Jasper actually got most of his from me as a very belated birthday present).
Today, all we did was laundry and me and Jasper some walking in the hills. Tomorrow will be for driving to Yellowstone, so your next update will be all about geysers and hot bubbling pools.
No comments:
Post a Comment