To my Canadian tuggers, many thanks for the suggestions. You are beyond blessed to live in such a wonderful country. The Canadian Rockies blew us away. As much as we love our national parks, for sheer beauty Banff and Jasper are our new favorites (although Switzerland is pretty close).
We are (hopefully) going home tomorrow on WestJet
. It has been just amazing. I managed to reinjure my achilles tendon on day 1, so we have taken a lot of short, relatively flat hikes. It was not what we planned, but great all the same. Our favorite rainy day hike was Cascade Pond near Banff. It was a fun little hike. You started out in a picnic area, went over a mostly dry riverbed into a forest area, came out next to a lovely cascade, walked along the large pond, then went over a couple of small bridges back to the parking area, and all the while you had fabulous views of the mountains.
We drove back to Canmore from Jasper yesterday so we missed all of the Canada Day hubbub which was a bummer. We celebrated in spirit though.
Crowds. Goodness. I knew this but it was worse than expected, especially since we were on the easy trails. It was noticeably worse in the "must-do" areas like Johnston Canyon or Lake Louise. The biggest issue were the number of large groups (8 - 10 people) everywhere. It makes getting around difficult. I am just not used to that. We had planned to be on the harder trails which reliably thins out the crowds, but instead we hung out with a lot of other tourists on the easy trails, lol. I am not sure that I would intentionally do that again.
The funniest thing that we saw were all of the Instagrammers doing their little photoshoots. As it got closer to the evening at Lake Louise, they came out in force - either dressed to the nines or dressed in ways that I never thought of. Our favorite was the young woman dressed like a panda complete with furry knee high boots.
Canmore (Worldmark). What a great little mountain town. I am glad that we stayed here. We can't wait to come back. The beer was great, the food was fine, and the crowds were not bad at all. It is a much more local vibe that Banff or Jasper.
Chips. I just couldn't bring myself to try the ketchup chips. I am not a big fan of ketchup anyway, plus once I saw Miss Vickie's Sweet Chili and Sour Cream, the decision was made. Those were awesome. I had my first bag at the cafe by Bow Lake along with my bison chili. It was a memorable lunch, and the hike at Bow Lake to see the waterfalls was my favorite in the Banff area.
We bought Tim Hortons dark roast coffee at the grocery store and we liked it a lot. We've been drinking it on the entire trip.
We found Nanaimo bars at the cafe at Maligne Lake. I can see why they are a favorite. Speaking of Maligne Lake, the boat tour to Spirit Lake was great. It was one of the highlights of the trip. We also went hiking at Maligne Lake and for the first time, we saw a "bear in the area" sign. Of course we didn't have any bear spray but since it was heavily trafficked we weren't worried. We didn't see any bears, but when we got back to the cabin I looked it up (figured that if there was a sign, there was a reason). Yep, there was a reason - a human habituated grizzly sow with her two cubs. If we had known about her, we probably wouldn't have done that hike but now it is just a good story.
The WestJet strike. That was unfortunate, and I feel pretty bad for the travelers who were affected on this busy weekend. Some of the stories that I read were just heartbreaking. (Missed weddings, elderly parents getting stranded in cities while on connecting flights, people stranded in airports because they did not have enough money to book hotels/new flights etc). I finally got to the bottom of the Chase Sapphire travel insurance - they would refund our airfare if WestJet didn't, but would not cover the cost to buy new flights. They would cover lodging costs for delays up to $500pp - once WestJet canceled the flights. It was hard to mitigate costs because your hands were tied until WestJet canceled, and they were waiting until the last minute to do so - sometimes canceling flights overnight while people slept. They woke up to having their morning flights canceled. Since I am a plan-ahead kind of person, it was giving me some heartburn for sure, but we think that we are good to go. We will find out tomorrow.
Everyone has been very nice. Everywhere. It is refreshing, especially to what we are used to in other places. Getting our rental car in Calgary took 15 min. It was amazing. It absolutely lived up to the hype and we can't wait to return. As you can see, we missed a few things on the list so hopefully we and check them off next time.
