With an ice hike lined up for the afternoon we had the morning to explore the town of Banff – which took considerably less than the morning (in fact it would have taken considerably less than an hour had it not been for the 3 feet of snow on the ground) as most of the shops sold nothing but cheap tat adorned with grizzly bears and maple leafs, and all the other shops sold expensive tat adorned with grizzly bears and maple leafs. We bought wedding presents for the next 5 years.
In the afternoon we headed into the wilderness (for those of you who remember the TV show Grizzly Adams – that's exactly what it's like) for a walk into Johnsons Canyon. Johnson was a gold prospector from the area who spent years looking for non-existent gold, finally admitting defeat he went back to camp showing off a nugget he claimed to have discovered (which he had bought), when the rest of the camp went scurrying to the spot he had pinpointed, he robbed all their tents and left town. What an ingenious fiend.
The scenery was fantastic (Cheddar Gorge it wasn't) and after 2 hours of walking we made it to a frozen waterfall – amazingly 3 blokes spent the next 30 minutes climbing it - now that was impressive. One of the girls with us took out her water bottle which had frozen solid – to give you some idea of the temperature I suggest you place your feet in the freezer for about 17 hours.
The guide who had taken us into the Canyon invited us for a beer in the evening as he was meeting friends for a paper, rock, scissors competition. I hope he was joking but feared he wasn't, so declined his offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment