Aberta (continued)

Oct 17th (Canmore) - We woke up at Sharise's house and decided that today was a perfect day to stay in bed and relax so we spent the day hanging out in Canmore. Eric had a great day of football while I watched mass amounts of the OC (I am way too hooked. Where was I in highschool when everyone other than me was on the OC train!?). After way too much relaxation, we had our family dinner at Sharise's then headed to bed.

Oct 18th (Banff) - We woke up and SADLY (and I emphasize SADLY) left Sharise's place. We headed to Banff and hiked Johnstons Canyon which was absolutely gorgeous! We then went to Lake Louise and saw the unbelievable blue/green lake! The colours are just to die for! We decided we would do a "little" hike up to Agnes Lake. Somehow after 3 hours, clothes that were way too sweaty and 2 people way too out of breathe, we made it back down. We didn't bring water or anything since we thought it was just a "little" hike. Either the sign LIES or I am just seriously out of shape - to make myself feel better I'm going to go with the first option. After our hike, we decided we should reward ourselves with the most amazing food my tongue has ever tasted. Its a vegitarian (Yes - vegitarian food was actually delicious) restaurant called Nourish. It is something everyone needs to experience! We then went to my friend Alyssa's house in Banff and crashed.

Oct 19th (Banff) - We decided to take it upon ourselves to hike the trail beside the Banff gondolla (Sulfur Mountain). The views were undescribable. Just stunning! I thought I read that it was 8.5 km (VERY steap up a mountain) so after 4.5 km and much contemplation, I decided that I was too tired and my legs were burning way too much so I would just call this mountain home and give up on life. Life was not worth the next 4 km of pain (Rachel will appreciate this). As soon as these thoughts were confirmed, a man came down and said "You're 2 minutes away!" ... So apparently I can't read. After the hike, we headed to Alyssa's and watched literally the most aweful movie I have ever seen. It's called Splice. It is something EVERYONE needs to see cuz it is just THAT bad! Just don't watch it alone cuz you need someone to turn to and be like, "is this really happening??"

Oct 20th (Jasper) - We headed to a gorgeous lake in Banff and walked around for a bit. This lake has a little town below water that you can only see when you go scuba diving. Apparently there are houses, roads and everything down there (no, people don't live there - I asked that question too so don't worry). After this, we went back to the vegitarian restaurant 1 more time for our last fix (side note: we spent about 15 minutes in the parking lot the night before contemplating if we should go there for dinner. We decided to save our $ and have a bite before we headed out the next day). We then headed on route to Jasper. We saw a crazy glacier in the distance so we walked for about half hour each way to get to it. It was so neat! It has eroded SOOO much over the years. damn global warming. Our next stop was Athabaska Falls. This falls has 12 species of fish at the bottom falls and only 1 at the top - they have no idea how it got there! The falls are soo gorgeous... pretty much that whole drive was unreal! We made it to Jasper and set up our tent at Wipiti (the camp site). We then built a fire and had baked beans and toast (we had to do it in order to call ourselves "true campers") We then cuddled up in -2 weather and headed to bed... with the freezing cold steam coming from our mouths with every breath we took. It's all part of the experience so "they" say.

Oct 21 - We woke up and decided that we should probably pay for the camp site for our next night (since the first night our laziness led us to not walk over to the "self registration"). It was a good thing we paid cuz the park ranger was roaming the site just as we paid. We had a bowl of our beloved shreddies (after spending 20 minutes in the car with the heater cranked in attempt to get warm) and headed on route down the Maligne Road. This drive was SOO gorgeous (although I really can't think of many drives we have done that haven't been). We got to Bald Hills and went for a hike up the mountain. We decided to take the "alternate" route and were following a mans footsteps in the snow. However, after about an hour the footsteps ended. Uh Oh. We figured we should just go up and eventually we'll make it back onto the trail - boy were we wrong. We kept seeing pink on the ground and thought it was blood... little did we realize it was way worse. BERRIES! The reason this is so bad is that its hibernating season for the bears. They pick 4 million berries a day and we were right in the middle of a berry field! We were ringing our bear bell like crazy and I'm happy to say, we did not get attacked. We eventually made it to the top of the mountain but still, no trail in site. The views were breathtaking! We started to head down and made some friends who were actually following OUR footsteps and the sound of our bear bell. haha. Once we made it back, we headed to Brew Pub to watch the leafs game and grab some grub. Delish! On our way back to the camp site we saw 2 massive moose! 1 of them had antlers that were bigger than the moose itself. It was NUTS! We were circling them back and forth for about 20 minutes but then took off after the moose was eyeing us down. We then headed back to our camp site for our 2nd night of being "true travelers." (side note: at this point, is has been 3 days since a shower... just thought id give you a better picture of how we were looking/smelling through these adventures).

... wow I keep leaving these blogs off on truly lovely (cough cough - how else can I show sarcasm through writing... hmmm) notes.
but on that stinky note, I am off :)