Day 079 - Hiking in Canmore Grotto

On a beautiful autumn day, I took mum for a walk into town to show her the neighborhood.  We walked around town and got some groceries to make lunch.  Marc come by with the car and happen to find us along the road.  We decided to make the most of this beautiful day and take mum on her first hike. 

I had heard of this hike called Grotto Creek trail which was only 4 kms.  We ate our sandwiches by this half frozen lake.

After lunch, we headed up the trail.  We took a few wrong turns we thought we were on the right track but we ended up going up this steep way for nothing

The grotto was pretty cool, carved by running water leaving behind polished limestone valley.

Check out the ice forming in the creek... pretty cool

This is the limestone polished by the water.  It is soooo slippery, took me forever to get up there and I had to do it backwards as I kept sliding back down.

Marc was having lots of fun the whole day destroying peaces of ice and playing with it. 

Although it was hard at first, we really enjoyed the hike and had very sore legs at the end of the day.  Perfect time to go into Banff for some suchi and Bubble tea!!!

Tomorrow we are carving pumpkins for Halloween....

Sammy ;-)

Day 077 & 078 - Helene arrives in Calgary

HDR Image of the Day....

Well 2 HDRI's This one is abit bright so I'll prob revisit it when I get time.

It's hard to tell but I'm freezing.....

We picked up Helene from Calgary Airport last night and it was dark when she arrived so she hadn't seen any of Canada before now.

We told her that see just missed the yellow leave season so she is enjoying what she can of the leaves. lol

Helen and Sammy in the Canadian Rockies baby!!!

Sammy is giving me the evil eye...

We thought we should show Helene around and decided to drive down the Bow Valley Parkway, but unfortunantly saw NO wildlife at all. We did stop a few times for fotostops though.

This is Sandrine and Helene looking for bears in the woods....

And as the saying goes, "I don't have to run faster than a bear, I just need to run faster than you...!" 

So basically we arrived at Lake Louise without encountering any animals and by this time we were starving. For some reason NOTHING was open in Lake Louise almost. We ended up going to our old Hostel for lunch, we knew they would at least be open.

We arrived at Lake Louise and it was loaded with snow. Some how one snow ball became all out war.

A perfect snowflake, It's the size of a tiny lady bug...  It was very hard to get it in focus as I was moving, Helene was moving and her hair was moving all independently.

Just so you can see how dramatic the weather is changing here, this photo (above) was taken a month ago...  From shorts and a T-shirt to wearing thermal base layers, T-shirt,  Pants,  jumper, thermal hoodie, goose feather down jacket, thermal gloves and beanie. 

I found this particular decoration at the Faimont Lake Louise odd. The Elk has been positioned so he stares into this lamp for eternity. What a way to end up...

The view at the TEA LOUNGE !!! (Posh accent added)

Blurry pic but still interesting I thought....

In front of the Fairmont Lake Louise.

BLUE STEEL !!!

Your a Tiger, GRRRR!!!

Unknow paw print, possibly a Bear... ( upside down)

Sammy on the train tracks, these things are electrified but I'm just not sure how. I'll have to look that up...

This is a brocken bridge we stumbled upon. 

This is possibly the coolest scenic location we have found so far, it's along the Bow Valley Parkway and has the mountains, the river, the grass and the railway. Very Cool.... We were looking for Rockey mountain sheep but once again No luck.

This actaully quiet random, this little chair sitting on the edge of this pontoon.

Sammy skimming rocks on the frozen lake, kinda cheating but who cares, it bounces like 50 times...

Just a cool breeze blasting off the lake freezing us solid...

We finally found wildlife at the good old Banff Springs Golf Coarse... Never fails with the resident Elk.

This guy was very interested in the squeeling of my car brakes or the lovely lady elk behind us... 1 of the 2 anyway.

What a Day.... More sightseeing tomorrow depending on the weather.

Cheers

Marc