Calgary road trip, June 2024

This year, instead of an international trip, we decided to do a couple of local road trips. The first was to Calgary, in June. I grew up in Calgary, and have not been back in many years. Also, Celene had still never done the drive through the Rockies. And I actually really like road trips.

The first day was from Vancouver to Revelstoke. We took the usual route through Hope, and up the Coquihalla Highway towards Kamloops. The town of Merritt is about half way up the Coquihalla, and instead of passing right by like we always do, we decided to stop and have look. It has a historical, kind of old west feel to it. We went into Baillie House, which is part tourist information center and part store full of knick-knacks. Kind of fun to poke around.

We continued up to Kamloops and on to Revelstoke. At Revelstoke, instead of staying in town, we stayed at the Coast Hillcrest Hotel which is up the hill off the highway east of town. Nice place with great view of Mt. Begbie. Even better, it is just a few minutes walk from Mt. Begbie Brewery. 

The next day we continued east, with a stop at a cafe in Golden for a coffee and a snack. Then continued on to Lake Louise. When I was planning the trip, I had assumed we could just stop and drive right in and have a look at Lake Louise. By chance, a couple of weeks beforehand, when visiting a friend of Celene's who was familiar with the area, he said: "so did you book the shuttle?" To which I replied "What shuttle?" That's how I found out that you really can't drive into Lake Louise any more. Just too many people. Parks Canada has a shuttle from the large parking lot at the Lake Louise ski resort, which you can book online 48 hours in advance. Fortunately I got a spot, and we were able to go to Lake Louse and Moraine Lake. This was the start of Celene's real introduction to the spectacular scenery of the Rocky Mountains. 

From there we continued straight to Canmore where we stayed at a very nice apartment from Spring Creek Vacations. 

Once we settled in, in the evening we drove to the Kananaskis area. We enjoyed the Kananaskis Nordic Spa, which was amazing with several different temperature pools, steam rooms, and saunas. Afterward had dinner in the hotel there.

The next day we spent in Banff. We had booked the Gondola for a certain arrival time. As we drove into Banff we saw that it was best to park at this huge parking lot just on the edge of town. Just too many people visiting to even think about driving into town. And this wasn't even peak season. It was a short walk to the main street, and a packed public bus ride to the Gondola. 

A short ride up the gondola and there was the fantastic scenery of the Rockies, overlooking Banff. And a couple of young bighorn sheep. 

Afterward we spent time exploring the Banff town.

Later in the day, back in Canmore, we met some very interesting people. Celene's friend Patrick, who told us about the Lake Louise shuttle, is in his 90's and had written a memoire. Since we were visiting this area, he asked if we could drop off the memoire to a couple of friends of his who live here. We all met at a pub in Canmore, and they were people who have spent their lives in the mountains. One of the friends was an expert on hydrology and consults for the UN, the other was pioneering ski and mountain guide. There was also Lynn Martel who wrote a book, 'Stories of Ice', which I bought a bookstore there and I highly recommend it.

The next day Celene wandered around the beautiful town of Canmore while I went on a hike I've wanted to do for a long time. It is the Stanley Glacier hike. Here's the story: When I was about 6 years old my parents took me on this hike. At that time the area had just been burned down by a forest fire, and I remember being fascinated as I walked through the area of charred trees. We stopped just at the tree line, from which I got my very first view of a glacier. Now, the area has a lot of new growth, but you can still see the burned logs on the ground underneath, with some charred trees still sticking up.

I walked to the tree line where I'm pretty sure we stopped before. I then kept going to the end of the loop trail. Only one side of the loop was passable because there was still too much snow. On the way I got a view of the (much smaller) glacier that I saw all those years ago.

The next day we drove the Icefield Parkway to Jasper. This must be some of the best scenery in the world, with the mountains towering on either side so that you feel like you are in the land of giants. We stopped at the Columbia Icefields.

We continued to Jasper where we stayed one night. We spent the evening looking around town and getting something to eat. Kind of surreal to think that a few weeks later, a third of the town was destroyed by wildfire, and a lot of the stores and restaurants we stopped at are no longer there.

The next day we drove from Jasper to Calgary.

We stayed for three nights with my friend Adrian, who was my neighbour during my high school years. We went over to the old houses where we used to live.

We also met up with a couple of Celene's high school friends, who moved to Calgary many years ago, and we haven't seen them in about 12 years. We met at a restaurant, and we were so busy catching up that whenever the waitress came to take our order, we still hadn't looked at the menu. 

We had a free day while in Calgary, so we drove to Drumheller. Celene has never been, and I don't think I'd been since I was a kid. 

It was very cool to see the Hoodoos and the badlands like Horseshoe Canyon again.

The next day we drove back to Vancouver, via another overnight stop in Revelstoke. On the way we stopped at Field, just inside BC. A small, historic place, where we found a nice pottery studio called Velvet Antler Pottery, where I bought a beautiful mug with a hand-engraved picture of a mountain on the side.