Splurge Week

What a week it's been. I arrived in Edmonton, Alberta, on Wednesday, August 4, after 6 days of driving back down the Alaska Highway. That afternoon, I picked up my friend Nimmi from the Edmonton International Airport, as she was coming to spend a week with me in the Canadian Rockies. Wow! -- my first visitor on my trip!

We stayed in Edmonton that night, at a very nice downtown hotel. We didn't do a whole lot, since Nimmi had worked the night shift before and was very tired, and since I'd been driving hard for 6 days and was also tired. So we just ate at a local pub, and then hit the hay pretty early.

Thursday morning, we left for Jasper National Park. We arrived that afternoon, and found out that there's an actual town in the middle of the national park (same goes for Banff, by the way). I had no idea that in Canada, there are actual municipalities in the middle of the parks. Anyway, we stayed at a really nice lodge on Pyramid Lake, just outside of the town (the Coast Pyramid Lake Resort). The hotel was fabulous, and the lake was gorgeous! We immediately changed clothes and then went down to the lake, where we rented a canoe and tooled around the lake. We then went back inside and changed into bathing suits, and went to the Miette Hot Springs that evening.

The hot springs were....unexpected. I'd been to a couple of hot springs on this trip: Chena Hot Springs in Fairbanks, and Liard Hot Springs in British Columbia. Both of these were natural springs; they have vegetation around the pools, and the pools themselves have algae on the rocks from the constant moisture. But not the Miette Springs; instead, they are more like swimming pools. There are four pools, in fact: two with hot water (40 and 38 degrees Celcius), and two with cold water (16 and 18 degrees Celcius). Apparently, the hot springs in that area has extremely hot water, at 54 degrees Celcius; so the water is taken from the natural spring, trucked daily to the Miette Pools, filtered and cooled, and then placed in the pools. It was just strange, being in a swimming pool with super-hot water. Nimmi and I tried out all four pools. The 40 degree pool was too hot, and I was more comfortable in the 38 degree pool. The 16 degree pool was brutally cold, so much so that I could only stay in it for a couple of minutes. But then we got into the 18 degree pool, and it felt quite nice after the frigid pool next to it. We stayed there for a while, actually, then got back into the 38 degree pool where we stayed for over an hour, until it got dark and we went back to our hotel.

The next morning, we decided to go for a hike. The visitors center recommended several hikes, and we decided to do Mt. Edith Cavell and Cavell Meadows. It was stunning. The hike has several glaciers on it, the most spectacular being the Angel Glacier (picture up above!) which floats above a glacier-fed lake with its turquoise color and icebergs floating in it. Nimmi and I were both blown away. As we continued up the hike, we passed through subalpine and alpine meadows, with wildflowers in bloom everywhere. These are spectacularly-adapted wildflowers, too -- they only have 60-90 days each year to grow, bloom, and go to seed. Pretty short growing season, overall -- and yet, we saw thousands and thousands of them in bloom. Amazing.

That night, as we drove back to our hotel, we went past two lakes in the area, Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake, and saw lots of wildlife on the road. Most impressively, there was a young black bear on the roadside, eating berries. He (or was it she?) completely decimated a bush, stripping it of berries. He then ran across the road. We also saw several elk that day, and some mountain goats -- all on the side of the road.

On Saturday, we left Jasper and drove down the Icefields Parkway toward Lake Louise and Banff National Parks. The weather overall that day was lousy, rainy and very cloudy, so the overall scenery was somewhat limited, unfortunately. But we stopped along the way to see several impressive waterfalls, and we saw lots of glaciers along the way. We also stopped at the Columbia Icefield, a large field of ice atop some mountains which then drapes down over the mountainsides into multiple glaciers. We took a bus tour up to one of them, the Athabasca glacier. Nimmi pointed out that the buses look like something from Star Wars, and she's right. The tires themselves were over 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide each. Once we got to the glacier, we were able to get out of the bus and walk on the glacier itself -- which is hard to do, even in hiking boots! I was scared that I'd fall and reinjure my elbow, but thankfully, made it around the ice without major injury. The glaciers themselves were impressive, glowing blue like I'd remembered from Seward a few years back. My favorite one is called the SnowDome; it's the only place in North America which is a Triple Continental Divide -- water from the glacier flows to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans.

After we left the icefield, we drove on to Lake Louise for the night. We had booked a room at the Post Hotel and Spa, which was a very luxurious hotel which I'd found out about. And the room at the hotel was very nice. Aveda products, cedar closets, and with a separate water closet from the rest of the bathroom. We also had an absolutely fantastic dinner in the restaurant. The entire meal was amazing, but we both agreed that the bison carpaccio was our favorite.

For all its luxury and posh appearances, we had a horrible night in the hotel. The town of Lake Louise is right on a railroad line. Our hotel room faced the railroad station, and we heard the train every 15 minutes all night long. And we had to keep the windows open, because the room has no air conditioning, and it was quite hot in the room. But the worst part for me was the bed, which was like a block of wood. Absolutely, without question, this was the hardest bed I'd ever slept on in my entire life. Neither Nimmi nor I got any sleep that night.

Sunday morning, Nimmi asked if we could be moved to another room where we couldn't hear the train so much. And we learned something funny about the hotel: apparently, we had a room on the "standard" side -- but the hotel was willing to move us to a room on the "preferred" side. "Preferred" because it was quieter. Note that these are the hotel's designations, not mine. I've never heard something so bizarre; it's like they acknowledge that one side is preferred, and the other....NOT preferred. How odd. Anyway, they moved us to another room, and it was quieter. Unfortunately, the beds were still horrendous, and I got no sleep the second night, either.

But I digress. That afternoon, Nimmi and I went to the actual lake to look around. First, we stopped at Moraine Lake, which was an exquisite, clear turquoise. Lake Louise, however, was completely different -- it was more like a milky mint green color. They were both beautiful, but couldn't have been more different. I found out that Lake Louise actually changes color during the year, too: during the summer, when the lake is fed from glacier melt, the lake is milky green, like we saw, but during the fall and winter, when the glaciers aren't feeding the lake, it turns a clear blue color, more like Moraine Lake.

We decided to take another hike that day, to the Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse. It's a seven-mile hike round trip, up to a primitive teahouse up in the mountains. It was a nice hike, but it started raining on us about halfway up, and then it started pouring. Truly pouring. Which was amazing, considering that it was sunny and warm when we'd started. As a result, neither Nimmi nor I was dressed appropriately; I had on cotton pants, a cotton T-shirt, and a cotton sweater. No rain jacket, no hood. I got soaked to the core, and then, when we'd finally made it to the top (which seemed to take forever in the torrent, by the way), I got cold. Really, really cold. I'd made every hiking faux pas possible. Visions of hypothermia haunted me. But I drank lots of tea at the teahouse, warmed up a bit, and then luckily, the rain stopped.

Nimmi and I had met two other hikers up at the teahouse, a couple named Heidi and Jason, and so we shared teatime with them. We also hiked down with them, and it was nice -- I always like it when I have the chance to meet and chat with other travelers.

When we got back to our hotel, I took a long, hot bath in our fabulous Post Hotel bathtub, and then Nimmi and I ate dinner at the pub, and then we rented a movie. It was a nice evening. Unfortunately, I slept even worse that night than the first night, tossing and turning all night. Of all the hotels I've slept in since this trip began, the Post Hotel had -- by far -- the most uncomfortable beds. And it started to affect my mood, too. After all, I'd REALLY splurged on this hotel, and despite all its luxury, it was the worst sleep of my entire four months on the road.

Fortunately, Nimmi and I had planned an easygoing Monday. We drove the Bowhead Parkway from Lake Louise to Banff, and checked in early to the Banff Park Lodge (which, although it looked like a cave, had the most comfy beds). We then spent the day wandering around Banff's townsite. We shopped for souvenirs, and just hung out that day. That evening, we went to the Grizzly House for dinner, which was incredibly fun -- it's an old disco, and we had a telephone at our table, as did everyone else -- so we received and placed phone calls to our neighboring tables, and received and gave advice about what to eat and drink for supper. It was really fun, and the food was fantastic.

Tuesday, unfortunately, was a terrible day for me. I wish I could say otherwise, but I'd be lying. I woke up stressed about an issue with my house, and the ensuing telephone discussions did not lift my mood, but instead, made it worse. Despite that, Nimmi and I decided to do our third and final day of hiking that day. We went to Johnston Canyon, and hiked to the Inkpots. On that hike, we first past seven waterfalls, each of which was gorgeous. After the final falls, after a mile and a half, we continued on toward the inkpots, which are spring-fed pools. My problem was that my foot was already hurting from the Six Glaciers hike in Lake Louise (for those of you who don't know, I suffer occasionally with plantar fasciitis on my left heel, and it gets pretty bad sometimes). But I stubbornly decided I wanted to do the hike, which was probably a bad decision, because by the time I reached the inkpots after 3.5 miles, I could hardly walk -- and I then had to walk 3.5 miles back to get to the car. Needless to say, I was pretty miserable on that hike.

Despite that, the inkpots were beautiful. There are six of them, and they are all different colors: from green to turquoise to blue, and from milky to clear. They remain at 1 degree Celcius year-round. Beyond the inkpots was a very shallow river, whose name I don't remember, and the water there was perfectly clear over the rainbow-colored rock bed. I sat on a rock by the river, removed my shoe and sock, and tried to numb my left heel for the return walk.

Despite that, the return was pretty awful. I had real trouble walking, and cried in pain a couple of times. And then I did it -- I slipped on a step and fell, landing on my bottom and snapping my right elbow, which I'd injured two years ago. So now I had both an exquisitely painful left foot and a throbbing, numb right elbow and forearm. I bit my lip to get back to the car, but when I finally did, I started sobbing. Poor Nimmi, for having to deal with such a miserable loser that day.

The bright spot of the day occurred as we were driving back to our hotel -- another black bear! We got some good pictures again, and this brightened my mood. Despite my limping, I made it to the hotel restaurant for dinner, and we rented another movie. I fell asleep as soon as the movie ended, and don't think I even turned in the night.

On Wednesday morning, we got up early so that I could drive Nimmi to the Calgary International Airport for her return to Atlanta. And the trip was easy. Too easy -- in fact, Nimmi was going to get to the airport earlier than she wanted to -- so we decided to stop at a Starbucks for a coffee. After I got my coffee, we went out to the car. As we were backing out of the parking space, someone zipped around the corner and hit my car!!!! Unbelieveable! -- here I was, finally in a good mood after such a rotten day the day before, and now my car gets hit -- and Nimmi had to get to the airport. Fortunately, Nimmi and I weren't hurt, and Janie has only very, very minor damage: another dent in the plastic (her third one of this trip). It'll be easy to fix. The Cadillac who hit me was not so lucky -- she'll have body work to do on the entire passenger side of her car. But, after two nights of good sleep at the Banff Park Lodge, I was in a good mood, and so not even the crash affected that.

So it was a great week, Tuesday's day of hiking notwithstanding. We hiked three times, went canoeing, sat in the hot "springs", saw mountain goats, elk, and bear, learned all about glaciers, drank tea in the mountains, and met some nice people. It was a great week.

And now, it's off to Waterton Lakes National Park, and then (finally) back to the United States to go to Glacier National Park. I have to admit, after two weeks in Canada, I'll be glad to be able to use my cell phone once again, and to have reliable internet service. But this was truly a splurge week to be proud of.

A special thanks goes to Nimmi, for sharing this amazing experience with me, and especially for all of her help on Tuesday, when I was so difficult. It'll be a week to remember.