DavidsAdventures.com

Tamie was nice enough to give me her pics from the trip! Here they are!

So I got this hair-brained idea that I wanted to climb ‘the middle sister.’ We stayed in a town called Canmore and the main skyline was of these three peaks called ‘the three sisters.’ If you know me, you know I like to look at something and then say, ‘Let’s do it!’ I spent the night before researching it and determined I could do it. Got all prepped, got nervous the night before, and was even nervous the day of. The full climb was almost 5000 feet and would have been the most altitude I’ve climbed in one day on one peak.

The girls had rented XC skiis and were ready to go. We drove to the drop off point and it started to rain. On top of the rain was that it was cloudy and foggy even at the lower altitudes. I couldn’t even see where the base of the mountain started. So, the climb was called off! =o(

But thats not to say that I didn’t have fun with the girls! We drove north to Lake Louise to get some colder weather and boy did we find it! The wind was pretty fierce and so I put on my snowpants and winter jacket. The girls took off on skiis and I followed on foot. We went off trail and realized I’d need my snowshoes, so I put them on and we continued. Once Jen got the hang of XC skiiing, they were off. I had to run to keep up. It was a blast!!

We ended our trek with some sled dogs and a cup of hot cocoa and carrot cake from the Lake Louise hotel.

Icefields Parkway also has a southern route. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a fancy nickname like it’s northern brother. We got to see the official continental divide and even posed for a few pictures with half a cheek in Alberta and British Columbia.

We stopped at a forest that was burned in the 60’s and was at the “post-pine” part of recovery. Tamie quickly realized that not having snowshoes was going to be tough. She post-holed almost the whole way!

The next stop was Marble Canyon where it drops almost 180 feet and the top opening is so close that it’s said squirrels have been seen jumping across it! I of course had to feed the Clarks Nutgrabbers (yes that’s their name) some of my PB&J sandwich.

Our next stop was the Paint Pots. We took the long route due in part to the lack of signs and my best guess on which was was more direct. They were all covered over, but Jen was still able to play with some of the natural paint before we headed out. Oh and there was a suspension bridge that had about 2.5 feet of snow/ice accumulated on it. Made for a good river crossing though!

So yes! Radium Hot Springs! My first thought of this place was that it would be a hot spring being cooled by a stream. Thats how they always look in Backpacker and at Yellowstone! These hot springs were turned into a very large pool where you could relax and soak. It definitely hit the spot and was well worth the $6 entry fee.

After leaving the springs we went in search of food! Found a place called Backcountry Bills and had some pretty good eats. We ended the day with another ‘off the beaten path’ adventure in the Columbia Wetlands. We got to see a bald eagle (sitting in a tree), some bighorn sheep (wayyyyy off in the distance), and lots of poop!

Before leaving town we drove by the woodcarvers house. Apparently he’s famous and has been on the TV Show “Weird Houses” or something like that. Unfortunately his hours of operation are not regular and his sign said, ’sorry closed, it’s not my day.’

Our trip home was highlighted by two coyotes on the side of the road.

After a late start, made even later by the daylight savings time change, we headed to Lake Louise to hike to Victoria Glacier. We read the sign that said thin ice and had a picture of a stick figure falling in, noticed at least 30 people out walking on the ice, and proceded to do the same. We discovered that going off trail is not recommended because I ended up ankle deep in slush. Apparently they pack trails on the ice to make sure people don’t fall in. After getting back on the trail we were good to go.

We got past the touristy area and into the backwoods where it seemed only a half dozen people had gone. We quickly found out that the trail was above a lot of snow and my whole leg sank in. The only thing that kept me from falling further was my other leg. We decided it was time to put on our snowshoes. After that, with a few mishaps, we stayed above the snow!

As a side note… we found out that going downhill in snowshoes is much easier on your butt! I’ll see if I can find a way to post the videos here, but I may just link them to my youtube account.

We hiked back in the dark and the girls taking a bathroom break in the hotel grabbed some gourmet hot cocoa! Oh, I forgot to mention the sneaky, highly venomous, and deadly… sign! We were walking back in the dark and saw something low to the ground off in the distance. Not sure what it was but judging by the size of it that it couldn’t harm us I started walking towards it. This is when I remembered there were people with me and was told to WAIT WAIT! Haha! When we found out it was a sign, we all had a good laugh. The sign is actually in the pictures as well!

Getting back from Johnston Canyon we stopped in Banff for some food. Wild Bills (Something-er-other). Good food and discovered they were having a live band that night. We decided to go home and get all washed up to come back.

On the ride back we got to see the northern lights! Tamie spotted something in the sky and we quickly pulled over to watch them for a few minutes. I guess that was a good indication of the night to come!

We partied it up and made some new Canadian friends at the bar and while getting pizza afterwards. We finally made it home by about 4:30am!

Jen was our personal trip research planner. She bought books on Banff and the surrounding area and was a wealth of information! She found Johnston Canyon! We rented ’snow cleats’ (aka crampons) that strapped to our hiking boots and went for our ice walk. I might want to mention that we didn’t all put the crampons on right away. We had a little bit of fun sliding up and down various walkways before finally putting them on.

At one, no wait, two points we jumped the safety of the pathway to find some fun. The first one was the discovery that we could in fact walk on water… frozen water. We found an ice cave (pretty small) and climbed into it. The next off-pathway excursion was to watch some ice climbers coming down the Johnston Canyon Upper Falls.

As we stood at the upper canyon we figured out that we could make it to the inkpots and had headlamps to get back. We booked it and made it there in good time. Stayed for a few pictures and headed out. But not before Tamie found deep snow and I discovered the black speckles all over the snow were FLEAS! Yowsa! I’m glad Jen convinced me to get gaitors!

We hiked back through Moose Meadows and then the final trek was on the road.

What trip to the Canadian Rockies would be complete without a day of snowboarding? The answer…NONE! I continue to discover how much more enjoyable it is to ski on snow and not ice. Sorry Bristol, there’s a new girl in town and her peaks are… well… better!

Jen, Tamie (who I just got to meet), and I took a trip to the great country of Canada. Specifically the western portion. I now know how they feel about those East Coasters (Ontario/Quebec). If I was to move to Canada, it’d be to the western portion. Then again, that’s how I feel about the States.

I’ll make individual posts for each of the image galleries so I can describe a bit about each one. Icefields Parkway is a road that goes from Lake Louise to Jasper (and beyond). It goes by countless trails and glaciers. Yes, yes, I said countless glaciers! Don’t be confused, the glaciers are still there, but they are retreating like girls dresses on prom night.

We discovered that Canada is pretty aware of their wildlife population and have created overpasses (and underpasses) for the animals to cross unharmed. The overpasses were much more visible and we got a nice picture of them (the arched bridge pictures). We stopped at Bow Valley Lake and climbed to an overlook. Amazing views and a gorgeous day! It was really fun to see the signs buried to their noses in snow. With perfect weather 0-3 degree celcius (mid to upper 30’s for the states) we had a great first day!

We stopped at Athabasca Glacier and decided to climb on top of it; ignoring the warning signs about cracks, fissures, and crevices. It was worth it! I got to a certain point and heard a loud CRACK in the ice and decided it was time to stop dragging the girls up this thing and head back to the car.

The day ended with a stop in Jasper (closest I’ve been to Alaska!!) to eat some dinner. I ate THE BEST hamburger I’ve ever eaten in my life there. It was incredible! I unfortunately don’t remember the name of the restaurant; but the waitor was a riot as well. I of course took some panoramic shots in the area and used my new PTGui software to stitch them together.

Enjoy!

Some of you may be wondering, “what the heck happened to Dave’s site?”  Here’s the scoop.  I’ve been meaning to develop a new travel/adventure blog of sorts.  Low and behold I found some pretty neat scripts that when combined do the job amazingly well.

Feel free to register for the site.  This will allow you to post comments and subscribe to the RSS feed.  The theme that is currently set may be changing.  I’d like to have a large portion of the header as images that rotate through some of my photographs.  So I’m thinking I’ll have to create my own.

If you’d like to see the old image gallery, click the gallery link and you’ll see two options.  Probably the most major change is how the images are viewed.  I found a script called Greybox that uses AJAX to overlay the existing page.  No additional plugins are needed.  The gallery will be opened in this overlay and can be closed using the circled X. 

Another change is the blogging features.  I will be writing descriptions of each of the adventures from my gallery.  The image below each entry links you directly to the gallery discussed.  I’ve completed posting for 2004.  Give me a bit of time to update for 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Send me an email with any questions you have!  Enjoy and let me know what you all think!

Steve and Pete decided that I needed a weekend away from being newly single and causing trouble. And what better way to not cause trouble than to visit Blair in DC?

This was the infamous 72 degree day in January that I really wish I had shorts for. We walked everywhere, it was great! We saw the museum of natural history, aerospace, test