Monday 22 October 2012

Snow - Finally


So, finally we got some snow here in Banff, which all of us hopefully are more than stoked about. That means that it is time to go snowboarding and skiing soon, and that you guys will start work soon, if you haven’t already. It’s going to be an epic season out here – I can already feel it.
-      Yes, I must admit that I am SO f***ing jealous of all of you guys right now. I got a bit less than 2 weeks left here in Banff, and I wont even get time to shred some pow pow before I leave.
So for all of you lucky people who are staying out here in Banff, you better take advantage of all the snow Banff is getting, else I’ll come get ya! .

But to be honest, I am just glad that I got to see the snow on all the mountains before I left. Everything is so much prettier out here when it’s covered with the white fluffy crystals we are calling snow.
And you probably can’t wait for winter to start right now, eventhough I’ve heard people are already complaining about the cold… HAHA… in 6 months when it’s like today, +2 deg Celsius and sunny with a chance of snow (typical mountain weather), you’ll be walking around in t-shirts and have a laugh over all the tourists who has layered up and are freezing like you are now.  And for me it still looks a tiny bit funny when I see all of you marching around in all of your ski and snowboard gear in October – we only got a couple of inches of snow and are just below freezing point. – I admit that I’m wearing a lot of clothes myself, summer made me weak, but I’ll not fully dress up to just go outside a door. Wait for it, it’s going to be much much colder!


But let’s enjoy my last two weeks. I hope to meet as many as possible before I go, and remember to enjoy Banff and all the snow you’ll get here. I’ll miss this place whenever I’m not here. And I really hope that you will have as fun as a season as I had 2 years ago – or maybe even more fun.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Day 5

I've been in Banff about 5 days now after being on the longest flight I've ever taken to date, it wasn't as bad as I was expected and with the in-flight entertainment it went relatively quickly. 



I love Banff it is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been let alone lived. I am living on Grizzly Street, in a house a short walk from the centre of town with pretty amazing views. This is the view from our street.



Yesterday we rented a huge 7 seater Ford Flex for $150 and went on a road trip to Lake Louise and the surrounding areas, we took the Bow Valley Parkway instead of the highway and it was definitely worth the longer drive time. It's a beautiful winding road which traces the river and the rail tracks for about 60km and there is plenty of wildlife and views along the way.


When we got to Lake Louise the temperature drop was massive in comparison to Banff and we even had some snow fall as we were there, even though it was pretty cloudy and not much blue sky or sun to be seen it was a pretty breath taking sight. We also tried to see Lake Moraine, a slightly lesser known lake in the area, unfortunately even though major snow is yet to fall the access road was closed off.

On the way back from the Lake Louise area we again decided to take the Parkway route over the highway as earlier on we had seen our first black bear of the season and were keen to see another, unfortunately we weren't as lucky the second time round but we did see a large Elk who wasn't too camera shy and didn't seem to mind us being within 10m of him. Done so much cool stuff over the last few days, seen a lot, can't wait to get a clean shot of a grizzly.