Easy Hikes To Kill The Time

The Banff area has lots of small easy hikes that you can easily do in a day, when you’re just a bit bored and want to get to now the local area better. I’m not going to give you a boring trail description that you can get from one of the many the hiking folders you can pick up at the info centre. I’m going to describe my first attempt on these trails/hikes.

Tunnel Mt.

The first couple of weeks I was trying to get use to the altitude here in Banff, compared to my 80 meters above sea level at home in Denmark. I see my self being pretty fit, but that appeared false, when you bring me up to 1300 meters above sea level. My roommate who have lived here in Banff since the winter season start in October was going to hike Tunnel Mt. and I was keen on going with him, because Tunnel was one of the few hikes that I didn’t get around to, when I lived in Banff the last time.

Tom Bob and I were just hiking at a normal pace, towards the trail start. Tom Bob was explaining to me how the start of Tunnel Mountain trail probably would scare some people of, who aren’t used to hiking at higher altitudes. That comforted me a bit, when we got to the upper parking lot. I was already dying, if it was because of the 30 degrees heat on that day or just the 200 meters walk from the lower parking lot to the upper parking lot, I am not sure (I blame it on the altitude and heat now that I have hiked it a couple of times, and easily get to the top without breaks). But that day I had to take several breaks whenever we got to a nice shady place on the trail. When I look back on it, it is a bit embarrassing that I had to stop every 5-10 minutes to have something to drink and catch my breath. It normally takes half an hour or so to the top, that day I think we spent 45 minutes.

When we FINALLY made it to the top we had a nice break in the sun, had a little sunbathing session, and enjoyed the amazing view over Banff town and the surrounding mountains.

The walk down of Tunnel Mountain was easy and I enjoyed it compared to the hike up that day. And I on the way down promised my self that before I leave Banff in November I will be able to run up that little mountain, that took my the breath away from on my first hike. (I can tell you already now a month later I can easily hike it without needing any breaks – and in a pretty good pace, so I hope that I will be able to run it before I leave!)

But I’m looking forward to hike Tunnel Mt. with some of the coming seasoners for the winter season 2012-2013, and know that I will not be judgmental, because I can still remember my first time. 

Sulphur Mt.

 

The first time I hiked Sulphur Mt. was in March 2011, there was still a foot of snow on the trail, but my best friend was here visiting from Denmark, and I wanted to show her as much of Banff as possible, so of course she had to see Banff from above.

I remembered Sulphur Mt. being so hard, that I would probably never do it again. But the two of my roommates were hiking it 3 days later than I had hiked up Tunnel Mt. and I could not resist walking with them, when they agreed to wait for me, if I felt like dying again.

Again it was a stupidly hot day, 27 degrees, so we brought lots of water, and got ready for the hike. We walked downtown to take the bus out to the start of the trail (only because we’re lazy, but I would recommend doing that), it is a long walk out to the trail and gondola.

The first 2 kilometres/30 minutes of Sulphur Mt. did not cause me a hard time at all. It was hot, yes, and we needed some breaks to just drink some water but we were not exhausted. After the 2.3 kilometres we came to a little detour trail, we could see people walking around out there and decided to try it out, we were in good spirit, and I had not been complaining a bit about the hike yet. Actually I was doing really well. When we got to the end we saw a little spring, where we filled up all our water bottles with icecold spring water, SWEET, and we put our heads under to cool down a bit from the heat that was surrounding us.

After the little break we were more than ready for the rest of our hike, we were close to be half way, if we should believe the trail sign in the bottom that says 5.4km to the top.

I remember the last half an hour out of the 1 and a half hour being the hardest. So we have done a 3^rd part of the trail we concluded and started hiking again. Easypeasy hike the follow half an hour, but when we hit that 4km point, where the trail has a steeper point we all started to get tired, and I was for the first time in the need of a break to catch my breath. It was good to know that there was only 1.4km left, and we could continue in high spirit.

I started a trail tracker/GPS when we started the hike at the gondola/bottom of Sulphur Mt. and I am still not sure, if my GPS is fucked or the trail sign at the bottom is telling the wrong distance, because the sign said 5.4km my GPS said 7.03km to the top. No matter what, we got a bit frustrated when my GPS passed the 6km mark, and we were still not at the top. But no way that we were turning around now, we could at least see the top, and it only took us another 15minutes to get up the last 1km. So my second time on Sulphur Mt was a good hike and definitely easier than the first and than I remember it.

When we got up there we walked around to the different viewpoints and just enjoyed the view and sun, just chilled out. We spent a bit less than 1 and a half hour on this 7km or 5.4km hike, and I’m gladly doing it again, know that I’ve erased the first horrible time I hiked Sulphur from my memory.

After we had enjoyed the sun for half an hour and got a bit to eat in the cafeteria at the top of Sulphur Mt. we decided to walk down on the opposite site of Sulphur Mt. to try something new. (Again the sign isn’t really that correct if I should believe what my GPS says. Sign: 8-something, GPS 10km to down town Banff, 11km to Cedar House.)

It is a REALLY beautiful way to walk down, there’s no trees around the trail like on the opposite site, where most people hike Sulphur from, so the view is just amazing. It is harder to walk down then you would think though. After our little spontaneous “let’s hike Sulphur Mt.” and then ended up with hiking Sulphur Mt. and walking down the other site, in total 7km of hiking up, 11km of walking down, plus how much we walked around on the top…… I was DEAD! I went straight to bed at 9pm., fell asleep and the day after I was so sore. But I will definitely do it again, if anyone is up for it!

My review of the 3 mountains

If you are living in Banff, but not working at any of the 3 ski resorts that are close by, I would say, that it is a good idea to have either The Rocky Mountain Lift Pass, so that you can use most of the resorts in The Rocky Mountains, or another opportunity is the BIG3 lift pass which is to Norquay, Sunshine Village and Lake Louise, the 3 resorts in the Banff area (Which also gives you discount at some other resorts).

I worked at Sunshine Village in the winter 2010/2011, and I will try to give you a description of what I think of the 3 mountains here in Banff. Some of the information can be a bit old, since I wasn’t here last season. But I have been trying to keep up. :)

Banff, Sunshine Village:

I worked as Lifty and loved it, it gave the advantage of a 2 hours 'ride break' each day and we had 2 days off per week. Besides, we got our lift pass for free to Sunshine Village and Lake Louise and furthermore 2 days free at around 18 other resorts in The Rocky Mountains. Which gave me and all the other SSV employees the opportunity to visit many other resorts throughout the season. The LL-employees gets the same deal through their work.

The lifty work was at times freaking hard, like the days where you have to shovel a meter of snow out of your loading area and safety area, other days it is just sitting down staring for hours. :)

Sunshine Village is a really nice resort, the slopes are fine, I honestly didn’t use them much, but there is a lot of crazy and fun terrain, with good drops and then there is Delirium Dive, one of the world's 10 best powder bowls!

Besides that there’s a large park, Rogers Terrain Park, many of my friends loved it, I was not the biggest park skier this year due to old injuries. But the park has many fun features, and everything a terrain park should have is there.

Sunshine Village is open from November until the end of May.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlxQUpRs8rk

Banff, Norquay:

Norquay is the resort that is closest to Banff but smallest, they are not a part of The Rocky Mountain lift pass. So if you're working at Norquay, your lift pass only allows you to ski at Norquay, but you can always just buy a season lift pass to the other mountains, or get the spring lift passes to Sunshine Village or Lake Louise that are really cheap when your a local.

Everyone who worked at Norquay were super happy about working at Norquay, they had a great atmosphere amongst the employees and all I know who worked up there would like to return and work at Norquay again, rather than work at Sunshine Village or Lake Louise.

The mountain is quite small and some of the slopes are really steep. Compared to the size of the resort, they have got a really nice park, that is right at the bottom of the hill, so it is so easy to get there – especially if you are up for some night skiing or snowboarding!

If you live in Banff, and are working at Sunshine or Lake Louise, Norquay has nightskiing 2 nights every week, and you can buy a lift pass for only evenings, so you can ski Norquay too. There is also Norquays monthly 85cent day, which means a one-day ticket costs you just 85cent. Norquay also has the cool acrobag every weekend, if you need to practise some of your jibbing and don’t feel like crashing in the park.

I unfortunately wasn’t skiing much at Norquay, but those who did loved it.

Norquay is open from December to April.

http://vimeo.com/36627508#

Banff, Lake Louise:

It is the largest resort of the 3 that are close to Banff. If you work at Sunshine Village, you can use Lake Louise as much as you want, and it is the same the other way around, so people working at Lake Louise can use Sunshine Village as much as they want.

The mountain has a lot of nice long runs compared to sunshine, and some of the best powder bowls that I tried throughout my season! It’s a 40minutters drive from Banff, but it is worthwhile to get up there.

Their park was the best of the three in the Banff area, especially the early season, where they were quicker to put up some features and making a progressive park from small to large features to build confidence. Lake Louise opened a good but small park in December. But it all depends on how much snow there’s coming.

If you are considering working at Lake Louise, I would recommend you still live in Banff, the season people from Lake Louise were a bit trapped in Lake Louise, as it is 45 minute drive from Banff, so if you were in Banff for a night out, you would need to know someone to crash with, or be lucky enough to pull each night ;-). I don’t know much about living or partying in Lake Louise, as I never stayed there over night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTOAlRasqes

Another thing is that many chose to live in Canmore, a town 20min drive from Banff, from where buses to all the resorts go to too. I would recommend Banff, above all, because it is an awesome town and you have easy access to all the mountains, bars and all that you pretty much need to have an awesome season experience!

My Canada Day

As a European soccer fan my Canada Day started with a trip to the bar, watching the final between Spain and Italy. Banff was already packed with tourists and so were all the bars at 12.45pm. Honestly it ended up with me leaving the bar 30 minutes before the game ended, so I could watch it at home with my roommates, who were as excited about the game as me, instead of the Canada Day hype. As much as we love our Canadian friends they had to wait until after our soccer game.

After the game ended at 2ish a few of my cool housemates and I went downtown to get a feeling of the Canada Day fuzz. Banff Ave was PACKED or worse than that, you couldn’t get one way or the other. We were on the lookout for a watergun, so we visited all the toystores and the dollarstore, where we finally found a cool super-soaker (which later on showed that it definitely didn’t “supersoak” anything but our balcony floor), but we found a watergun and got it.

It was time for our next project of the day, get a good spot for the parade, that started at 5pm. Banff Ave was already closed down for traffic, and we were thinking that an hour before the parade even started we could be lucky to find a patio spot at either the Elk and Oarsman or the Brew Pub. We got a pretty good window spot at the Elk and Oarsman, and got ourselves a huge plate of nachos to kill the time with. The Elk and Oarsman have some pretty good nachos by the way, and you can get a plate big enough to share! (Also try $8 Steak Tuesdays) When we finished we decided to try our luck and find a better spot on the ground, so that we could watch the parade closeup.  

As you can see on the pictures Banff Ave was packed all the way from Cascade Plaza to the river, and we didn’t get a great spot, but we could at least see what wast going on. Looking back, we should probably have skipped the nachos and just been standing on the street for hours like all the tourists to get one of those front row spots. But the Parade was amazing it was an hour show with all kinds of marching bands and small weird breaks, like Auroras’ (local Banff night club) foam party float. Yea, I am pretty sure if you like me, have never seen a real American parade before you’re going to be amazed as well.

Since Canada was the same date as my birthday – Danish time – my lovely housemates and few of my old Banff friends had a little come together at our balcony to have some pre-drinks before the BIG fireworks show. A couple of drinks are necessary for a good Canada Day I would say. And we were super lucky with the weather for once (Banff Summers can vary with the weather from beautiful sunny days to short powerful rain storms), but great weather got the streets filled with happy Canadians dressed up in red and white tattooed with maple leafs all over their bodies. And generally you can just feel the festive mood that everyone is in this day also if you’re not Canadian. I for sure had a great Canada Day here in Banff. You should definitely stick around for Canada Day, if you don’t have anything better to do after your winter season.

It was a cold dark April morning but excitement filled the air at 344 Beaver St, Banff. Suitcase upon suitcase upon ski bag was being piled up in the front room with worrying glances being shared between the soon to be passengers of the notorious ‘Dorris’ the Dodge Ram campervan. 

After a few stalls and some more worrying glares we set off on an 11-hour drive from Banff to Vancouver. There was sleeping, sightseeing and a couple of close calls, although at no fault of either of our expert drivers. You don’t really appreciate how expansive Canada is until you take the time to drive it…everything is huge!

John (one of our expert drivers) confidently negotiated city streets of Vancouver, to safely deliver us to our hotel where we met up with family and friends. We were all pretty tired, not least our heroic drivers and with the adventure continuing tomorrow we turned in for a sleep in the city.

The next day bore a beautiful sunrise over Vancouver soaking the city in soft light; we knew we had an awesome day ahead of us! 

Our destination…Saturna Island!

Saturna Island is part of the Gulf Islands close to Vancouver Island, it is a mere 31km²  and home to only 350 people. Two of those people you may already know…

Noel and Nancy kindly invited our group of close friends to enjoy some time at their oasis getaway, obviously we gratefully accepted. We drove from our hotel to the port of Tsawwassen where we boarded Dorris onto the ferry. Usually there is only one ferry a day to Saturna; fortunately for us it was at sunset gifting us with awe-inspiring views of the bay areas. Upon arriving we met with Noel at the Saturna Lighthouse pub that was conveniently located a few yards from the ferry port!

We arrived at the cottage on Saturna after dark, we could tell we were somewhere special but it was not until the following day we realized how breathtaking our surrounding were. The cottage sits maybe 20 meters from the sea, easily a stones through. It overlooks an uninhabited island and a vast expanse of sea; in the distance you can see the U.S.A whilst oil tankers casually drift past on the horizon, a stark reminder of how lucky we were.

Whilst in Banff I lost count of how many breathtaking views I witnesses, this pattern didn’t stop on Saturna. Day after day I was stunned by the beauty of the natural surroundings, everything is peaceful everything is calm. 

Saturna really is an outdoors enthusiasts dream; untouched by modernism the whole ethos is that of sustainability and caring. Everything is recycled; one woman told us that she only has to throw out one bag of garbage a year! Everything else is recycled or used to make compost. It was so refreshing to see, people who cared about where they lived and did something about it. 

During the days we worked for our keep but had plenty of opportunities to explore what the island had to offer. We kayaked to untouched bays, explored uninhabited islands and got to know the island’s locals.

Everyday we caught our own dinners, fresh lingcod, crab, mussels and shrimp were a plenty!  Noel was more than happy to take us out on his powerboat, an experience in itself, yet we also saw Seals and large groups of Sea Lions. We took crab/shrimp traps and multiple fishing rods to provide for dinner; I had never been fishing in my life and after only 5 minutes I had caught a 20-inch lingcod…amazing!! 

We all took turns in teams of two to cook a gourmet dinner for the rest of the gang. This was no chore by any stretch; we all thoroughly enjoyed cooking what we caught and making an effort to impress the rest. We unanimously agreed that we hadn’t eaten so well all year!

Most nights after dinner included a roaring fire and friendly games and banter. Numerous board games and homemade quizzes were played, sprinkled with hilarious embarrassing stories from both ourselves and our host…all helped along with a few drinks of course!

Saturna for us I think was the perfect end to a season in Banff and the perfect beginning for a life in Vancouver. It is a world away but yet so close, unknown to most it is a haven for those wanting to immerse themselves in calm and nature.

May powder

April showers bring powder in the mountains,
 a bit of green grass in town and the snow has all melted in Banff
and 10cm overnight at Louise and Sunshine to keep the riders happy!

Spring riding

This can be some of the best skiing and riding we have all season.

It is no longer dark when everyone sets off to work in the morning, the lifts stay open longer, the patios are filled on sunny days.

Plenty of snow on the mountain, yet the ice has melted on the river, bikes are out in town as are the longboards, shorts and flip flops.

Most locals have not yet taken the winter tires off their cars as we all know we are still due for another spring dump of snow...but summer is close!

Winter 2012-13 planning

Panick is starting to set in as visa's are being filled up faster that those darn ACPO police clearances are getting churned out!

Here's to hoping that all those of you that were planning on being in Banff with us next season have filled in, signed, sealed and delivered all those bits to the Canadian High Commission and we will be all sitting in Tommy's having a celebratory Kokanee six months from now!

Working Holiday

Quota: 5,350
Working Holiday places remaining: 776
Updated: 30/04/2012