Day 57: Canmore

The weather roller-coaster in the mountains continued today. The day started with light showers and a promise of a clearing sky soon – so we took the challenging hike of C-Level Cirque, just east of the city. The first 4km of the hike are a steady climb inside a typical forest, only this time, the wind (that was not very strong). Made scary sounds of trees that are about to crash. At that point, as we approached a nice hanging lake, the rain started to intensify, and we got to the alpine level, where the trees were low you could see the top of the cliffs mountain. Rocks were constantly rolling from the top, making even more scary sounds. That was the moment Ruti hiked back, and I climbed to the top of the trail: in less than 1Km , the trail gained ~300meter of elevation – making it a safe but hard climb. When I got to the top – and turned back – I remember going “WOW” again. Incredible views of lake Mennwanka and the valleys, the skies cleared, and the trail was worth every bit of the effort.

We drove by Lake Minnewanka and the nice Two Jack Lake on our way to Canmore to relax. Canmore seems to be the much less snobbish but not less beautiful version of Banff. We liked it a lot, and as the rain started to pour, and the thunders were rolling – we did not feel like cooking outside tonight. We went to have some Indian food, at Indian Authentic Cuisine- a nice restaurant run on very lean and super friendly staff. Food was very tasty.

As we got back to our camp the rain started to clam down, and the sun sneaked to create beautiful rainbows. The top of the mountains had some new fresh snow (some on peaks that did not have snow in the morning), and the temperature dropped sharply. We went to check if Banf has any night-life, and were surprised by the many open places and people in the streets. The local distillery at main street was standing for the city reputation we had built: very beautiful, over priced, and quality was meddiocarter.