North to Alaska: Day 05

Welcome! Day5 (Aug 13) of North to Alaska

A day of adventures.

Quote “Never judge a day by the weather” from Red Dirt Shirt.

Today started off very cool, in low 50s. It warmed up to the middle 70s by the afternoon. Also in the afternoon while we were on the Bow River we had loud rolling thunder and some awesome lightning.

But the day was very good. After breakfast we drove up to Banff, about 12 miles. Banff is located in Banff National Park and built in the Bow River Valley which is a spectacular piece of geography. We arrived at 9:30 and slowly drove thru town. The two main streets seems to be from some storybook. We drove up to the Banff Springs hotel with the intent of touring it but was not able to find a decent parking space so we drove up to the Banff Gondola to Sulphur Mountain. This was a good move. There was about a 15 minute wait but once we started up the views were outstanding. I have included a few pictures but they do not do justice to the actuals views.

On the way back thru town I took a couple of photos for the downtown area.

In the afternoon we had a rafting trip scheduled. The one we were to take with rapids of 2 and 3 was not able to run because of low water. They are having some problems regulating the water thru the dam. So they offered us the trip thru Horseshoe Canyon with 2 to 4 grade rapids. We took it although Cassie was very nervous. She was nervous of the original trip but had talked herself into it. In actuality our problems was not the rapids but in the preparation for the trip itself. Cassie now has a new motto, if someone says wetsuit run away as fast as possible. Well I was not sure she would be able to get all the gear on, I had a hard time myself, but I was motivated since I did want to raft the river. After we put on our swim suit, wetsuit, boots (not made for walking just swimming), special jacket, life jacket, and helmet we were ready to take the bus to the drop off place. Once we were at the drop off place we were told we needed to descend a couple of hundred feet over a not very well laid out trail (remember the boots), this was a chore in itself. Cassie and I both needed some help to transverse the trail. We made it to the water and were given a paddle and assigned a raft. Each raft had 8 people. We sat of the outside edge of the raft 4 on each side. We were given instructions on paddling, holding on, and how to get back into the raft when we were thrown out. I paid attention to the holding on part. We took off and for about five minutes everything was fine. We then hit Horseshoe rapids a class 4 rapids. We hit it head on and water went over my head. I was soaked completely. Cassie on the other side only got soaked up to her shoulders. On the next rapid Cassie got it good while I was still able to see daylight. After a few more rapids smaller that the first two we finished up with about twenty minutes of smooth floating. We were on the water for about 90 minutes. All three of our boats made it with no one leaving their boat. We met up with three boats which were about 30 minutes ahead of us which had one boat overturn in the first rapid. At the departure point we had to walk up a very steep incline although much shorter than the drop off point.

All and all the day was very tiring with the part on the water being very much fun and the least tiring of all the preparation things we were required to do.

We finished the day getting some DQ sandwiches and eating in our room. Cassie was asleep before 10. I owe her big time for going on the raft trip, I doubt I will be able to get her on another.

Tomorrow is another day and more adventure as we head north on the Ice Field Parkway.