Before leaving Banff we visited Bluebird for breakfast, which turned out to be fantastic – full breakfast of varying varieties, an enormous Croque Madam, and avocado on toast. We needed our energy for what came later in the day.
The route from Banff to our next hotel in Field, a very small town (we’d call it a village) located on the Trans Canada Highway between Lake Louise and Golden, took us along the Bow Valley Parkway which we had been told was a great location to see big wildlife. We stopped a few times at viewing points, found a few birds and squirrels, saw some nice vistas, but not a lot more.
Then we turned a corner and saw a dozen or so vehicles on each side of the road, and a park ranger with a paintball gun on the road shouting at people to get back in their vehicles. Of course, the first thing you do when you hear there’s a dangerous animal in the vicinity is leave the safety of your vehicle. Contrary to the idiots who did, we stayed inside and tried to see what people were looking at. Then we saw him – a massive grizzly bear. The ranger said he’d not seen this one in the wild before, but knew him to be a very big male. He was definitely very big.
The bear was hard to spot, and spent much of his time moving around in the bushes – you could see them moving, but not him. He rarely became visible, but when he did I took my chance and fired off the camera in his direction.
With that box ticked we carried on, but sadly saw nothing else similar. Lots of more great views, and a very long train which was still quite exciting given its size.
We stopped briefly at the new hotel to collect towels, then headed off to our next activity – white water rafting. Given it’s one of the best places to do it, it seemed daft not to give it a go. We did a half day session, which equates to about 90 minutes on the water, which was plenty. The 5 mile stretch of water comprised class 3 and 4 rapids – apparently class 5 are dangerous, and class 6 are death. The also have names – car wash, g-spot and roller coaster. Either way they all made you wet. Nobody died, and nobody fell in. The on-board photos below are from a video I recorded – which will be edited and added to the blog later.
With wet suits, boots and safety equipment handed back we returned to the new hotel and checked in. It was a hotel with lodges instead of standard rooms, and a very nice fine-dining style restaurant.
Dinner was excellent, as was the wine.
