Today we went wandering around Banff. They have pretty much every outdoors clothing brand here and even a Smartwool shop which sent Aimi a bit mad.
Walking up the beautiful high street we just mooched around. Popping in and out of souvenir shops and outdoor wear alternately. We picked up a few trinkets here and there.
I got sucked into a shop by the smell. Apparently Beaver Tails are a weak spot for me. A sort of flat bread/pastry deep fried and then covered in various toppings. I went for a favourite; banana and chocolate spread.
It was really bizarre people going about their fashion shopping with Starbucks in hand, with huge mountains towering over them. One guy in Arctryx said that last week the smoke was so bad you couldn’t even see the mountains so that would have felt a lot more like London.
Mooching through some more shops we both looked at some warm gear. It got remarkably cold last night to the point that snuggling up under the covers didn’t cut it and I had to get up and put the heater on. The covers, as a side note, build up an incredible amount of static charge. Literally in the darkness you can see the sparks jumping across your legs as you move around!
By the time we woke up it was a bit warmer in the van but would still require warm gear to get going. By the end of the day I was regretting my choice of trousers, it was hot!
We had opted to hike the 3km into town around Tunnel Mountain (so named because there is no tunnel through it)
On the way we spotted a few chipmunks which were cute and a squirrel that was plucking pinecones from the top of the tree, seemingly taking 2 bites and then tossing them off. It was a rain of pinecones from and excitedly squeaking squirrel.
There was one thing I wanted to do in Banff, collect a geocache. After seeing in the comments that 2 people had already collected it today i figured out odds of finding it were high. But this cache was like no other I’ve ever collected. It was adjacent to a historic house that used to be a miners calalogue house from a nearby abandoned town. According to a plaque, this was the childhood home of Leonard Leacock (1904 – 1992), who had a distinguished career as a musician and was an accomplished climber and photographer.
Bizarrely this house was completely surrounded by a hotel. In fact, to get to it, we had to enter through the stylish lobby of the hotel. Tromping in with our hiking bag and big brown boots we asked if we could see the house. Surprisingly the concierge was happy to show us and even take us for a tour inside! It’s a hotel room you can stay in and sort of looks like it would have been in the mining days complete with coal burner.
The house stands in pride of place in the courtyard with 4 storeys of hotel around it. Our guide said it had been moved here and then craned in over the top and rested on a slab of ice which melted and allowed it to settle slowly into the foundations. Im not sure i belive all of that but you shouldn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Once our guide has left us we had a poke around and found the geocache in the mail box. A huge book with logs dating back to 2016. The book was nearly completely full but I found one page near the back for my log.
After a beer on a balcony overlooking the street and an oversized ice-cream with all the trimmings, we set about walking back. Cleverly, the campsite offers a free bus into town but it’s $2 back again. We didn’t mind the walk, this path out of town is incredibly beautiful.
