The mountain reaches to the stars, the world’s a speck, ⁠

A trillion years are but a moment in its sight,

And yet it matters not whether I laugh or weep,

⁠For all this grandeur will not last one single night.

Omar Khayyam, XII century.

My trips are planned a month in advance, but oh boy – the decision comes in a heartbeat, and in another heartbeat I watch myself entering my credit card details. Sometimes I think Booking and Expedia were created by the same scammers who fake official websites to make you give out your banking information.

At least that is how it feels when you just go to check your Booking account for travel points – because why shouldn’t I? – and suddenly end up with a flight ticket and AirBnb booked for the upcoming long weekend in Alberta.

Whoopsie.

As I am writing this paragraph, I popped in to check my Facebook news feed, and apparently the airline I was flying, Lynx Air, has gone bankrupt and will stop operating as of Feb 26, 2024. 10 days after my flight to Alberta… I tried my best to support you, Lynx! 😦

Leaving aside the tragic ending of the airline company from the family of Felidae (they might have as well named themselves a griffon, although I am not sure that would help), they screwed up my flight to Alberta. I have zero German ancestry, but I could probably make any German a good competition in planning and organizing. I should have landed in Calgary a little after midnight, which would have given me a solid 8 hour sleep before my alarm clock at 9:00 am next day. My take off got delayed 2 hours (2 hours, Karl, 2 hours!!), and while that is not overall a big deal, for somebody who cannot get up later due to a tight tour schedule and is very sensitive to the amount of sleep she gets, AND absolutely cannot sleep in the plane, it caused some of my nerve cells to die. Nerve cells do not regenerate, I demand compensation!

Anyhow.

I rented a Nissan SR hybrid, which was in fact, a wildcard car. I was lucky because with the amount of driving I did, I truly appreciated the comfort of driving a hybrid car. The rental cost me something around 80CAD, plus pre-filled gas at 1.36 per liter, a “young driver fee” (seriously?? How about you like at my driving experience instead? Would not it make more sense?) and some other miscellaneous small fees all added up to 189CAD for 2 days.

Does anybody know if its too much or is just OK? Let me know below, as its my first time renting a car so I have no clue for a comparison myself.

On a side note, I am always so greedy when it comes to spending money on motels, flights, etc, yet when I actually travel I realize I could have spent three, four times as much and not regret a thing. As Gavrilo Princip said, I regret nothing.

I could probably be easily scammed with good travel deals. Not giving anyone ideas though.

I was planning to travel solo, but realized my dear friend Justin whom you have already met here, might be willing to join (spoiler: he did). We had to take a horse sleigh tour early morning in Banff, which, however, got cancelled due to lack of snow (have a look at the amount of snow on my pictures and tell me how little snow that is actually considered to be). So we ended up seeing the famous Lake Louise, crossing it over to the other side, and having a glance at an increasingly posh Fairmount Chateau Lake Louise (FYI cheapest room there is 1000CAD for one night and one person).

I loved walking over the lake, if it was not for the amount of people it would have been perfect. I was most impressed at the scale of things, feeling a little bit like a Lilliput in the Gulliver’s world. The green flow of the pine trees from the mountains seemed to flood the frozen surface of the lake. It was very cold in the shadow of a billion – year sedimentary rocky giant, and yet very comfortable under the mild winter sun. You can see how my hair turned all white during the walk.

The most attentive ones of you can notice a couple of climbers on the frozen waterfall which fills the turquoise waters of Lady Lake Louise during warmer times.

Next was Banff, a cozy city 1 hour away from Calgary. I have been to many cute towns, mainly in Toronto area, but they cannot out compete the traditional look of two-floor houses, where all the fancy and pretty restaurants are creatively decorated on the outside, and attract tourists with tasty smells on the inside.

I got the atmosphere of the end of 1800s or beginning of the 1900s, and kind of expected to see some smugglers, ladies in the old-fashioned dresses, and horse carriages.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me warn you – if you ever visit Banff, you are having problems with parking. As an attempt to prevent high influx of cars, I strongly suspect they put out the “full parking” signs intentionally, even if there are still spots available.

Good for me that I am naturally distrustful and decided to check the lack of parking spots myself.

After a successful parking of my blue, horseless, magic-driven carriage, we went to a take a gondola which took us up high to the Sulfur mountain.

Oh, the view!

You could see the mountain peaks, the town with its castle-like hotels, small roads, and woven river webs in the valleys… As the gondola took us higher and higher, small details disappeared from the view, and the snowy mountain peaks grew in size, with their curves, valleys, and rocky edges.

At the top, we took a walk to the nearby peak along the icy slippery wooden trail. The mountain hosts an abandoned Ray Cosmic Station. Initially a weather forecast station, it was redesigned to become a place to cosmic rays due to its elevation in the 60’s; then it was transferred to University of Calgary, and a couple years later closed for good.

Our last stop for the day was at the outside pool with hot water hot springs.

Real hot springs smell. The sulfur causes us to sense a rotten egg smell, which personally for me causes a flight response 🙂 When you attend hot springs in the mountains, you expect a mountainous view. Maybe – maybe – less people (although I cannot blame them for that, it is business). And of course, the real spring water.

You are so smart, my dear kuddos – of course you guessed nothing like that happened.

No view, no real spring water (due to unknown geological reasons, the spring does dry out and then re-fills itself; for the time being when its dry, the company fills it in with regular water for tourists to enjoy). No smell, but it is not like I really enjoy smelling rotten eggs, so no complaints here. There were so many people you could not freely walk.

Well, at least hot bath is relaxing anyway 🙂 I am glad at least to experience it and compare to a Japanese onsen.

Next day we paid Calgary a short visit, taking a look at the Olympic plaza. A pretty place with a skating rink, shopping street, a couple of statues – but nothing too particular about it. I still have a feeling like Calgary is waaaay more interesting than that, its just there is something I did not grasp.

2 hours in the city, and we are off to Cline River Heliport.

We stopped by in Banff again to visit Hot Springs Cave and Basin. Now, that’s hot springs! I stayed there for as long as I could keep my breath, coming out and coming back into the tunnel a couple of times.

This hot springs is located inside a cave, with a natural hole in the ceiling providing a dim daylight inside. The water is really hot, with a beautiful turquoise gloss, and of course, the smell.

Part of the spring water formed a lake outside, as you can see from the pictures above. These springs have been used by First Nations for centuries, and even now they are the only ones allowed inside the water to conduct their traditions. The turquoise color is natural, and is mostly due to bacteria populating the hot waters.

I drove along the landscape full of snowy hills, mountains, pine trees and silence. 45 minutes into the drive, and there was already no cellphone connection. The remaining time I was just driving into the woods, spinning a roulette in my head if I actually entered the address correctly. As it turned out, I did!!, and after a short safety instruction which basically could be condensed to a single phrase “do not let the helicopter blades hit you”, the heli landed and we boarded. Me and Justin shared the front seat with a pilot, behind us was a Russian couple. The heli was small, so we all kind of held our breaths to take up less space. Not a big deal, as you literally lost your speech going up over the mountains.

We were flying over the valleys, peaks, and troughs, rising higher and higher, such that the peaks of the mountains were at our eye level. The pilot was naming mountains that we passed, and we even got a glimpse at the family of white goats. There used to be lots of herbivores, but then the government started implementing a carnivore protection program, so as the bears, wolves, coyotes and lynx grew in population, so did the poor goats decrease. Life is life, unfortunately.

Many of the formations were formed as residues after the warm coral sea which used to cover the majority of Canada’s territory. Many mountains were sedimentary. In between the peaks you could see bluish ice, the million-year-old remains of the glacier which also covered America at some point.

I wish I could also tell you that after this 20-minute helicopter tour we also went to Drumheller to see some dinosaur remains, fought a bear, smoked the peace pipe, and set the Canadian flag on top of the mountain peak but unfortunately nothing like this happened and we just boarded a plane like the most obedient citizens ever.

Sending her warmest regards,

Sof.