Wow, Eh?

We woke up early on Thursday morning with plans for an all-day hike in a nearby alpine meadow, but we were looking at the worst weather we’d seen since we’d been in Canmore. Massive gray clouds were hanging over the mountains in all directions, so much so that at their worst you couldn’t even see that there were mountains there. We decided to reschedule for the next morning, but it looked virtually the same on Friday, so finally we had to just suck it up and hope that the weather improved.

It did. By the time we got to the parking log, the fog had lifted and the sky was a clear, beautiful blue. We caught a ride with a ski resort “shuttle” that turned out to be nothing more than a school bus that was hardly suited to the task of climbing a steep, winding dirt road up a mountain.

We arrived safely, though, and almost immediately the views were magnificent. It was surprisingly warm even at elevation, but with a cooling breeze. We were immersed in crisp mountain air and a vibrant sea of green grass peppered with wildflowers. After a short walk to even higher elevation, we came upon the first of three alpine lakes:

We lunched on sandwiches we’d packed and fought off ridiculously aggressive squirrels who were clearly accustomed to being fed, then headed off for the next of the three lakes in the area. Along the way, we came upon an unexpected surprise. A brief spur trail lead to a breathtaking view out over the Rockies and the Simpson River Valley:

The second and third lakes did not disappoint:

The pictures really don’t do the place justice, because while individual views were splendid, the best part of all was the atmosphere of being up in this rarefied air. The meadow (once you get past all the ski lifts and other apparatus) is like this amazing world hidden way up in the mountains. In some places there are stands of pine trees, but in others vast expanses of grass and hills roll off into the horizon. Squirrels and other little mammals scamper all around you, so that the ground looks alive with their movement, and their chirping fills the air (it took me a while to realize the sound wasn’t from birds, of which we saw very few).

The squirrels are kind of cute but get old and even annoying quickly. I soon grew to dislike them, particularly when they tried to steal my food. We eventually spotted this little guy, who was most likely a weasel. They do sometimes take over abandoned dens, but I like to think that he killed and ate a squirrel or two to claim this place as his home.

Of course an alpine meadow is also a delightful place for bears, both black and grizzly, so we carried bear spray, talk and called out loudly, and scanned the horizon constantly for movement. As much as we didn’t want to encounter one up close, we would have loved to see a few from a distance, but it was not to be.

After hiking around the three lakes, there’s an optional spur that climbs nearly straight up several hundred feet to an observation point. It was well worth the effort, because it afforded a spectacular view of the whole area we’d just traversed:

By the way that little puddle front and center is not one of the three lakes; you can only see two of them in this picture. The third, Grizzly Lake, is behind, below, and off to the right of the rearmost lake seen here.

While we were taking in this awesome view, a friendly Canadian couple joined us at the viewpoint. The man surveyed the vista for a moment and then proclaimed, breathlessly and without a hint of self-consciousness, “Wow, eh?” This is probably patronizing and maybe a little offensive to Canadian readers, but what can I say? I just love that Canadian people really do say, “eh” so much!

We had two options for catching the return shuttle: retrace our ascent to the meadow area, approximately 2.2 km, or take a new route that was twice as long back around the other side of the ridge. We opted for the latter, and our new friends warned us that we ought to hurry as the last shuttle would be leaving in about two hours. We didn’t dawdle, but it took us barely an hour to return by that route, and it was well worth it. There was nothing on the scale of the lakes or the viewpoints, but it wasn’t nearly as cluttered with skiing detritus as the main path, and it was far less crowded. The lack of people made it our best shot at seeing bears, though we still had no luck. It was pretty nonetheless:

It turned out there was no need to rush, as the bus sat for like 15 minutes past the scheduled departure time. I thought maybe they were waiting for stragglers but finally the driver told us, in a really annoyed voice, that we were all waiting on his manager, who needed to ride down with us. He told us she routinely holds up the last shuttle but that he’d gotten himself in enough trouble trying to rush her in the past. He gladly let a passenger off the bus to go bang on the door and point angrily at her watch, though. When the manager did board, the driver started the bus immediately and put it into gear while she was walking back to her seat, causing her to stagger and nearly fall. I don’t think he’s going to have a job much longer, which is a shame, because I liked his style and thought it was pretty obnoxious that the manager kept a busfull of customers waiting for her slow ass.