Banff Gondola

On Friday it was -25oC up the mountain, so our planned skiing trip was quickly scrapped and a new plan was made.  We went up the Banff Gondola which took us up to the top of Sulphur Mountain.  It was a perfect day to go too because the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

 The tiny mountain in the bottom middle part of the picture is Tunnel Mountain.  It's so tiny!

The gondola takes 8 minutes to reach the summit of Sulphur Mountain, reaching an elevation of 2281m (7486ft).  At the summit there is a 1km walkway called the Banff Skywalk, which took us along the summit ridge and leads to the Cosmic Ray Station and Sanson's Peak Meteorological Station.  Sanson's peak was named in honour of Norman Sanson, the observer who tended the recording equipment for nearly 30 years, and had to make countless trips to the top of this peak to check/mend the equipment.  The little hut that he would stay in sometimes really didn't seem very warm!  The views from the walkway were just breathtaking.  Even now the photos we took don't seem to give it justice!  It was just amazing!!  We're definitely going to go back up in late May when the snow will have melted, just to see what a difference it makes.  Also in the summer its much more likely we'll see some wildlife, i.e. golden eagles, goats and marmots.

I took a video of the mountains from the summit to try to show the 360oC view that we had...

Last weekend was family day weekend, an Alberta holiday, which meant working a crazy number of hours for me.  I think it is also half term, so this week Nick has had to work a lot too!  Hopefully next week we'll be back to normal and have plenty of time to do some fun things.  I really want to go to the Columbia Icefields (but it doesn't open until April), and at some point we're thinking of going to Revelstoke skiing because we've heard some great reviews of the resort.  I think its about 4 hours away depending on the weather.  We've been in Canada now for 4 months, and time has gone so quickly.  There's a few books on Canada in our house, so we've been doing a little research on what we'd still like to still see and places to go.