May 27: An Unexpected Journey

Last night, after the curfuffle of my “delayed” luggage, I got an email from the tour company that I’d booked to go to the Royal Tyrell Museum at Drumheller: “This is to inform you that due to the unavailability of a tour guide during the Eid Festival, we regret to inform you that we are unable to operate the Drumheller Tour scheduled for tomorrow.” (They only have one available guide?) It then offered two alternative tours: one to the lakes and one to the Rockies and Columbia Icefield.

Like many of the tours I’ve pre-booked, refunds were only available with 24 hours’ notice, so I chose the second option. This morning, I put on my ski jacket and Docs and got to the city centre earlier than originally planned to catch this new tour bus.

The departure point was across the road from the Delta Hotel, where other passengers had assembled. Several tours were leaving from here, so there was some confusion at first as to who was going on which tour. Eventually, one driver called my name and I got onto his bus.

Pick-ups

We drove west, through the outskirts of Calgary.

After long travel, we arrived at the town of Canmore to pick up other passengers, including an adult family group.

We also had a quick stop at a rest area.

We then drove to Banff (where I planned to go in a couple of days) to pick up two more passengers, one with his arm in a sling but who was determined to have his holiday anyway.

Mountain Climbing

The bus went on through Highway 1 into the Rockies. Around the road were grey mountains flecked with white, and forests of trees for which the word “verdant” applies. The forests nearest the road was fenced off, and every so often, we passed under an overbridge. The driver said these measures had been put in place to reduce collisions with animals, while giving them access across the highway.

The highway followed the Bow River, until we got to Lake Louise.

Seeing the Sights

We stopped at the township of Lake Louise, surrounded by forest, mountains and cloud.

After getting something to eat and drink, we piled back into the bus and went to look at the Lake itself.

Driving on, we were now travelling the Icefields Parkway, with phone reception cut off. We stopped beside Bow Lake, still covered in winter ice.

Further on, we stopped at the trail to the viewpoint for Peyto Lake. The trail from the carpark was still covered in unmelted snow, so we and other tourists had to be careful walking.

After about 12 minutes, I reached the Lake Peyto lookout and marvelled at its gorgeous blue.

Just as carefully, I walked back to the parking area, where we waited for a few others to arrive before heading off again.

We stopped at one other observation point to see how high we’d travelled.

In the Icefields

By 2:00, at long last, we reached the Columbia Icefield Centre. It’s situated near the Athabasca, one of the major glaciers of the region, feeding three rivers leading to the Pacific Ocean, Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay.

From here ran tours to this and other glaciers—but we had to pay extra for them. I still was annoyed at not getting the tour I’d planned for, but didn’t want to hang around the Centre for three hours, so I chose the cheapest option: the Skywalk.

A bus took a group of us a few km down the road to the Skywalk. It’s a large steel-and-glass platform that extends over the Sunwapta valley, carved by glaciers long ago.

As you walk to the platform, there are displays about the history of the area and the construction of the Skywalk.

I got an excellent view of the valley; extreme high views seem to be a thing for me this week.

After getting my fill of the view, I took a bus back to the Centre and hung around there for a while. As departure time approached, I went out to the car park but couldn’t find our bus. I met a few of our other passengers also wondering where it had gone. After 10 minutes, the bus turned up again. One guest had already left on an earlier service.

Thereafter followed a three-and-half hour trip, through Banff and Canmore, back to Calgary. Got back to the hostel after 10:00pm.

If travel teaches you anything, it’s how to adapt, and a trip through Banff National Park and the Rockies was on my original itinerary, but I’m still annoyed I missed the dinosaurs at Drumheller.