I'm in love with a fairytale

and it's a small town called Canmore

onsdag 14 juli 2010

I'm back from my week in the Rockies, and I'm so happy that I chose to stay in Canmore. With it's population of 12,000 and only half an hour drive from Banff, Canmore is a good alternative if you're there to see the mountains and not the tourists. It's not that it's not tourists there, many of them (and things that comes along with them), but while in Banff you feel like you as a tourist make the town, in Canmore you're more of a guest, and the Canmoreans are just happy to share their cute little alpine town with you. And if you're going there and want to stay in a hostel, I can recommend “The Hostel Bear”. It's nicely located only few blocks from the town centre, is quiet, clean, good lounge with pool table, tv and a weekendly open bar, great great kitchen (a wonderful thing for everyone who travels on a budget) and staff (on the call) for you 24/7. It's an easy place to meet other travellers too.

The negative thing of my week in the Rockies is that i didn't have a car. So many things to see, and not everything is accesible without travel a bit. But all in all I had a great time there. I got a few hikes, some easy ones -trails along “Bow river” that goes straight through town (and Banff), the valley, and a more hilly one, “Mt Lady MacDonald”. I also did a rafting trip with “Canadian Rockies”; The Kicking horse was fun. It was a full day trip, to Golden, BC, where we went down Kicking horse river, and we got to do the rapids twice. The water was cold though, discovered that when I went for a swim The trips ends with a lunch at the HI in Lake Louise. Highly recommended!

I also got to see Canmore Nordic Centre, olympic arena from Calgary 88. Lot's of mountain bike trails to choose from here in the summer, and in the winter; heaven if you like cross country skiing. From here you can walk an easy trail (4 km round trip) to Grassi lakes – beautifully clear green lakes that takes your breath away, and a water fall on your way up (not the most impressive water fall, but a good and beautiful one none the less). Just make sure as you cross Bow River to not loose your shoe in the water, cause the river's fast and cold, yes I'm talking from experience. Don't know how it happened but to make the story short, my water bottle, my shoe and me all ended up in the water (the later one, twice).
The room I stayed in had room for six, and had a high rate of Aussies. But I like Aussies, great people, makes me wanna visit Australia myself I befriended a few of them and spend some great days with them. Like one day in Banff with Sarah and Anicka, and my last day, Bell and Mel let me come with them to famous Lake Louise! Lake Louise really is beautiful, but we got all kinds of weather from, nice and sunny to cold and rainy – gotta love thunderstorms. Unfortunately it was too cold and rainy to really enjoy Moraine Lake when we drove there later same day. But worth seeing anyway, it's beautiful.