We must have been super tired last night because everyone slept in. We decided during last night’s planning session that we would check out Canmore and Banff today. The first thing I noticed as we were leaving the condo was how much traffic there was today. I think because of the gorgeous weather, many people were in Canmore exploring the area. We spent a couple of hours in downtown Canmore touring around the various shops.
We left downtown and headed up to the Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park which is at the foot of Mount Rundle. There are trails for mountain biking, cross-country skiing and hiking. It also hosts the national training camps for Canada’s biathlon and cross-country ski teams. The Rundle Mountain Cycle Club was hosting events there today which we stopped to watch. The one event had participants riding as many laps as they could in forty-five minutes. The lap included a section where the riders had to carrying their bikes up a hill.
It was time to find some wildlife. We headed up Three Sisters Parkway which becomes the Smith Dorrien Trail. The road is gravel and dusty with lots of washboards. We kept driving enjoying the beautiful scenery and finally we came upon some mountain sheep. They were standing in the middle of the road licking the salt.
Now we had a decision to make. Do we keep going on this dusty road or do we turn around and go back. We decided to keep going but not for too long before we turned around. We ended up at The Wood for dinner in downtown Canmore.
It was now about an hour before sunset which is a great time for wildlife spotting. So it was off to do the Lake Minnewanka scenic drive. We came across a bunch of cars stopped at a clearing. We looked and saw two bull elks fighting. This is something that we have never seen before.
Once we finished the loop, we had a choice to make. Do we head back to Canmore or keep looking for wildlife. We voted for more wildlife so we did the Tunnel Mountain drive in Banff. When we were here in July, this was the road where we spotted a bear. Unfortunately today we saw nothing. Before heading back to Canmore, we did the Lake Minnewanka drive one last time. The only wildlife we spotted were deer.
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