Climb every mountain....

This morning we said goodbye to our lovely host in Banff, April, and headed off to climb Sulphur Mountain. With an elevation gain of around 2,500 feet, starting off at about 5,000 feet, this hike was described as 'moderate to strenuous' and predicted to take around 2 hours. It was fairly cool when we set off but the sun quickly broke through the cloud and it started to feel pretty warm. There was just one point around three quarters of the way up when I seriously began to question my sanity in attempting the climb, but we managed to make it to the top in under 2 hours and it was well worth it!

I did almost stage a rebellion when I realised that we still had to walk along a series of boardwalks and steps to reach the actual summit but once Jon told me to man up I managed to drag my weary  feet up the final few hundred metres.
After enjoying the view and waiting for Jon to take another 400 photos we then headed off to get the gondola back down.

After a quick trip into Banff to do some shopping we headed off along the Bow Valley Parkway towards our next destination, the town of Field in Yoho National Park. This road is apparently a great place to spot wildlife but sadly we didn't even see a squirrel, despite me peering frantically into the trees all the way.
We stopped off to do another short hike at Johnston Canyon, which is very pretty although it was slightly too crowded for for my taste.

At around 5pm we finally climbed back into the car and made our way to Edgemount  Guest House in Field. No one was in when we're arrived but we had a lovely welcome!

After meeting the owners Jason and Jessica we got settled in to their beautiful apartment and made dinner. We have both been eaten alive by mosquitos despite repeated liberal application s of DEET spray so my latest tack is to make sure we eat plenty of garlic as I seem to remember reading somewhere that the little blighters don't like it...so we had salmon, salad, wraps and sauteed garlic!! The first time we haven't eaten out, but after the meat and chips fest in Banff we felt like something healthy.

The weather has been beautiful again today, sunny and 27C. The forecast isn't great for the weekend but its very unpredictable here so we'll just see what tomorrow brings. I'm sure we'll be very happy here whatever the weather.