Feeling proud of ourselves we made an earlyish start (we're not among the world's natural early risers) to avoid the weekend crowds that would be making their way to Sunshine Meadows, a high alpine plain reached by bus up a ski-access road. Unfortunately it would have been better to have been able to have been proud of our full-planning for this trip. If we'd researched fully we'd have known that all of the Sunshine trails were still closed following the damage caused by the June floods. We drove out to the bottom of the access road only to find it gated and signs informing us it was closed so had to set to to find an alternative walk for the day.

We were near Banff so decided to explore the Bow Falls to Hoodoos Trail that starts from the edge of the town. The trail to the Hoodoos was through fir and pine forest along the Bow River with lovely glimpses of the magical blue water. This was very pleasant but dispiritingly coach parties of mainly Japanese tourists were also visiting the Hoodoos via the nearby parking lot, but as with most coach parties we didn't have to walk much beyond the main attraction to have the path to ourselves again. Hoodoos are a rock formation where deep glacial deposits have been eroded to form tall towers, the 'best' ones forming where there is a cap of some other material that protects the tower from being totally eroded. Dave has some good photos that we'll post that maybe show better what they are - not that easy to describe!

Following our exertions of the previous day an easy, short stroll was just what we needed and we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, sorting through our photographs back at our Canmore condo.