After our lazy day, Sunday turned out to the the first of many quite strenuous hikes, although not entirely by design! We had spotted a relatively modest hike along the Watridge Lake and Karst Trails. The most arduous part of the day looked to be a long drive up the gravel mountain road in our hire car with huge 4x4s zooming past and leaving us in thick dust clouds. Spray Lake Reservoir was a typical bright blue colour - all the lakes have tones of blue and turqu...

Saturday was a lazy day spent shopping, walk planning and blog writing. We were to be in Canmore for over a week so it was off to the supermarket first. We were surprised to find the biggest supermarket was Safeway! As ever on the trip, prices seemed significantly higher than at home. Ruth's condo was very central and turned out to be a comfortable base with a spacious open plan kitchen, dining and lounge area. The only down side we discovered that evening - coo...

Sadly Friday was our leaving day but not before a pancake breakfast. New American guests had arrived with various dietary requirements which Laura met by making normal, vegan and gluten-free pancakes! Laura asked for every bit of detail about how the guests preferred their gluten-free pancakes made only for the guest to decide she didn't want any. We exchanged knowing glances with Laura: hard to believe anyone could be so thoughtless having seen the effort and ...

Today started with another hearty breakfast and we took a long trail walk to Rock Creek with Amy and Nick. The day started overcast so no temptation to risk the mozzies in shorts! We were beginning to feel like we knew some of the wildlife signs and got excited at the fresh bear scat - laden with berry debris. From the scat we could tell that this bear had been eating buffaloberries, cranberries, roots and leaves. We got even more excited spotting bear tracks. ...

We woke to rain today but the sky was clearing and we could see some brighter patches so happily set off after another huge breakfast (French toast, sausages, fried potato cakes, pumpkin bread) for our planned canoeing trip in the knowledge that we'd only get soaked if we capsized. Anthony and Nick took us out to Rock Lake and prepared the Canadian canoe for us. Equipped with a waterproof lunch box and warm waterproof clothing we set out to paddle down the lak...