On my way to Lake Minnewanka
Again I woke up early and I’m glad I did because in the morning I was able to see all the mountains and it stopped snowing for a while.
I wanted to go see Johnston Ice Canyon and I asked around a lot of people in the hostel, but nobody goes there or doesn’t have a car. The people who do have a car use it to go to the ski resort for skiing.
There was no other option then to hitch hike to the canyon, which I did. I asked if someone wanted to join me, but they wanted to do other things, so I hitch hiked by myself.
I looked for a decent spot and thumb in the air :D.
Five cars passed me and the sixth one was my lucky one :). It was an old man. His name was Heinz (not from ketchup :p). He is from Germany but came here with his parents in 1950. I told him I wanted to go see the Canyon, but he heared that there was an accident on that road and that there was a huge traffic jam. He drove me to the highway to see if it was possible to drive there but it was all blocked. I told him that I also want to go see lake Minnewanka. (That was the other direction.)
Lake Minnewanka, completely frozen. That’s a boat house in the middle. Apparently there is an old town under water! Lots of divers go there to see it.
He drove me to the lake and on the way he told me a bit more about the mountains and some history :). He was like a guide. When I saw a good view for a picture, he pulled over and I could take a picture. On our way to the lake I saw an elk for the first time! 😀 I was so excited and wanted to take a picture of it of course. He also drove me back from the lake to Banff :D! I was very lucky!
Since it was still morning, I wanted to hike a bit more. I did the long hike (about 3 or 4 hours). It’s called Bow Falls and Hoodoo loop.
When I just started the trail there was a guy taking a picture of something, but I couldn’t see what it was. I came closer and it was an elk again :D. In the middle of the trail close to the city! Two elks in one day, olay :D!
Zweinstein really exsists! No, it’s just a really big hotel! 😀
The guy joined me for a bit on my walk. He was from Chicago. It was funny because Heinz was listing to Blues music in his car and after the ride, the song of the Blues Brothers (Sweet home Chicago) was in my head.
I asked the guy where home was and he was from Chicago :D.
He had to leave at 2 pm so he couldn’t come all the way with me so we said bye and went or own ways.
Where is the trail?
The trail was hard to see because there was only one person who walked it before me, so I had to follow his foot prints :D.
It was very snowy and hard to walk fast. I walked slow and looked around me very well, because the snow makes such beautiful views.
When I stopped walking for a bit, I couldn’t here a thing. It was so quiet. I like that.
I had my lunch at a view point. There were mostly clouds, but still a nice place to have lunch :). A couple of minutes later a French guy asked if he could join me.
We had our lunch together. He also did the same trail. I was getting a bit tired so I went back, while he went more up to another view point.
I didn’t want to go there because I saw the clouds coming and I knew you wouldn’t see a thing anymore and it would start snowing.
The place where I ate my lunch.
After a couple minutes I was right and it started snowing again and you couldn’t see the mountains anymore.
I’m really tired right now and will try to catch some more sleep, but there is a party going on in the room next to our room, so I don’t know if I will sleep that much.
Tomorrow I’m going to hitch hike to Johnston canyon again :)!
Butterflyperson 