I got to hang out with Stephi for a whole 9 days! *eeeeeeeeeEEE*

I met Stephi and Brian in the Calgary airport. We picked up a rental car and drove to the town of Banff for our first night. Banff is about 2 hours west/northwest of Calgary. It’s a really nice town, surprisingly large, and it was swarming with tourists. All the streets were named after mammals, which was excessively confusing. We managed to find our hostel, and we ate dinner on the balcony of a nice restaurant downtown called the Oar and something. We also wandered around downtown for a bit. There were loads of nice shops, though lots were touristy stuff. It was probably the best shopping in the parks, if anyone else happens to head up that way. Anywho, we stayed at HI Banff. It was ok, the doors in the hallway slammed kind of loudly all night and kept me up. And the room was stuffy. But otherwise it was a nice hostel.

In the morning, Brian got up early and went for a walk. Stephi and I got up, dressed, packed, spent 20 minutes looking for him, and loaded the car before he wandered back. Much harassment ensued, hehe. We drove to the trailhead for the C-level Cirque. It was quite an uphill hike for the start of the trip. Near the top was a natural amphitheater, where we saw golden-mantled ground squirrels and pika. Stephi liked the pika. Like, a lot. Like, obsessive a lot. Brian dragged us even farther down the trail up a really steep part, but I was too out of shape to quite make it.

After hiking back to the car, we drove to Lake Louise where we were spending the next 3 nights at the HI Hostel. This was a freaking awesome hostel. The room had a loft! There was a bunk bed on the bottom floor and twin beds in the loft. We played cards and spoons and were hyper all evening, and ate at the little hostel restaurant.

Quotable Quotes: Stephi and Brian while playing Egyptian Ratscrew.

Stephi: Where the hell’s my queen?
Brian: She’s with me.
Stephi: Oh, so that’s how it is.

Day 1 birdies: Rough-legged Hawk, Rock Pigeon, Northern Flicker, Gray Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker, Black-billed Magpie, Common Raven, American Crow, Mountain Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Townsend’s Warbler, Wilson’s Warbler, Dark-eyed Junco

The next day, we hiked to Lake Agnes, the Plain of 6 Glaciers, and around Lake Louise. There were two teahouses along the way, the first was at Lake Agnes and had cute squirrels that jumped on me and stuffed their cheeks with peanuts. We hiked from there up to a viewpoint called the Little Beehive, where Gray Jays dive-bombed us for food. Seriously, they flew at our heads. We hiked from there to the Plain of 6 Glaciers. It was… far. And pretty. Brian at least seemed invigorated. After hiking all the way to the end (I made it!!) and collapsing, we hiked to the teahouse and had tea and cake and biscuits. Then all the way back to Lake Louise. Was very sore and had shin splints by the end.

Quotable quotes - Stephi, reading the map: “Wait, why are these all in kilometers?”

Day 2 birdies: Common Loon, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Gray Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker, Black-billed Magpie, Common Raven, American Crow, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Hermit Thrush, Dark-eyed Junco.

The next day we hiked to Lake Helen. I liked this hike! There were lots of birdies and it didn’t hurt my legs as much as the day before. We saw hoary marmots and more squirrels and pika. The hike took us above the treeline to rolling tundra-type vegetation. We ate lunch at Lake Helen and watched the marmots gambol about. Brian decided to hike (at light speed) up the steep, steep trail to the next ridge and walk around for awhile. Stephi and I napped and watched furry things while he tired himself out.

Stephi and Brian were really, really patient with the birding thing. They rock! They let me wander off for 10 minutes or more hunting birdies. And made up funny names for them when they couldn’t remember what they were called (see blog title). I think they learned the difference between a crow and a raven on the trip though! Maybe.

Quotable quotes: Stephi and Brian during “brains in gutter”-type conversation. In the hostel with the loft.

Brian: “But that would just make me excited, and frustrated.”
Stephi: “You have the whole downstairs to yourself, just be quiet.”

Day 3 birdies: Bufflehead, Barn Swallow, Gray Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker, Black-billed Magpie, Common Raven, Mountain Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, American Robin, Yellow-rumped Warbler (Butterbutts!), Wilson’s Warbler, Western Tanager, Dark-eyed Junco.

The next day we drove from Lake Louise to Jasper. The drive took up most of the day, with a stop at the Icefields Parkway. We took a special bus out onto a glacier at the edge of the Columbia Icefields and walked around. It was cold. But pretty, glaciers have cool blue-colored ice. We also stopped at Athabasca Falls. My shin splints appreciated the day off very, very much. In Jasper we stayed at the Seldom In, which was actually a house where they rented out rooms. It was nice, I slept on a cot on the floor but that was all ok.

After our nice day of rest, we got some advice from the hostel owner as to where to go hiking next and she suggested Bald Hills. This was a nice hike too! It started way down at Maligne Lake and went up an old fire road, though we took a fork farther up that was more of a real hiking trail. I saw a Boreal Chickadee!!! It was so close that Stephi and Brian got great looks at it too. Cute!!! Lifer!!! And a Gray Jay that was dive-bombing us for food came and landed on my hand! Robin the bird whisperer. Towards the top there was lots of ice on the ground, and it got rather cold and windy. By the time we reached the top it was really windy and standing on the hill was becoming unpleasant. We hid behind a bush and ate lunch while watching rain clouds pass over the valley we’d hiked over. We considered hiking farther but the cold weather and lack of interesting viewpoints farther on wasn’t motivating enough, so we headed back. We hiked to Moose Lake instead (Stephi and Brian were hoping to see a moose, but no luck). Then back to our hostel in Banff with dinner and some shopping.

Day 5 birdies: Common Loon, Mallard, Common Goldeneye, Rock Pigeon, Northern Flicker, Gray Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker, Black-billed Magpie, Common Raven, American Crow, Barn Swallow, Boreal Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, American Robin, Wilson’s Warbler, White-crowned Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Gray-crowned Rosy-finch, House Sparrow.

Our last hike was the Mt. Edith Cavell trail. We’d been really lucky with the weather the previous day, all the clouds had bypassed our trail and hugged the surrounding mountains. Not so lucky today. There were lots of clouds, and there was snow on the ground. Predictably, the snow got chucked in ball form. I hit Brian square in the face twice! Muehehehehe. Stephi helped. I saw more cool birdies. We went up to one of the viewpoints, and when we got to the rocky habitat above the treeline we saw White-tailed Ptarmigan! Another lifer birdie! Stephi and Brian seemed to like them too, they looked like rocks only they moved. At the top of this trail there was half an inch of snow on the hill and it was slippery hiking up. It was pretty windy and actually snowing. Cold again. We didn’t eat lunch at the top this time, and decided to head back down. At the bottom was a glacier that was melting into a pond/puddle thing that had floating icebergs. We could hear the ice cracking as we hiked. We at lunch there before heading back to the car, and on to Pocahontas.

We stayed the night at Pocahontas cabins, which were really nice. They had heaters and I had a separate room from Stephi and Brian. We went to the Miette hotsprings in the evenings, which was wonderful. They had two giant heated pools and we soaked in them for an hour and a half. Happy sore hiking muscles! Of course, at that point in the week mine were pretty well built up and complaining at me much less than they’d been our first day. But I wasn’t complaining. I won’t go into details about the guys in speedos who shouldn’t have been and the naked european women in the locker room. That evening we sung along with my iPod and played some more cards before going to bed.

Day 6 birdies: Common Loon, Mallard, White-tailed Ptarmigan, Rock Pigeon, Gray Jay, Common Raven, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, House Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco. Also a probably White-winged Crossbill, which would be a lifer if I could confirm it.

Our last day was spent driving from Pocahontas back to Calgary. We stopped in Jasper and Banff for souvenir shopping. I spent too much money on art prints. Really nice ones. Of birdies. And horsies. Our hostel was Auberge Chez Nous in Calgary. It was ok. Reception was excessively annoying, they were positively incompetent when it came to directing us to street parking and we didn’t come back from that for an entire hour. We slept in dorm rooms and had 2 other roomates, though they didn’t bother us any. I actually slept surprisingly well despite general noise (earplugs happy) until I woke up early freezing my ass off due to excess air conditioning.

Flying out of Calgary was a bit more irritating than flying in. You have to take your bag through customs after you check in and get your boarding pass. That and the security line took forever. Stephi and Brian left first, so I stayed with them until their plane boarded. I flew to SLC where I had a long layover. On the flight back to SFO the couple behind me let their toddler climb all over the seats and cough on my head. I have a cold now, and I really wish I’d grabbed the little diseased pest and strung him up from the overhead bins by his ankles. Grr.

For photos of our Banff trip, click here!