Day 8 - No bears, no moose, no electricity

We didn't know what we wanted to do today. We started with pancakes for breakfast at the hostel and then made some phone calls about what to do for activities. The aerial adventure park we thought we would like to try couldn't accommodate us as they were fully booked for tours. We thought about the wildlife safari but it was going to be a hot day and we figured we wouldn't see much wildlife. They suggested 6:00pm until dark for the best possible chance of seeing wildlife, but thought we would be too tired by then to start an activity. In hind sight, probably a good call, (more on that later). On to the visitor information building and got some maps for hiking trails. The person there strongly recommended purchasing bear spray, so we did. It's not quite as intensive as purchasing a gun, but there was some paperwork to fill out, in order to purchase it.

Fairy Creek Trailhead

110m up over 2 km

We found the trail head we wanted - Fairy Creek Falls - and we checked in with the tourist centre right there so they knew we were going on the trail. Armed with bear bells, bear spray and loud voices we made our way to a very pretty waterfall. A mother bear and her cub had been seen on the trail just yesterday, but we didn't see a thing! I was actually okay with not seeing anything!! Hold on... We did meet up with ith a women who we recognized from the hostel, almost near the trailhead. She was hiking on own, but didn't seem worried. More on her later.

Remains of an old Redwood Cedar

The sun was shining off and on and it was warm and very humid. Our shirts were wet from carrying our backpacks and working out in the sun and humidity. Back to the hostel for a picnic lunch on the patio and it kept trying to rain on us. We decided to carry on with our afternoon plans for another hike. 

We drove up Island Lake Lodge road (a wonderfully, twisting and winding mountain road!) to the lodge and found a great hike to do from there. This hike took us all around the lake and we were on lookout for a moose and her calf. Again we saw nothing of any substance but the hike itself was beautiful. The sun came out in full force and again we were hot. Tinsley had a fall on the path and has a wound on her right knee to match mine. ;) We cleaned her up and carried on.

Island Lake - Panorama (click me)

Back to the hostel to clean up before going to Stony Mountain Pasta for dinner. This was an interesting, new restaurant which was recommended to us by a "local" we met on the street earlier in the day. She was actually a friend of the owner. We were there for about 15 minutes, had eaten our appetizers when we saw the wind start to blow fiercely down the main street. A few minutes later the lights and all power went out in the whole town. We saw one of the waitresses go to the front door with cell phone in hand; I presumed to call the owner. Sure enough, he showed up 10 minutes later. Aside from our table of 6, there were only 2 other couples in the restaurant, one couple left a bit later, while we stuck it out. The owner was very accommodating... His staff brought us some pita chips, hummus, and tzaziki sauce to nibble on. He'd also brough a large flashlight for each table to shine up at the ceiling for some mood lighting. He couldn't tell us when the power would be back on, but offered us salads a while later, with marinated chicken .... And then some soup, that was surprisingly still quite hot.

We stayed there for about an hour after the power went off, but decided we should make our way, as the rain storm was clearly gone. They thanked us for staying and told us "no charge... Just promise to come back another time". We told them we were leaving tomorrow and gave them what we thought was fair - lights or no lights - as the food was excellent and we left full! Jenn told me later that she overheard the owner tell the staff not to charge us and he would bring all of them some beers and food later. It sure was a funny ending to the day.

While sitting in the darkness of the storm, I couldn't help thinking it was a good thing we decided to not take that wilderness tour at 6pm. 

While driving back to the hostel, we noticed there were trees and branches down everywhere! We thought we'd take a drive to see if the passing of the storm would draw out any wildlife. This time, we saw a large heard of mule deer grazing in a field off the highway. We stopped and took some photos, while some of them stared back at us. 

Some of the girls had a craving for chocolate and ice cream, so we tried a few places. Power had been restored to part of the town. We ended up getting some donuts and headed back to the hostel. The power was on a short time later.

Oh... And remember the women from the trial in the morning? We saw her again when we returned in the evening. She had to tell us that she saw a bear on our trail, about 15 minutes after talking to us. Just our luck!

We did a bit of packing, and headed off to bed early - tired after a lot of up and down hill hiking.

Jenn & Glen

P.S.  Did you hear about the mudslide, just west of Banff yesterday.  Around 3pm a mud slide took out the entire 4 lane highway. We drove through there several times earlier this week.  Good thing we left when we did, or we wouldn't have made it to Fernie! (missed it by 30 hours)

Island Lake

Fairy Creek Falls

The grass is growing on this log

Island Lake

Another "Three Sisters" range

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