2010 04 09 
Waking up Thursday morning, I looked outside and saw something that I didn’t think I was going to see again this year, SNOW and lots of it. I was not entirely sure what I was going to do during the day but I knew that I wanted to go out exploring.
It was around ten in the morning when I decided to wake up and finally get my day started. After messing around on my computer for an hour I finally thought it was time to get off the couch and do something productive. I had not had breakfast up to this point so I asked where the best place in Banff was to have breakfast. The person working at the front desk told me, Malissa’s.
Due to the large quantity of snow falling and I say large because each flake was huge, I decided I would go for breakfast before hiking. Looking like the abominable snowman arriving at the Malissa’s I was ready to eat.
The food was good but a little expensive for what I was getting. I ended up getting an omelet but in terms of expense, I was in Banff after all.
Once I was back at the hostel I got my gear together and said to myself, it was time for me to go exploring. The intended destination was to hike the trails along the Vermillion Lakes. In order to do this, first of all had to make my way to the start of the trail. Looking at a map of Banff and figuring out were the Vermillion Lakes were located, I decided to take one road, then another and come out into a clearing beside some train tracks. At the train tracks I meet up with a lady walking her dogs, asking her were I would have to go to make my way to the Vermillion Lakes, she pointed me down the train tracks. Like I have mentioned before, as a person who is interested by pretty much everything I was side track
ed by another set of train tracks.
By this point, the snow had stopped and I was starting to see the mountains once again. As I headed down the train tracks two large mountains stood in front of me, one of them being Cascade Mountain. The landscape was covered in a layer of pure fresh snow. Every pine tree, every shrub was covered. I had also found a small brook/pond as I was walking that had a very thin layer of ice, making for the perfect winter scenery. The only thing missing was a little sunshine to give contrast (photographically speaking). A few moments later, there it was, the mountains majestically towering in front of me with clouds lingering around them, the sun was slightly making its way through the clouds and the landscape before me was a fresh pure winter wonderland, what more would I want. As amazing as this scenery was, I’m just going to say, it came with a price, a price I don’t mind paying.
After a good hour walking around the snow-covered landscape I decided to head down the original train tracks I was told to follow. As I was making my way back I came upon a group of deer wondering along.
Finally returning to the main set of tracks I was headed on my way to the Vermillion Lake trail. Half way there I looked at the sky and said to myself, “I think I might want to head back.”
About ten feet away from the hostel I saw the first snowflake come down and within ten minutes it was snowing like a blizzard. Unlike the snowflakes that were falling in the morning the snow that was falling now were a lot smaller and blowing completely sideways due to the wind.
The snow finally decided to stop by the time I made my way to the Greyhound station, which helped out. It wouldn’t have been a bad thing had it been snowing but it made the hike a lot more comfortable. The greyhound station is about half a kilometer away from the hostel; I decided it would be best to give myself half an hour to walk there. I ended getting to the station within 15 minutes.
Now the reason I said that photographing the snow covered scenery came with a price, comes from what happened next. The bus arrived on time in Banff and took us to Calgary, although once arriving in Calgary everything changed. 
The scheduled had us departing from Calgary at midnight. When I received my luggage tag the person working at the front desk said, the bus I was intending on taking may not be leaving tonight due to weather conditions. Sure enough 11:30 pm comes around and an announcement goes over the PA, “All busses have been canceled for the night.” This left me and several other stranded at the station for the night. The next bus headed East was not scheduled to leave until noon the following day.
Trying to figure out what to do, I sat puzzled for about half an hour. Then I decided I would start taking some photos. Through my photography I meet up with a group of people who were all suppose to head to Edmonton, who all quickly became acquaintances. One of them was the most talkative, name Candy, she was very friendly and just enjoy chilling, had a very good perspective of the situation. As the night went on I started to meet up with more people and the station started to form this little community. As the little community evolved so did the interesting things that would end up happening that night.
There was this lady I meet who was from Mexico, living in Northern Canada for the past several years; at one point in the night (I think around 2 am) we were all standing around and she looked over at her bags. A gentleman was walking around looking at her bags she said, “I think that gentleman is stealing something.” So she snuck up behind the guy as he clearly leaned over picked up a box from her bag and put it in his jacket. (It was very clearly visible) Without even paying attention to her yelling at him that he had stolen her stuff he just wondered on out. Another guy, who had become part of this bus community, followed the guy outside and eventually “herded” the guy back in where security confronted him and the box was returned. STRANGE!
Well the night kept on getting stranger as well. Then around 4 am, more members in the bus community started conversing. I was wondering what was going on, so I asked Candy. She seemed to know what was going on because she had talked to pretty much everyone in the station by this point. She informed me the two guys that were just down a few benches from us just got out of prison and were looking at trying to start a fight. In the end nothing really happened, a few male jesters of dominance, a few visits by the security, wondering what was going on but nothing.
By this time it was around 4 am and I was starting to get tired. I tried sleeping across some chairs earlier but it wasn’t working. In the end I decided to take my sweaters, line them along the ground making an insulate layer and soft layer, then placed my sleeping bag over the sweaters. This ended up working and I feel asleep pretty quickly.
I managed to get a good four hours of sleep that night until the station started to get busier in the morning. Waking up it was time for breakfast and the restaurant had opened. When breakfast was done it was near departing time, thankfully everything went smoothly getting on th
e bus and it left on time.
(Just as another side note to the bus community, the section that I was in had about four elderly ladies who I spent a good portion of the night talking to. I have to say I was quite impressed that they sat at the station for 12 hours and then hopped on the bus, this is with practically no sleep.)
The bus ride went smoothly. In Canada greyhound has a very good stopping structure, always stopping for breakfast, lunch and supper. It is quite remarkable, I traveled for a day and half and we really didn’t stop for long periods of time, a lot of driving.
I have to say that I was exceptionally happy when I arrived here in Thunder Bay, not cause I was finally off the bus but because I could finally get a shower. After something like 55 hours traveling (this includes me hiking in Banff) I had not changed or had a shower, it was time!
No comments:
Post a Comment