Banff, Canada - Travel with Theresa and Kyle of the Mountain Town Ramblers

In this episode, Carol and Kristen talk with Theresa and Kyle hosts of the Mountain Town Ramblers Podcast. They live in Edmonton, Alberta and have a passion for mountain towns, hikes, craft breweries and local restaurants, most especially those in the Canadian Rockies. They frequently visit Banff and the adjacent National Park, which they feel is one of the most beautiful mountain towns in Canada, if not the world. We talk about the reasons for it's popularity among tourists, and the diverse activities available there, such as rock climbing, ice climbing, and enjoying the scenic beauty of mountains, waterfalls, and lakes.

 We also talk about how the podcast has become a motivating factor for them to travel regularly and engage with others, creating a fun and more fulfilling way of living. We discuss how their podcasting journey, learning about technology, sharing stories, and becoming more intentional with their travels has helped them grow and evolve. So, please join us for this rambling conversation about outdoor adventures and their experiences in various mountain destinations.

 If you'd like to get in touch, Theresa and Kyle can also be found at mountaintownramblers.com.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mountain_town_ramblers/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087674772905
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mountaintownramblers/featured

Map of Banff

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hi, welcome to our podcast. We're Next Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. Each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. In this episode, we're meeting with Teresa and Kyle from the Mountain Town Ramblers podcast. We will learn about Banff that is B-A-N-F-F, which is one of the most beautiful towns in the Canadian Rockies. If you enjoy our podcast, can you please follow us and give us a review? It's a super easy, quick task that really helps the show. Enjoy the episode. Thanks, truce and Carl, for joining us today from Mountain Town Ramblers in Banff, which I know nothing about, so I'm super excited to learn about it.

Speaker 2: 1:08

Perfect Thanks for having us.

Speaker 3: 1:10

We're so excited to teach you everything we know about Banff.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Great. And so now, how long? How did this whole thing start? How long have you been going, and do you do you just do Banff, or do you do other places as well?

Speaker 3: 1:23

That's a really good question. Well, we have been doing this podcast for just over a year. We released our first podcast last March. We have just released yeah, it's really exciting we just released our 25th episode, and the idea at the time was just to talk about and share stories of beautiful mountain towns that we go to, and so there's really no limit of the towns that we go to. Banff just happens to be very conveniently close to us and, we think, one of the most beautiful mountain towns in Canada, if maybe not, if not the world.

Speaker 2: 1:56

I don't know, I don't know. We'll have to go to the mall and see what I know.

Speaker 3: 2:00

I know we get the luxury of being able to go to Banff quite frequently, but we do. We have gone into Idaho. We're going to be releasing some episodes on Ireland in the next coming weeks. So we go. We don't live it ourselves, we like to go everywhere.

Speaker 1: 2:15

And where do you live?

Speaker 2: 2:16

Oh well, we live in Edmonton, alberta, which is probably about a three hour drive from the mountains. It's about four hours from bath.

Speaker 1: 2:23

So Okay, gotcha, I see I just hear Edmonton, I think hockey, I'm wearing my hockey hat. So how did this whole thing start with you wanting to do and launch a podcast? And in the mountains I'm a huge mountain and even more so lakes and mountains kind of person, so you know you're going to like that a lot.

Speaker 2: 2:45

For sure I've been there. I actually have.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Nice Junior high. It was a long time ago, but I do remember Lake Louise the hotel. I can't remember what the hotel is.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Well, that Springs or Chateau, Lake Louise, which one you're looking at? Yeah, Beautiful.

Speaker 3: 3:01

Tell us how we started it. Yeah, they're beautiful.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Tell us how we started. It was your idea. Yeah, basically it just started with an idea to I don't know. Just document and tell some stories. I think originally I was going to do it on my own and then I thought, well, why would I not invite my new significant other to help out?

Speaker 2: 3:22

And so we've only been dating slightly longer than I think this podcast is actually in age and so, yeah, early on we I said you know what, this is gonna be a lot more fun and with you involved, and we're doing all these things together anyway. So we just sort of changed the idea, broadened it out a little bit, and now we just it's a journal of our travels, it's advice, it's, I think it's the idea that we are not really experts when it comes to mountains although we're starting to feel that way now but we are on this journey of trying to learn and how to do these things and then make it accessible for other people, cause a lot of people are are a little bit intimidated by going for hikes in the wilderness.

Speaker 2: 4:00

I know I was three or four years ago for sure, and now I can't imagine not doing it on a pretty regular basis.

Speaker 3: 4:07

And I think something that accidentally happened was the continual involvement of our podcast. We're really on this learning journey for everything the technology, how to do a podcast and share our stories and how to get the word out there but we're also on a journey to figure out how to be more intentional with our travels and learn more about where we're going, and that I think the process of this podcast has been a really cool blessing in disguise that we did not really anticipate happening. We've learned so so much about the history of the places that we go. We've had this intention to meet people and talk to people when we go to these towns, which has been an unexpected positive of this podcast yeah, and learning the history and knowing, you know, the people that, uh, are there now and the people that were there before.

Speaker 2: 4:57

That it is very interesting. And because we sort of have a schedule, we're kind of forcing ourselves to have to travel every few weeks. It's too bad, whereas, you know, maybe we might be like, oh, I'm too tired to go to the mountains this weekend. You want to do it or skip it, but now we're kind of forced to do those things and it's, it's fun. And then we're forced to interact with people because we talk and we meet people and it's been a lot of fun and we've. You know, it's a good way to live life and I think that's what we're starting to learn from this oh my gosh, that's such a great question story.

Speaker 1: 5:26

So do you guys work, are you retired or uh, you know how are you setting? We're all pretty still done for retirement but do you work and then you just plan trips because you've done you said 25 of them so far- yeah, so I'm.

Speaker 2: 5:41

I'm a teacher and so I have my you know full-time teaching job, and Teresa works for the Alberta government and that's a full time it's. I don't know, I keep talking over you maybe, but I think, for me at least, I need these things because the job search quite stressful and, although it makes us very, very busy all the time, I find myself far less stressed than I think I used to be a year ago when, you know, we weren't out and doing the things.

Speaker 3: 6:06

Well, you know what I've just noticed in the last couple of months I find myself getting if it's been more than three or four weeks since we've done one of these getaways and excursions into the wilderness, I find myself getting really anxious and not as clear in my thinking. So I have become dependent on that reprieve and the time in nature to be able to ground myself. I've really appreciated that.

Speaker 1: 6:32

Yeah, that's a good addition for sure. And do you guys go just car and drive and hike around? Do you backpack at all, or how do you?

Speaker 3: 6:40

set it up. It varies. Sometimes we explore provincial parks that are an hour away from our house. If we don't have a lot of time, we just have one day, but we still want to get outside and learn about a new space. If we plan, we usually plan for one weekend a month at least, and usually that's driving. Well, no, it's been driving. Every time it's been driving.

Speaker 2: 7:02

You just flew to Ireland. I did, I did.

Speaker 3: 7:03

No, it's been driving every time it's been driving. You just flew to Ireland, I did, I did, you didn't come with me. No, so usually we drive, we'll stay at a hotel or we'll camp. We have done multi-day back country hike. Last summer was our first one. That was an adventure in and of itself. It was hilarious and also torturous.

Speaker 2: 7:25

No, that's not the right word. It was fun, it was a lot of fun, and that's kind of what our journey has been too. We, we're not campers, we're not back country hikers like this is we're sitting, we're new, right, and so yeah you know, covid sort of brought that out like where can we go when we're not allowed to go anywhere?

Speaker 2: 7:46

And the mountains are only a few hours away? We had been to them before. We've all been to the towns, but we stay in the towns, we eat at the restaurants, we look at the mountains, we go home, right, and this has been something different. So we have, you know, a whole episode in there about our adventures in the backcountry of Jasper National Park and, like we're not always doing the right thing at all, we're learning to do that.

Speaker 3: 8:12

We make a lot of mistakes in many areas. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1: 8:17

That's such a silver lining for the COVID pandemic. You know you made some mistakes. How have you prepared for some of your trips? Just going online and then, good, there's really not good content, or then you just end up making new content, or well, well, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 8:33

I know that's like the content is good and we sometimes know what to do, but, um, sometimes it's the execution.

Speaker 2: 8:39

Yeah, maybe we're lacking in so you're forgetting the bear sprays in the car, having sandwiches in our pockets when we probably should. I know like it's just forgetting water going on a 20k hike and realizing 3k and we didn't bring any water. It's things that you know, we know. Now we have boxes in the back of the car that you know we have stuff in and you look at the box and make sure the you know we have the stuff we need and I don't know.

Speaker 3: 9:07

It's just goofy and we we do silly things and we don't take ourselves too seriously no, my motto throughout this whole year has been we're failing forward, so we'll make a mistake and we'll learn from it, and that's it's just been this really cool growing opportunity. But I have learned a lot about hiking and gear and adventuring through social media, which he is not on.

Speaker 2: 9:30

He does not go on social media but I join our, our social media, but I'm not on there.

Speaker 1: 9:37

I don't do very much either.

Speaker 3: 9:39

I do Facebook, but that's pretty much yeah, it's been a minor there's so many experts out there that have these great accounts, that share their, their learnings and their lists and their gear recommendations, and I've really learned a lot from that and also realized that, holy smokes, there's so many places that I want to go to in the world.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Yes, that's what we're learning. I thought I had like Portugal, but now I'm like oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Portugal, the Philippines, thailand, vietnam, like Ecuador, you're going to have Banff, carol. Yes, banff is pretty amazing. Well, I was going to say your 25 destinations. Have they aside from it? Looks like I don't know if Ireland's still there, but are they all in Canada? Or have you gone to the US, or what's that look?

Speaker 2: 10:21

like We've gone to the US, so we did one on Japan. So we do have an episode on Japan. So that's, teresa had lived there for a year and so we felt like, even though we hadn't been there in the last few years, we could do an episode on it, because she had lived there for a year.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Nice.

Speaker 2: 10:37

I did an episode on Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France, which in France, which is sort of the starting point of the Camino de Santiago, and that's something I have done four times and so I felt like I could do that and it's a nice mountain town with, and I felt like I could remember enough, but I haven't been there in three years.

Speaker 1: 10:53

What was the town called?

Speaker 2: 10:55

Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, so it's just on the border between France and Spain, and it's a, it's really that historical or that traditional starting part for the, the Camino de Santiago.

Speaker 1: 11:09

Yeah, we did an episode.

Speaker 2: 11:10

Oh, you did yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Did you do the trek four times or just been to the town four times?

Speaker 2: 11:14

No, I've done the trek four times. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's one of my favorites and yeah, it was brilliant. So we did an episode there, and then we have four episodes in Idaho, and then we've done some other things in Washington and Oregon, but we didn't do any podcasts on it. We we went there this summer, we did the West coast trail and did some things there, but we wanted that to be a vacation. We didn't want to work and we regret that now. Why didn't we do that? All over sort of you know north pacific, northwest and then western eye, and then you know some international destinations and someone is planning a week for us this summer, but I don't know it.

Speaker 3: 11:54

He's keeping the destination a surprise, so it could be the states. He won't give in. He won't give me any clues. No, well, if it's.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Colorado or Yosemite. You have to call one of us okay, and that's. That's the area you're in yeah, I'm in California and she's in Colorado okay, yeah, colorado was on our very high on our list of places.

Speaker 2: 12:17

We were considering going this summer for sure, so I was just there.

Speaker 1: 12:21

I just came back yesterday and Carol and I were hiking in the Flatirons and Mount Sanitas and Bedrock Amphitheater.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Had some fun little trips and things, but yeah and actually I do, I backpack and I hike and I'm pretty outdoorsy. But I have a trip I'm planning June 1st through the 4th with women who are interested in backpacking. So I'm doing Yosemite in a couple of weeks or next month I guess. So yeah, with the snow, I'm trying to figure out all the. You know what we have to do. Actually, I found out we have to hike from the valley floor up to Glacier Point, which is great. Well, I'll switch backs to you. But yeah, it's going to. It'll be fun though.

Speaker 2: 13:00

Nice, that's exciting.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Yeah, absolutely so. Well, let's dive into Banff. So I'm so excited to hear all about it. Yeah, learn, learn more, because it has been over 20 years for me. Yeah, so it looks like Banff is a town and a national park. So do you have you explored all?

Speaker 2: 13:18

of it.

Speaker 3: 13:20

I get to to miss anything, so here I go. So Banff National Park is Canada's first national park. It was created in the late 1800s. Did I get it Okay?

Speaker 2: 13:31

I'm not going to say 1880 something.

Speaker 3: 13:34

Okay, we won't get the years. But there is, the town of Banff is the main town or residential area within that national park it is located. So it's in the Canadian Rockies. So the Canadian Rockies span from north to south, the border of BC and Alberta, and so if you fly into Calgary it's an hour and 20 minute drive from the city of Calgary to Banff, so convenient to get to for international travelers and for anybody in Alberta. Most Albertans, I would say, have gone to the Canadian Rockies and Banff. So there's two national parks in the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta side Jasper National Park and Banff National Park. Banff is by far the most popular tourist destination. There are about 4 million tourists come and visit Banff every year, and it's a tiny little town.

Speaker 2: 14:28

There's what?

Speaker 3: 14:28

five or six thousand people it's a small town, um, but it is definitely a resort town. It was built and established to accommodate the tourism industry and um visitors, so it's very quaint and beautiful and convenient for people to get to and travel around.

Speaker 1: 14:45

I was wondering too, because I remember being there. I remember seeing rock climbers and getting a tank top that I wore for like 20 years it was a long time and it was like it was a tie dye and it had a picture of a rock climber and it said Banff on it, but weren't there. I'm remembering correctly, right, Because I think I was watching rock climbers.

Speaker 2: 15:05

And it was definitely rock climbers, for sure. Ice climbers as well in the winter. Yeah, all sorts of things.

Speaker 3: 15:11

The town of Bath is nestled within this beautiful Bow Valley and there are some of the most stunning rocky mountains surrounding the town Cascade Mountains, one of the most famous ones but there are so many beautiful mountains and cliffs and heights and rock climbers it's waterfalls lakes, yeah, it's the lakes kristin yeah, so beautiful lake louise lake louise is lake louise is the most popular lake for tourists.

Speaker 3: 15:40

There's also moraine lake, which is the one of those beautiful glacial color lakes that's situated at the base of the valley of the 10 peaks, it's called so there's 10 beautiful mountain peaks in the background. It's on money dollars to donuts. You will have seen a picture of that lake. You will be like, oh, that's it. I've seen that before Because it's so beautiful, it's everywhere.

Speaker 1: 16:00

And I see Lake Minnewanka looks very long.

Speaker 3: 16:04

So beautiful. That's the longest lake in Banff.

Speaker 2: 16:06

Yeah, it's also the deepest, I think too, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 16:08

Yeah, and that lake has a cool story. There was a dam that was built in the 30s after the recession and that lake rose. Was it 30 feet Over 30 feet and it completely submerged a resort town that was just on the base of that lake. So right now at the bottom of this lake, because it's so frozen as a completely intact little resort town and there's people that come scuba dive to go and travel through this little town in the bottom of this lake.

Speaker 1: 16:38

It's so cool, oh my goodness, yeah, that's very unusual. Oh, my goodness, that sounds so. It's still. The town is still underwater to this day.

Speaker 3: 16:47

Completely preserved because of the temperature of the water. What is it called? Oh, I don't remember the name of it.

Speaker 2: 16:54

Yeah, it wasn't so much. Was it a town or a resort that had some, I think, town, where I mean it might be overstating town? A half dozen buildings Village, yeah resort yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:06

No, not Hamlet.

Speaker 2: 17:07

Yeah, but it was near Nake Minnewanka. Near Minnewanka. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, when they built the dam, they, you know, they knew that that was going to get covered up to to make way for the electrical stuff that they're doing there, right. So, but, yeah, resorts, I don't know. I haven't seen any pictures of it, but and we haven't been down there, but we see the scuba divers going going down.

Speaker 3: 17:29

It's way too cold.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Oh, that's how high is the water? Like over the town? Is it like you're just swimming?

Speaker 2: 17:36

next, oh it's pretty, oh no no, it's deep, it's very, very deep, yeah, yeah, you're not going to be swimming in there, and just like there's the town, like you've got a scuba dive to get there for sure yeah, but I wondered if it's like I don't know, but I just know feet, I don't even I want to say it was at its deepest, like how?

Speaker 2: 17:55

no, we wrote this in the travel guide, so we're trying to remember. But, like I want to say 60 meters, so that's going to be like 120 feet or 130 feet. But I could be, I could be totally making that up was that is going to fact check.

Speaker 3: 18:07

That I'm going to fact check. Was that an intentional segue to the travel guide? I liked how you slipped that in there, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:14

Yeah Well, it's a travel guide. Where did you find that? On the mountain ramblers website? Yeah, so we're.

Speaker 2: 18:20

We're the authors of the travel guide, but we're not the actual owners of it. Our friends that live in Utah actually they're. They're called we're in the Rockies. So if you go to we're in the Rockiescom, I think, right, that's the website. Yeah, you'll find the travel guide that we wrote for Beth and Jasper, but it's actually their guide and they sell it there. But we highly recommend it because we wrote them. So it's one that we like and we did a lot of research on that. But how did you find how deep it was?

Speaker 3: 18:45

No.

Speaker 2: 18:46

Yeah, we'll see if we can get back to you on that one, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:50

It's funny, when I see we're in the Rockies, I think Colorado, but you're saying the Canadian Rockies, right, because that's what you also called it. Well, we're in the.

Speaker 3: 19:00

Rockies is the name of the owner of the guide, so they're actually a couple. In Utah. We call them our American counterparts. Yes, they're our doppelgangers. So they explore Zion, oh gosh.

Speaker 2: 19:16

Yellowstone.

Speaker 3: 19:16

Yellowstone. Yellowstone, red Rock, anything in Utah, for sure they have a YouTube channel and they share information on history and hikes and things to do in those places too. So they reached out to us and said hey, we want to do a guide on Bath. You're the experts on Bath, Quote unquote Help us out. So we did, we did, yeah nice.

Speaker 2: 19:38

Oh, that's great, which was very exciting for us, because we got to learn a lot of that history that we didn't really know. We go, we travel, we know where the hikes are and things like that. Well, 142 meters is the depth of that lake, by the way, so 450.

Speaker 1: 19:54

Wow so no one's going down to see the hotel, then right.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Well, whatever, no, well, no, they use scuba dive down there. Yeah, so you put on the full gear, the scuba gear, and people go to see it? Apparently, we have not. Yeah, how far?

Speaker 1: 20:09

do you scuba dive down A couple hundred feet? That's a lot, I know. Yeah, as you can see, that is definitely something I haven't done, but not too many people, absolutely. So in Banff, what do you recommend in terms of staying, getting there, being there?

Speaker 2: 20:28

Yeah, well, I mean getting there. If you're coming internationally, if you're not coming from driving distance, you're flying into Calgary. You're probably renting a car or taking a shuttle from Calgary to Banff, which they do exist. There are buses that go Once you're in Banff. They have an excellent transit system that takes you around the park.

Speaker 3: 20:48

Rome transit yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:49

So you don't you actually don't have to have a car. They have bus stops in the middle of nowhere, right Like it's like at Trailheads there'll be a bus stop, because that's one of the things. Now, it does not go every single place, so we would recommend getting a car if you really want to get out there, but there's certainly ways you could do it without.

Speaker 1: 21:07

And how far of a drive is it from Calgary to Banff town?

Speaker 2: 21:11

One hour 20 minutes. One hour 30 minutes. So you'll 20 minutes. One hour 30 minutes, you'll drive through what's called.

Speaker 1: 21:15

It's like Denver to Estes Park, almost like Rockman Mountain National Park.

Speaker 2: 21:18

But it's a beautiful drive because you'll drive through Kananaskis Provincial Park, you'll drive through Canmore, which is actually probably the more reasonable place to stay as opposed to Banff, and then you'll enter the National Park into Banff, but you'll be in mountains. Almost within 20 minutes or 30 minutes of leaving Calgary, you'll be in the mountains.

Speaker 1: 21:36

Oh, okay, yeah, oh nice. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:45

When we went, we went to stay with family in Vancouver and then we drove to Vancouver. You have 12 hours of mountains all the way to Calgary.

Speaker 1: 21:49

Then, yes, yeah, we, we cut it. We stayed in a hotel that had a water slide.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Oh yes, we were all happy.

Speaker 1: 21:57

I think there was like a mcdonald there or something like that.

Speaker 2: 22:00

Yeah, so, places to recommend, like I know that was their question. Um, I don't think you go to the park without going to lake louise, for sure. Yeah, uh, when you're at lake louise you definitely want to tour around the chateau, lake louise and, and that's the also sort of the sister hotel to the bamf springs hotel and bamf and these also sort of the sister hotel to the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff and these were built from the railway back in the 1880s I want to say 1883 if I remember correctly but these were built as tourist attractions to help fund and encourage, you know, tourists to come and use the train. So the hotels were built before the towns were there and they've got really good and interesting history. So checking out the two Fairmont hotels that were built well over 100 years ago now is definitely worth doing. Lake Louise is gorgeous and there are many, many hikes. There are some tea houses up in the wilderness where you can hike to. Oh, that's interesting and some, you know, beautiful things.

Speaker 3: 22:58

I saw an avalanche from the tea house last summer, two summers ago, so scary, yeah there's a gondola too in the summer behind lake louise that there's a gondola you can take up. Uh, lots of people see bears on the journey up. It's bear country there, for sure. But so in the in the winter it's a really popular, um world-renowned ski resort. Yes, for lake louise so, but in the summer they use that gondola for dining up at the top of the mountain. You have beautiful views of the lake up above and you can see the wildlife in that area.

Speaker 1: 23:27

It's really pretty so lake louise, is it actually a lake?

Speaker 3: 23:31

you haven't tried oh yes it's gorgeous, yeah it's a lake and there's a village there called the village of Lake Louise, and then there's a ski resort behind the lake. Oh, it's so pretty.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Okay, so I see Lake Louise. Oh, there, it is Okay. Just too far out there, okay.

Speaker 2: 23:46

Yeah, so you should see the Chateau Lake Louise right on the shore of Lake Louise. Yes, Wow. And I think that has been on our money somewhere along the line too, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of the mountains on our money A lot of mountains on our money. That's a good place to be.

Speaker 1: 24:05

And then I remember doing like kayaking and things on.

Speaker 3: 24:08

Yeah, was it Lake Louise that I did it on, I'm assuming, or was there, I feel like maybe it was another lake next to it, Cause it didn't feel like and like so tiny, oh tiny lake, Maybe not. So Moraine Lake and Lake Louise are pretty big. Oh well, Lake Louise Is that, they're not too too big.

Speaker 2: 24:34

They're several kilometers across on Lake Louise, but you they do have the boat rentals, kayak and canoe rentals right in the the shack, but so does moraine lake as well like minnewanka and lake minnewanka as well. Yeah, so lake minnewanka might feel small because it's small at the front, but then it goes and wraps around the mountain.

Speaker 3: 24:49

I don't know but there's a little loop it's called lake minnewanka scenic drive, and along this little loop there are tons of places to go and stop. Lake Minnewanka is the big draw on the scenic drive. There's a ghost town there called Bankhead, and then there's another couple of smaller lakes that are maybe a little bit more amenable to paddling and kayaking.

Speaker 2: 25:13

Johnson Lake. Johnson Lake, two Jack Lake. Johnson Lake, two Jack Lake. Yeah, so I mean there isn't a shortage of lakes and there isn't a shortage of canoe rental places and kayak rental places there. So it's hard to say which one you might have been on, but you can certainly do that at Lake Louise for sure.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Yeah, yeah, and how far is Lake Louise from the other lake you mentioned? Is it like?

Speaker 2: 25:33

a you take a shuttle between them. 20 minutes, yeah, something like that. Depending on traffic, it could be an hour, but I think it's 15 to 20 minutes, something like that.

Speaker 3: 25:43

They're not far from each other the, the national park just removed the ability of private cars to go into and drive to moraine lake this year. So it's a big thing for tourists who are wanting to go and do sunset hikes up to moraine lake they year. So it's a big thing for tourists who are wanting to go and do sunset hikes up to moraine lake. They can no longer take their car, so the shuttles are the only way they can get there and some of them don't operate. That time it's a big controversy on on instagram.

Speaker 2: 26:07

There's no more shuttle to moraine lake the problem is there's so much of a parking problem in july and august in bam that they're really trying to encourage people to use the shuttles whenever possible.

Speaker 1: 26:17

Yeah, yeah, which leads me to the question of how, when is the best time to go and what's the weather, like you know, because I figured snow, because it's Canada and anyway, yeah, yeah, do you want this one?

Speaker 3: 26:31

okay, so that's a good assumption that there's snow. Winter can be very long and cold in canada, but that makes bath a very good destination for skiers. There's three major ski resorts, so if you're a big ski buff or you like like cross-country skiing or skating, winter's a great time to go snowshoeing.

Speaker 3: 26:50

Yeah, we love winter hiking. There's no hiking season for us the whole year's hiking season so winter is a good time to go if you like skiing and there's no hiking season for us the whole year's hiking season. So winter is a good time to go if you like skiing and there's also less crowds in the winter. It's also cheaper. It's also cheaper, okay, um, summer is beautiful in terms of the weather that you get. You get really long days. Our daylight hours are up to 18 hours of daylight in the summertime. It's beautiful and it's nice and warm, without being too uncomfortably hot what's the time like?

Speaker 1: 27:21

when does it get dark, or when does it get light and when does it get dark?

Speaker 2: 27:25

oh, you mean you'll see light it. I mean it never truly gets black in the summer, like you've always got that light gray haze that you can see. But you get sunrise at about 4, 24, 30 am and then sunsets about 10, 50, probably in Banff 10, 45, but again you still have light till 11, 11, 05 probably, something like that. Yeah, it's way past our bedtime.

Speaker 3: 27:50

You can also see the northern lights in Banff. Yes, they're beautiful and they are going off like crazy. This this past month I've seen so many pictures of northern lights in Banff.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Yeah yeah, and in the winter time it is spectacular because, I mean, these are reflections off yeah you know snow and ice caps and things like that yeah, it's, it's pretty amazing. So that you know, if you get into these dark sky preserves, which we have a lot of in the parks there, those, those northern lights are. They're hard to describe like they're amazing wow when is there a?

Speaker 3: 28:21

season of northern lights no, they can happen all throughout the year. I think that there's.

Speaker 2: 28:26

They come and go in ebbs and flows winter would be best, just because you have more night nighttime right, so you just have more ability because it's dark, right, but yeah, I would.

Speaker 2: 28:38

I mean, winter is your best time, probably, I would say for sure. But I you said like last month it was just for this month. It's crazy, yeah, we, we have a little tracker that we we look for them and see when they're coming and they just show up and we like, oh, but they show up at like 2 or 3 am and we're well past 9.30.

Speaker 3: 28:56

They can predict that.

Speaker 1: 28:58

They're like, the weatherman can predict it.

Speaker 3: 29:02

Yeah, it's a site called Aurora Chasers in Alberta.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Oh my goodness, because they're so prominent.

Speaker 3: 29:06

they can tell there's some magnetic resonance that they're tracking in the atmosphere. They can predict the likelihood of them being northern lights yeah not perfect, but no.

Speaker 1: 29:16

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:17

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:18

That is so interesting Wow.

Speaker 3: 29:21

But back to that question which?

Speaker 2: 29:23

we avoided yes.

Speaker 3: 29:24

We went around a circle.

Speaker 1: 29:26

We do that, we ramble. It was good. Good, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 29:31

I understand why we named ourselves that no, but I, you understand why we named ourselves that no, but I actually I'm going to say my favorite time to go is in the fall.

Speaker 2: 29:38

We're not going to agree.

Speaker 3: 29:39

I don't think, no, maybe but so for me it's the fall, it's October, so beautiful. The colors of fall are my favorite. You have beautiful large trees that turn a golden color. They're really, really pretty. The sky's really blue, it's nice temperature out still, but there is a fraction of the tourists on the street and the prices are lower because it's in between summer and winter. So that's my favorite. What's your answer?

Speaker 2: 30:04

You know I might agree with you on this one. July and August is amazing, but you will be absolutely inundated with people. Like it is busy, especially in the town site. Yeah uh, the hikes get crowded. So if you're looking for solitude, it's not. You're not going to find it on the, the biggest attractions, but there is a lot of space to move around in the park. So there there are literally hundreds of hikes. So you can still find it in the summertime for sure. But it is very expensive If you are not booking your hotels for five months out.

Speaker 2: 30:37

I mean, you're paying 400 and up a night for hotels Like Banff Springs could run you $1,200 or $1,500 in the summer if you're trying to book it a week out, and even if you try to book it six months out, it's still 500, 600 bucks. I went actually I was at the Banff Springs this last weekend for a conference and people were paying $ a night at bounce springs in april.

Speaker 1: 30:59

so is that pretty fancy, the bounce springs, or is that oh?

Speaker 2: 31:02

that's the fanciest, yeah, okay gotcha.

Speaker 3: 31:04

It's named the, the castle in the in the mountains, or something is its nickname if you look up a picture of the springs hotel seen it oh I went and we had a food there then.

Speaker 1: 31:17

I remember eating there.

Speaker 2: 31:19

Right, they have a restaurant oh, they have, many, they have so many restaurants, yeah and it's actually even if you're not a guest. They encourage you to hang out, go do the things. They have bowling alleys, many restaurants, the food is amazing yeah a little. I mean it's a little bit more expensive than the typical food in Bath, but not terribly more expensive.

Speaker 3: 31:39

This is typically my hidden gem.

Speaker 2: 31:40

Oh.

Speaker 1: 31:45

Yeah, this looks like a fancy hotel down in Colorado Springs. It's just like old, kind of like very European, very, very fancy. It's kind of like very I don't know European, very, very fancy.

Speaker 2: 31:55

And Canada is full of these hotels along the railway that the Canadian Pacific Railway built to encourage tourism and get people on the rails as passengers.

Speaker 1: 32:04

Yeah, all the way from.

Speaker 2: 32:06

Quebec to all the way to Victoria. So off-season how much would this Banff Springs be? You might get lucky to get it for three to $400 if you're really lucky yeah. Okay, January maybe yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:21

But the workaround is this you don't have to stay in a hotel room to benefit from the beauty of this hotel. We go there a lot and we wander about. There's some really cool ghost stories in some hallways's tours there but, we found this really cool place, kind of hidden, tucked away in the corner. It's called the living room yes, and it's underneath this ramsey bar and it's you go down the stairs and it's this extremely beautiful space with wall, a florida ceiling, stone fireplaces and like like a hundred foot ceilings, like beautiful, massive yeah, but it's free.

Speaker 3: 32:58

There's pool tables, board games. We hung out there for a few hours for free and enjoyed this beautiful space, and we ordered a drink yeah, yeah, it was great.

Speaker 2: 33:08

And uh, the tours. You have to be a guest to get the tours. Yeah, there's nothing to stop you from just walking and following the tour behind you and listening to. We would it's all in public spaces it is a beautiful hotel and it's worth staying, or at least visiting, if you can't stay there for sure yeah, and there's lots of things around there yeah, I was curious also about the hikes that, like any, that you would recommend, and also how.

Speaker 1: 33:36

What would you guys categorize yourself in terms of beginner and immediate advanced? What kind of type of hikes do you like to do? Short, long it sounds like you've done several. What would you recommend?

Speaker 2: 33:47

Well, I think we are. We are doing things harder than we probably should be doing. I don't know. We're working our way to it. So we do shorts, we do medium, we did that. We did the Tonkin Valley in just short Under 10K.

Speaker 1: 34:03

Okay, I was going to ask what's up. So that's like five miles.

Speaker 2: 34:06

Oh yeah, like the 10K would be about seven, six, a bit else, something in that range. Yeah, it's like 5.67 something, something like that. It's a little over, it's not it's under six miles, but it's somewhere around there. Yeah, yeah, so that'd be our easy heights. We have 15, 18 kilometers, so probably pushing 10, 11 miles is kind of moderate to heavy for us. But then we did the 42k, so roughly what 30 miles yeah uh and the back what time period? Three nights, but through some pretty beautiful but tough terrain right um, so we've sort of done it all.

Speaker 2: 34:44

Uh, we've done lots of hikes that are sort of straight up and we've done lots of really basic ones. But your favorite map, I think, was what the question was like if you had to pick. All right, do you want to eat like a moderate, that that most people could do Like?

Speaker 1: 34:57

yeah, or do a beginning intermediate advanced.

Speaker 2: 35:00

Sure, what's your favorite beginner I?

Speaker 3: 35:02

must do. Beginner hike under five K Johnson Canyon, johnson Canyon, johnson Johnson With a Johnston. Okay, it takes you through one of the most beautiful caverns. Oh, it's beautiful, and there's waterfalls. That's a busy one, so better to probably go a little bit early.

Speaker 2: 35:23

That's a popular one or or late in the summer, like if you went at nine o'clock at night. You're so good summer, you're gonna be golden.

Speaker 1: 35:30

It'll be awesome yeah are the falls still going then in late summer? They are.

Speaker 2: 35:35

Yeah, oh yes oh yeah, and in the wintertime, which is when we actually love to go prefer, they're frozen. The ice climbers are out there climbing because they're quite large falls and it's, it's beautiful so pretty.

Speaker 3: 35:46

What's your favorite easy hike in Banff? It's a very serious question you have, I know yeah I love it.

Speaker 2: 35:55

Yeah I, you know what I'm going to. For easy, I I can't believe you didn't say johnson lake johnson lake I thought you were going to say johnson, because I was going to say johnson.

Speaker 3: 36:05

Okay, that's a good one too okay.

Speaker 2: 36:07

So on the minnewanka scenic drive, yeah, there is a about a four or five k hike. It just goes around the lake. It's very peaceful, it's wooded, you get the lake, you get the mountain views.

Speaker 1: 36:18

Johnson lake, it's gorgeous yeah, what's the altitude of bamf that, like the town you're?

Speaker 2: 36:25

asking questions.

Speaker 1: 36:26

Okay, hold on what's the altitude of calgary is calgary.

Speaker 2: 36:31

Oh, I guess calgary is well over a thousand. I I know that.

Speaker 1: 36:33

Okay, lake Louise sits at elevation of 1600 meters, so 5,200 feet. There you go. It's from it's, from your website. Oh no, no, no, I'm sorry, it's no, it's not. It's not it's. I just typed in Lake Louise, I thought it was. But yeah, it says, making it Canada's highest.

Speaker 2: 36:55

And that won't be terribly different. It might be a hundred meters difference. What's her favorite? One, they're both in valleys, so they're kind of just in a nice nestled valley. What's your moderate one?

Speaker 3: 37:11

Well, my moderate one's not in Banff. My favorite one is in Kananaskis, but we're not talking about that.

Speaker 2: 37:16

It's maybe a 45 minute drive outside of Banff, though, but yeah, can we go outside the park just like by 20 minutes? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, if it's a recommendation from you.

Speaker 1: 37:26

Let's do it for sure.

Speaker 3: 37:32

As long as it's called the Green Monster Icefall Trail. It's along Evan Thomas Creek in Kananaskis country, just outside of Bath National Park, so maybe 30, 40 minutes outside of Bath.

Speaker 2: 37:45

Yeah, but that's a winter hike.

Speaker 3: 37:47

It's a winter hike.

Speaker 2: 37:48

Yes.

Speaker 3: 37:50

That's my favorite, though 15 kilometers.

Speaker 2: 37:54

Yeah, you have to go to our website to see the pictures from that one.

Speaker 3: 37:57

it's uh in kananaskis, but our instagram or instagram account yeah, the pictures are from uh what's the instagram handle?

Speaker 1: 38:05

mountain town ramblers okay now, what kind of shoes do you wear you when you winter hike?

Speaker 2: 38:14

uh, no no, because these are still quite busy, so they usually the trail is groomed, yeah, or at least trampled that down. So the first person is nice enough to sort of put footprints and the next person will put footprints or the snowshoes will get out there. But by the time we get there they're pretty groomed, like people have packed them down we wear the same hiking boots all year round, so I have all season hiking boots.

Speaker 3: 38:37

They're waterproof. Uh, I find if they're winter hiking boots my feet get too hot. But the the difference is in the socks that we wear between summer and winter. So winter we double up, but wear merino wool socks over our first layer and make sure that our boots are are waterproof and then, like kyle was saying, we make sure we have our cleats or crampons yeah, because, yeah, I think it's very icy and you don't want to be trying to even even slight elevations without the spikes or are difficult or dangerous.

Speaker 2: 39:12

She does, I don't I don't like them.

Speaker 3: 39:14

Yeah, she likes them. I like my pole.

Speaker 2: 39:19

I'm protecting my joints. So you went yeah, moderate height for me, and Can I steal yours? I have the hard one. I know the hard one for sure.

Speaker 3: 39:31

Oh, I know your hard one, can I?

Speaker 2: 39:32

skip to the hard one.

Speaker 2: 39:35

I'll come back to moderate For sure and Teresa hasn't done this, but I'm gonna make her do it but there is a peak that you can do. There's lots of peaks you can do, but this one is called cirque peak c-i-r-q-u-e, and I believe it gives you the best view of the canadian rockies that you will ever, ever, ever find. You get a view of Bow Lake, which is gorgeous, but you are standing on top of a mountain. It's about a I don't know eight or nine hour trek. It's not easy at all. I think it's maybe 13K each direction, but the elevation is quite difficult and there's a lot of scree and a little bit of scrambling to do at the end, but well worth it.

Speaker 3: 40:17

Is making me do it this summer? Yeah, are we doing it this summer? Making me like you have to force me?

Speaker 2: 40:21

Yeah, so that one. If you can get up there, and I mean I think it's doable, there's nothing major technically that you have to do, it's just hard. Yeah, you don't need a tool belt.

Speaker 3: 40:35

No.

Speaker 2: 40:38

Or a helmet, but you have to be okay, taking a step forward in the scree and then sliding back down half of the distance that you just stepped up and then continue to do that for three kilometers. It it was kind of grueling. But then you see young people just fly up there and it's no big deal. So I don't know. Yeah, young people with like loose gravel yeah, like it's that, it's that, uh like scree, it's um, just it's sharp rocks right so it's all just uh yeah, it's not.

Speaker 1: 41:05

Are you like mountaineering up the mountain instead of like trails really, or is it trails?

Speaker 2: 41:11

no, like there's no trails, because it's just this, like just scree you, just you can walk anywhere you want because it's open. It's like when you get to that point, you're above the tree line and it's just grinding. There's no mountaineering, though it's, it's just walking, but it's. It's an adventure for sure um I know all trails calls it a hard for sure.

Speaker 3: 41:31

So yeah, yeah, a good one. I know what's your good one. Okay, I have a medium one, okay what's your medium one?

Speaker 2: 41:37

take my. I don't have a I don't.

Speaker 3: 41:38

I don't have a hard one yet I haven't graduated to that level yet my medium one. I don't know if it's medium or not. It might be easy, it's. It's on the border, but I feel like anyone who goes to bamf should do this one. It's tunnel, mountain, oh tunnel mountain.

Speaker 2: 41:53

That's a nice medium one. Yeah, I should have taken that one.

Speaker 3: 41:56

It's actually a summit. It's this little mountain right in the town, so you don't need to travel outside of the town to get to it. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour. There's some switchbacks, but along the switchbacks, no matter what way you're going, you have beautiful views and when you get to the top, you have, on one side of the mountain, you have views of the valley which is get to the top. You have on one side of the mountain. You have views of the valley, which is it made me cry.

Speaker 2: 42:19

And then on the other side, you have views of the town below, which also made me cry and then also the vermilion tissues I know well yeah so, and I think tunnel mountain with anyone that has at least a reasonable range of mobility can get up there at least in any like you know it might take you a little longer, like it's up, yeah, but it's not treacherous and it's not particularly long, so you take your time. Bring some water. We forgot our water on that one, oops yeah, an hour, we can handle it yeah well, we went. We were at the craft brewery before that, which was maybe the problem I see.

Speaker 1: 42:56

So what's the what? The temperature in the the summer, in the winter, um, you know, because, like I come from minnesota, pretty brutal winters, like you know. But I know the farther west you go it's not you know, it might be a little bit more I will.

Speaker 3: 43:08

You know what I'd say? It's comparable to minnesota, our winters for sure. So average winter temperature off the top of my head minus 15, yeah we have to convert that to fahrenheit uh yeah, so it'd be like probably average is minus 15, so that's gonna be about zero fahrenheit, I think.

Speaker 2: 43:29

Zero and negative 17 again. Yeah, that's probably the average daytime high and you can hike in that minus 17 celsius is zero fahrenheit, if I know my conversions. But okay um, but you can get to like the minus 30s and 40s fahrenheit very easily. You probably get a handful of days like that in the evening. You wouldn't want to hike in that kind of thing, but uh yeah well, what about in the more you know the moderate times?

Speaker 1: 43:55

because, like up in the mountains here, like the weather that it gets to be, like you know, in fahrenheit, 80 degrees, but then the nights get really chilly, it could be 40 degrees. All went all summer long is it the same here?

Speaker 3: 44:08

it's the same here, yep. So, for an example, when we did our backcountry hike, it was 30 oh good grief, 31 degrees celsius which is going to be close to 90, if I know, in the day and at night we we will 86 good sorry, go ahead I answered good job, good math, but in the morning it was, we could see our breath yeah it was minus one yeah so big fluctuations in temperature and that's in august, yeah, when we went.

Speaker 2: 44:36

So we're starting to cool a bit, but um, bring our, bring your layers layers, yeah, especially like, once you get in the mountains, you can never predict right, like I know. Even when I did that peak, it was um, it's significantly higher elevation where you start off, where we are. I think it was about 17 degrees celsius when we started, at 10 in the morning and you could see your breath at the top of the mountain, and it was probably three in the afternoon or four in the afternoon. We got there and it was july. Yeah, like it's just, you're way up there on top of the mountain, it's cold yeah, so sounds beautiful but yeah, in the summertime, like it's probably 70, 70 degrees is your probably average summer, maybe 75.

Speaker 1: 45:18

If anyone's a rock climber, do you have any rock climbing suggestions?

Speaker 3: 45:24

I am not a rock climber.

Speaker 1: 45:25

I like rocks, but I'm not a rock climber, and you'll climb, but you don't rock climb.

Speaker 3: 45:30

But I have a friend and colleague who is an avid rock climber. She actually just relocated to Calgary so that she could do rock climbing every weekend in kananaskis country can warren bath she just goes wherever it's like 45 minutes an hour away.

Speaker 2: 45:47

I'm jealous, so does she have a recommendation? Oh, I don't know. Oh yeah, we're not into the mountaineering yet I I don't know if I see us getting there.

Speaker 3: 45:57

Here's my thing, I don't want to have to use my hands, my knees or scooch on my bum. Those are my rules. Get your poles and your clamps.

Speaker 1: 46:08

You don't want clamps and axes In addition to being outside. Is there a lot of microbreweries? Is there a lot of little museums?

Speaker 2: 46:17

Anything else going on in Vance for to do that aren't like quite as adventurous you take this one for you you're gonna take the.

Speaker 2: 46:24

You take the breweries, I'll take the museums so I think when you're in banff you really have to look at banff and canmore, as you know, as one, right, so they're about a 20 minute drive between. Canmore is nice because it's got about 15 000 people, so it's substantially a larger town and it's about a kilometer outside or two kilometers outside of the national park, so you could have economic development in that town and do a lot more things in canmore than you can necessarily do in banff. Right, because banff has a lot of strict rules in terms of development. You just really can't do it without special permission. So I mean, there's a number of breweries in Banff and Jasper, I think there's four, three in Canmore, one in Banff, two in Banff now. Yeah, so they've got the three bears and they got the Banff Ab Brewing.

Speaker 2: 47:11

Yeah, so you can have two breweries right in Banff, I think there's three in Canmore there's's. I mean the restaurants in Banff are Plenty full. Yeah, probably a hundred or more, and they're very high quality restaurants. You're not going to find anything that you won't find Lots of cheap or like casual meals as well in Banff. Lots of chain restaurants that you might expect to see in the cities, but lots of beautiful local owned places as well.

Speaker 3: 47:39

Hidden gem for beer. I'm surprised you didn't say this yet.

Speaker 1: 47:43

High Rollers, oh the bowling alley.

Speaker 3: 47:46

But they have over 40 beers on tap.

Speaker 2: 47:50

Yeah, I think they have, yeah, 40 like Alberta craft or Alberta and BC craft beers on tap and it's actually the pizza there is fantastic too. There we go there's a lot of little. Uh, you, you talk about the museums and the historic.

Speaker 1: 48:03

What was that called?

Speaker 2: 48:04

again it's high bowl I rollers I rollers okay hi, hi, h, I g h oh, hi, well, okay, it is yeah like a bowling alley. I don't know what you're trying to get there.

Speaker 1: 48:15

High rollers, high rollers.

Speaker 2: 48:18

Yeah, I got it and it's right in the main road into it. You can't really miss it.

Speaker 3: 48:23

It's really cute and if you're a history buff, there's a lot of things to do in Banff too. There's the Cave and Basin National Historic Site. It's an interpretive center there. They have programs, educational interpretive programs that are there. It's actually the foundation of the town and the park itself. Somebody found hot springs sulfur hot springs there, so they built this beautiful historic site to commemorate the founding location of the park. And from that place too there's some beautiful boardwalk marsh loop hikes that's my medium hike.

Speaker 2: 48:56

What's that one called again? Um, I don't from cave and basin to the canyon oh sundance sundance canyon. That's about nine kilometers sorry I interrupted.

Speaker 3: 49:07

That's okay, you got excited.

Speaker 2: 49:08

I like it yeah, that one, but the indigenous uh history history and artifacts and uh displays there the Caving Basin are really fantastic. You'll get some good history of the First Peoples for sure.

Speaker 3: 49:21

So that would be the number one must-see. And then the next one is there's the White Museum of the Canadian Rockies. The building itself is actually a historical building and considered a historical site as well.

Speaker 2: 49:33

The white one or the other one. The white's the private one.

Speaker 3: 49:35

Buffalo Nations Museum. No, the other one, the white's, the private one, or the other one, the white's, the private one, buffalo nations museum.

Speaker 2: 49:37

No, the other one, the white's, the private one with the art oh, the, the, the, the bath, the bath museum. I think it's just called bath museum, but that's the one that has the building.

Speaker 3: 49:48

Oh, bath park museum, yeah, so that's the one that has it doesn't happen very often we have this recorded on record.

Speaker 2: 50:01

Reframe an audio clip. Can you edit that out? That park museum was the first original ranger station is that right? Yeah, sorry, go ahead you're good.

Speaker 3: 50:09

It's beautiful. The building itself is beautiful and the town is so walkable like. You can spend an entire day walking up and down the streets, going through all the shops and boutiques, and you'll come across a bridge with a museum on your right and then you have Tunnel Mountain on your like. It's so convenient to walk around and just spend an entire day or two exploring the town.

Speaker 2: 50:28

I don't want to shortchange that Bath Park Museum, though it has something like 700 or 800 taxonomy artifacts and really really what that place was. It was sort of the beginning of the conservation movement of baff national park, right? And so you're going to learn a lot about how they're trying to conserve and and make this place more, you know, environmentally sustainable for tourism, things like that, but also trying to protect all the wildlife, because that really is the main draw for for baff is being able to protect all the wildlife, because that really is the main draw for for BAMF is being able to see wildlife, the wildlife pretty much everywhere that you want to see them, right?

Speaker 3: 51:02

so good, segue. Segue, because I know what they're thinking. How do you see the wildlife? Where do you see the wildlife in BAMF? Do you want some tips?

Speaker 2: 51:10

yes, yes, please who's asking the questions here? We've taken over this thing. I know one's going to invite us back anymore.

Speaker 1: 51:17

We'll just kind of relax, it's so bossy Tell people where the wildlife are.

Speaker 3: 51:23

One of the best places to view wildlife is in Vermilion Lake. So you have the town of Banff and just on the outskirts as you exit Banff, there's a little road called Vermilion Lakes. There's three lakes, but at nighttime, at dawn and dusk, those are the best times to see wildlife, notoriously throughout the park. But at dawn or dusk, if you drive down this little road along this lake, you are almost guaranteed to at least see deer, but maybe moose, maybe bear yeah and don't see a cougar yeah, yeah, cougars are are tough, but um, yeah, it's, it's a.

Speaker 2: 51:59

It's a floodplain and those are very rare in the mountains because water tends to flow away from mountains. But this is this sort of mossy. It's a very rare ecosystem in the mountains and sort of attracts lots of birds lots of wildlife and it really is walkable from bath if you wanted to go for a 20 minute walk walk or a 30-minute walk, and it is gorgeous and a great place to watch the sunset too.

Speaker 3: 52:19

There you go.

Speaker 2: 52:20

And you can see Mount Rundle as well. That's right which is your favorite, isn't?

Speaker 3: 52:23

it, that's my favorite?

Speaker 2: 52:23

Yeah, cascade Mountain, cascade Mountain. Okay, right burning questions you still need answered. What's your top two favorite restaurant? Oh, okay, I'm gonna say I like eden at the rim. Rock is my favorite and I'm gonna say maple leaf the maple leaf right on the main street beautiful maple leaf.

Speaker 1: 52:46

Yeah, they do, maple leaf okay canadian uh fusion with other things.

Speaker 2: 52:50

It's beautiful. Lots of canadian ingredients there. The vermilion the vermilion room in the bath springs hotel.

Speaker 3: 52:56

You feel like you're in the shining the movie. It is so cool. The yeah, that's how I felt. But the food was phenomenal best chocolate cake I've had in my life and get a beaver tail.

Speaker 2: 53:05

That's the best thing to get. If you're looking for dessert, yeah for dessert it's not an actual beaver tail then? No, no, no, no, we don't eat beans, no.

Speaker 1: 53:16

Glad to hear. That's great. What are some of the like favorite meals in Canada?

Speaker 3: 53:22

Oh, go ahead. Best thing I've oh Brussels sprouts. Okay, weird answer. You were not expecting this. Brussels sprouts from the Vermilion restaurant, I kid you not. Like those things were little green jewels. They were so good. How?

Speaker 1: 53:39

did, they do that.

Speaker 3: 53:39

I don't know why I don't like vegetables.

Speaker 2: 53:41

They roasted, or they were deep fried actually.

Speaker 1: 53:44

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 53:44

There you go. Yeah yeah, like Little Hidden Gems For sure. The pizza at High Rollers I think you like and it's very good Get it on half price day. Like the fish, any of the fish meals or the steak meals at the maple leaf were unbelievable. They do really high-end food for like mid mid-end price what's mid-end? Like it's about 50 canadian for an entree, but I would probably pay 70 for it if they asked me to, but they didn't, so I didn't look at that, yeah't Look at that.

Speaker 1: 54:15

Yeah, Beautiful fish salmon, atlantic cod.

Speaker 2: 54:18

There were some pretty amazing food items there, so I don't think you can go wrong there.

Speaker 1: 54:23

I was trying to see what the Canadian dollar is compared to the US.

Speaker 2: 54:27

You get about $1.35 US for a Canadian. I think it's in about that range right now.

Speaker 1: 54:32

Oh, okay, okay, yeah, I Okay Okay. I'm looking at that right now.

Speaker 2: 54:35

I take a third off of all our prices.

Speaker 1: 54:38

Yep $1.36. It's up right now, yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:43

Right again and I will oh, my goodness, that's twice, I will say, because, having been to the United States quite a few times lately, it used to be that Canadians would go down to the US and find really stellar deals there, even with the bad conversion rate. It is a very unusual situation where the prices in Canada right now are actually significantly cheaper, but you also get the conversion on top of that.

Speaker 3: 55:10

So it's a good deal to come to Canada.

Speaker 2: 55:13

I think you're going to find things that are about half the price is what you would expect to pay in the US right now on many things, because I was shocked to see the prices in the US when I was there.

Speaker 1: 55:20

Yeah, I wonder what Banff compares to. Maybe it's like a, you know, like a nice mountain town here, breckenridge or Vail, I mean like $400, denver area, but making the more exclusive mountain towns for sure yeah and that was pretty, pretty fancy I thought of one last question too is uh, skiing? I knew whistler, I didn't know bamf as well, just um, what was that? What's the top place? You said there's three resorts. Are they all great, or is there one in particular?

Speaker 2: 55:50

and there's more than three, but in the park there's just three. But you can get just outside the park and get more because there's nakiska, which is where they held the uh calgary olympics yeah okay, there's lake louise, which is a ski resort.

Speaker 2: 56:03

There is a sunshine village, which is a big ski resort, but within an hour drive of bath I mean there are there must be a dozen ski hills, or an hour and a half that are absolutely, you know, world class, right? I'm sure denver must be the same ski hills, or an hour and a half that are absolutely, you know, world-class, right? I'm sure Denver must be the same way, and you know it doesn't take that long to get to ski resorts.

Speaker 1: 56:24

What's the rate card for a lift ticket? Roughly.

Speaker 2: 56:27

You just went to Marmot basin and Jasper, I think I want to say it was 70 Canadian for for the day for a lift ticket, so probably 50 us. Wow, that is a great deal.

Speaker 1: 56:39

Yeah, now it's a great deal. Yeah, it's like 150 a day. You know the local discount. We can get it for like 120 for a buddy pass. It's ridiculous, so you gotta get that like the annual pass is how you have to do it for it to make sense yeah, I think here, yeah, it's cheaper.

Speaker 2: 56:52

Yeah, I don't know where that. Oh, that's big, okay, yeah, yeah, and yeah, there's also the passenger. But like 100 bucks, I'll get you on the hill. I'm probably okay to get you the rentals, but that's canadian, right? So right, oh yeah, that's nice.

Speaker 1: 57:05

Okay, yeah, awesome, we want to go through your rapid fire question. Sure, yeah, some of them. Um, I'm gonna just just skip that out. The surf lines, right, so yeah, so we're kind of related to food. What is a typical breakfast that you would have?

Speaker 3: 57:24

Well, I eat eggs Benedict every time, but you eat the same boring thing every day Bacon and eggs.

Speaker 1: 57:33

Oh, that's so funny. I don't think we've had anyone ever answer bacon or eggs in the whole world. It's always oatmeal or yogurt and granola.

Speaker 2: 57:40

Oh, super healthy I like ham bacon yeah, we're going for 20 kilometer hikes. I feel like we earned that breakfast right. You got fuel up um muffins. Actually there's a lot of good breakfast places in Bath really specialty omelets. Tallulah's in Bath actually has a Cajun-Canadian fusion thing. It's sort of a knock or not a knockout, but a nod to the Acadian culture, like the French people coming down and going to Louisiana. There's some shared history there but they have a lot of Creole, cajun, canadian fusion, which is weird, but you get like salmon and jump a lie Omelets.

Speaker 1: 58:22

Oh my gosh, no, it's so good.

Speaker 2: 58:25

So it's. It can be a lot of fun. So we actually for breakfast to Lulu's.

Speaker 1: 58:28

We missed that one, but yeah, is that throughout Edmonton that there's this influence, or just like in one little neighborhood?

Speaker 2: 58:42

Oh no, I think that's just one dude. Oh, just one dude. Okay, no, the? Oh, the acadians, oh no, the acadians. Uh, these are sort of, um, this, this is really not an edmonton thing, this is a an east coast thing. So the acadians are sort of these french immigrants coming from france in canada's early history, because we used to be a french colony before an english one, and they were expelled out of Canada and most of them went to Louisiana, which would have a French, you know, high there from your history, right. So there is this shared French history between these people. So now we have this influence, this influence here that this restaurant is the first time I've ever seen a Canadian, asian, acadian thing, so it's very good.

Speaker 1: 59:21

All right, and then what about any popular holiday traditions in that area?

Speaker 2: 59:26

Well, christmas in Bath is pretty amazing. Like I know, I've been to Boulder, which I'm sure you guys.

Speaker 1: 59:31

Yeah, that's right, actually, yeah.

Speaker 2: 59:33

I would say that they're the same thing. Christmas is crazy in both these places. It's done up it's, and I haven't been there in 20 years, but I remember 20 years ago at Christmas was, you know everything, carolers and the whole works Right. So Christmas in Bath is pretty amazing. Canada Day might be a thing there. I've never been there, but.

Speaker 3: 59:50

For Canada Day.

Speaker 2: 59:51

Yeah, fireworks, fireworks and I don't know how much. They set up fireworks, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 59:56

Is Canada day, the day after Christmas.

Speaker 3: 59:59

No it's July 1st, so it's our version of 4th of July, so we're not independent, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:00:05

July 1st Okay, and Boxing Day. That's a big thing in Canada, right?

Speaker 2: 1:00:09

Is that the day after Christmas?

Speaker 1: 1:00:11

Okay, Is that pretty common, that people like celebrate or do we have to go to work?

Speaker 3: 1:00:15

sometimes, so there's no celebration. I would say the it's.

Speaker 2: 1:00:18

Black.

Speaker 3: 1:00:18

Friday, it's our Black Friday. So what happens? We give kids money for Christmas and they take that money and buy everything on sale the next day after Christmas and go shopping. Yeah, it works out well.

Speaker 2: 1:00:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:00:34

Works for the older kids? Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 2: 1:00:35

I remember growing up and I'd get gift cards and that's what I would do yeah, go shopping with it but no, nothing, nothing too particularly unusual, I don't think uh, there you know what actually might be interesting for for international the national indigenous day, which would be now july or june 20th, sorry. Uh, a lot of these big areas are starting to make a bigger deal of that holiday and celebrate, uh, our first peoples and things like that, so that's becoming that's, I guess, a tourist job june 20th.

Speaker 1: 1:01:07

Yeah, that's funny because we just got juneteenth, like last year was the first year.

Speaker 2: 1:01:12

Some, some companies I remember it's like five days before they're like okay, this is now a holiday and like everyone off, it's, it's for, um, you know, freedom of slavery yeah, right, yeah, so this comes a similar, similar, it's the same weekend right same yeah okay, yeah, but nothing, nothing too too drastic, I don't think very good and we know what the money is called, so the canadian dollar but you need to know loonie and toonie, if you don't know those so loonie is the one dollar coin and a toonie is the two dollar coin.

Speaker 2: 1:01:45

And nobody says one dollar, it's just loonie or toonie oh, that's so fun there's a loon on the on the one dollar coin, so they just call it the loonie the bird. We just were very creative with the $2 one, so we just called it that. But there's actually a bear on that one. That's cute.

Speaker 1: 1:02:04

So you guys actually have $2 coins, huh.

Speaker 3: 1:02:07

Yeah, and they were going to make $5 coins, but people rioted. I think my purse would be way too heavy, nice.

Speaker 1: 1:02:16

All right, well, thank you so much, and, um, how do people find you? And we mentioned it a few times, so people can find us on our website, wwwmountaintownramblerscom.

Speaker 3: 1:02:25

we have everything located on that site. Our instagram account. We have a youtube channel we just started. We have a link to the we're in the rockies vamp guideF guide that we've created. There's a new one in Jasper coming out soon. Oh, email mountaintownrandbrothers at gmailcom.

Speaker 1: 1:02:42

Yeah, Thank you guys so much. That was such a treat to learn more about BAMF. I love what you guys are doing. Thanks.

Speaker 2: 1:02:49

Take care See, ya Thanks.

Speaker 1: 1:02:51

Bye-bye, bye. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app, and if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and rating is the best way to support us. If you're on instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again.