Cycling Banff, Floating the Milk, and Climbing Yamnuska - the Giraffe stays home

brianzurek
May 19, 2021
2 min read

ACT I - Banff

The Giraffe needing to do Giraffe things needed a break so Brian took the van and spent a few days camping and cycling around Banff NP.

Being early in the season prime camping sites at an empty campground were for the picking. With the Giraffe not around Brian quickly made some new friends.

New Elk friends aside the main draw of the week was the miles of open roads with little to no car traffic - Specifically route 1A and lake Minnewanka loop road were closed to cars but open to bikes!

Making more friends!

Lake Minnewanka. still frozen

Random non-frozen lake

Frozen and cloudy lake Louis

Biking the ice-fields parkway

more ice-fields pkwy

and some more

Construction on highway 1 had traffic running at a trickle - taking advantage of the opportunity Brian rode into BC and Yoho National Park

Castle Mountain

Even managed a little mountain biking

Best of all was the barbecue for dinner every night

All made for good adventures...

ACT II - pack rafting the Milk River

The Giraffe not impressed with Brians new elk, goat and bear (yes 2 black bears!) friends planned a party with all her friends and kicked Brian and Eva out of the house for the weekend. Brian and Eva not sure what to do took the river with Evas friends Jan and Steph and their 2 kids for the weekend.

While Jan and Steph had a canoe Brian and Eva floated in style in personal sized rafts, also known as - pack rafts! Packing the pack raft

Jan, Steph and the kids

Hard at work!

Floating

and floating

and more floating

and even more floating

Until we reached 'painted rock' our campsite for the night

Setting up camp

Taking in the views of neighborhood for the night

After a long day ready for dinner!

and ready for a good nights rest

Morning brings another day of paddling and watching for wildlife - lots of Canadian Geese, hawks, a few eagles, pronghorn antelopes and a lone coyote (or was it a wolf!?)