Janice treated us to a night's stay at the historic Banff Springs Hotel this weekend. We spent the day Saturday doing some winter hiking at Johnston Canyon (everyone else had crampons and poles, we had runners...), then "doing Banff" for the afternoon, followed by a swim in the Banff Springs Hotel pool. We all had a blast. After supper, Evan and I explored the "castle" - finding all kinds of cool rooms to check out. The hotel complex is absolutely amazing. It's some of the oldest architecture in western Canada, but there is absolutely no sign of decay or "oldness" to it. The whole place feels like a living castle. This is where the Queen stays when she's in the area. Likely not in the room we had, with no view, and right next to the noisy old elevators, but in the same postal code.
Sunday was spent wandering around the hotel again, then a hike at the Cave and Basin. After that, we were off to Phil's for brunch, then back to Calgary. A pretty good weekend, but we'll all sleep well tonight. No elevators in our house...
I wound up taking almost 120 pictures of various cool things. I posted under 40 to a Flickr album, and will post 3 or 4 more panoramic photos when I get them processed (maybe on Monday?).
Update: Added the panos. They turned out even better than I was hoping. Gotta love Autostitch...
