Anniversary Trip Day 3, Part 2

{Day 1 here}
{Day 2 here}
{Day 3 part 1 here}

After witnessing the avalanche and having our minds blown, we continued along the path which was climbing around the north side of the valley.  The terrain had changed to a lot of gravel which we later found out was typical of areas surrounding melting glaciers.  They deposit a lot of rock.  So the trail was packed down in some places but very gravely in others.  If there was any kind of grade it was a little treacherous.

Near the end of the trail we traversed a section that was very narrow with a dropoff on both sides:

As you can see from this video it was reasonably steep as well.

The only way I got up this section was by staring at my feet the whole time, putting one foot in front of the other, one step at a time.  If I had looked anywhere else I would have been frozen by fear.

At the end of this section the grade rose on our right so there was only a dropoff on the left.  I felt a little less scared at that point since I could put my hand out to the right and hang on, so I was able to get up the last hill okay.  As I neared the top I began to realize that it would be getting down, not up, that would be a big problem for me, and I said as much to M.  He said I should stop wherever I felt comfortable, so I scrambled a little ways off the path so I was out of the way of the steady stream of hikers, and just sat down, turning left towards the valley as I sat.  When I sat down I could see how big the dropoff was in front of me, and I could feel the steepness of the grade underneath me, and how gravely and slippery it was, and I began to be certain I was going to slide right off the edge.  Irrational, I know... plenty of people were around me, walking up and down, and doing just fine, but, well, most fears are pretty irrational right??  I sat in that spot, paralyzed, clinging to the only larger, more secure rock I could find, while M said he would go ahead to the very end of the trail and see the waterfall that was there.

While he was gone I went back and forth between feeling a really woozy, almost vertigo-type feeling of panic, to taking deep breaths and calming myself down.  During one of the calm moments I managed to get my phone out of my pocket and take a few pictures:

The picture above looks down at the lake below... you can see a bit of the steepness of the gravely slope I was sitting on.

This one has a better view of the ridge we had walked across with a dropoff on either side, looking down on rivulets of glacial meltwater on the valley floor below.

The girls sitting in front of me were quite close to the edge of the steep dropoff into the valley.  This picture shows the Victoria glacier in the upper right and another glacier in the notch between those two peaks (Huber and Lefroy, I think).  As I was sitting here I saw a few more mini-avalanches happen, all at a safe distance of course.

I became pretty convinced that M was going to have to leave me there, paralyzed, and that I would never see my children again.  By the time he returned, however, I had literally talked myself down from the ledge and was ready to do whatever I had to do to get down without freaking out, even if that involved sliding down on my butt.  I informed M of my thoughts and told him I was ready for him to go first, but not before we saw a lady slip and fall right in front of us as she was descending the slope, landing flat on her back and stopping herself with one leg literally hanging off the edge.  She was okay, thankfully, but yeah.  Big confidence builder there.

I did just as I had planned and half-slid, half-crawled on my butt until I got to a place that had a bit more of a hand-hold on the left and I felt comfortable standing up.  M coached me to keep my feet sideways and I was able to side-step down the rest of the slope to safety.

NAILED IT.  Big victory there.  Proud of myself.

Then we were back to the ridge with the dropoff on both sides, but my confidence was soaring after having successfully gotten down the gravely slope, so this didn't seem as big a deal on the way down.

Check out my husband there, like this is all NBD.

I still had to do a little of "one foot in front of the other" but I was nowhere near as panicky as I had just been.  So, good times.  And of course, an amazing view to the lake below!

We made our way back towards the tea house and had arrived by about 12 PM.  We headed in and seated ourselves, and the super friendly staff brought us a menu before long.  Despite the large array of teas on the menu, both M and I opted for coffee.  We hadn't had much of a chance to drink ours that morning, and it just sounded good!  To go with, we ordered some biscuits with jam and honey, and a cold raspberry-ade each to quench our thirst after the morning of hiking.

Oddly, we *still* didn't feel that hungry, even after burning all those calories.  We had packed a lunch and sort of planned on eating it along with our biscuits but neither of us wanted it.  Personally, I was feeling a little emotionally exhausted after my fear-of-heights drama, and my disappointment in myself at not being able to keep up with M.  I think that squelched my appetite a little.

The tea house was beautiful and relaxing, though!  I highly recommend it!

This place has a really cool vibe; there is no vehicle access so the staff all hike in and stay for five days at a time, and sometimes carry in supplies on their backs.  I think they fly in some stuff by helicopter but a lot of it is hiked in, and all the cooking is done on propane stoves with no electricity.  What a cool summer job, right?

After finishing our biscuits, we used the highly popular outhouses (can't say I recommend those!!! 😷).  Then we got started on our way back down the trail.  We had some good chats on the way down, and M was very reassuring, and I began to feel better.  We arrived back at the Fairmont around 2:30 PM, just as clouds were beginning to gather in the northwest and we were hearing rumbles, not of avalanches, but of thunder.

A passing hiker took our picture:

What an amazing place!

After enjoying the view a little longer, we found our car and began the drive as planned back to the town of Banff to have dinner at the Banff Ave Brewery.  The drive took about 40 minutes so we arrived around 3:30 and weren't really ready for eating dinner yet.  We took some time to change our clothes, stretch our tired legs and walk around a bit.  We went in a few of the shops and I bought some postcards for the girls and some fancy lip balm.  Banff town was so beautiful and a great place for shopping!  We seemed to have dodged the storms at that point too, so we had perfectly beautiful and sunny weather for enjoying shops and scenery.

Just before 5 PM we moseyed over to the brewery and got seated.  The balcony seating was full, but we quickly got seated inside, which was probably a good thing because not long after we did the wind whipped up and the skies opened.  We watched the trees swaying through the window beside us as we split a brewery sampler:

I had been wanting to try poutine and it was on the menu at every restaurant we visited.  So we ordered it as an appetizer... it did not disappoint!

It was a good thing we had an appetizer because our food took a looooonnnng time to come (they were pretty busy I think!).  We used the time to sip our beers and talk about what the next day would bring.  We were debating between driving to Glacier National Park in the US, only about a four-hour drive from where we were, or drive up the Icefields Parkway into Jasper National Park (also about a four-hour drive).  Weighing the pros and cons of weather, crowds, and sights we wanted to see, we thought long and hard for a while.  When our food arrived we still hadn't made a final decision, but were leaning in the direction of Jasper.  We decided that we would wake up at 6:30 in the morning and make the final call after sleeping on it.

Our food was delicious-- an elk sausage for M, and a schnitzel sandwich with a sweet sauerkraut slaw for me (in keeping with the Austrian theme!).  We left the brewery thoroughly stuffed and felt the need to walk it off a bit before getting in the car again for our 90-minute drive back to the resort.

The storms were over again and we enjoyed the evening sun while picking up a few more souvenirs and gifts in the shops, and just strolling and enjoying the scenery.

We got back in the car at about 9 PM and made our drive.  We arrived at the resort just after 10:30 and crashed, ready for another epic day ahead!

Read about Day 4 here!