Trip to Banff: Day 3 (or, an unintentionally long hike)

[This is written after my trip, from my notes and memory.]

This was yet another day in which I wasn't disappointed by the fact that I had free (to me) buffet food in the dining hall next door. (That is, if there was not free good food nearby, I'd be encouraged to go and explore Banff's many restaurants. But this lack of encouragement didn't bother me because the dining hall buffet was quite good.)

Today I got to eat chicken primavera on spaghetti, a salad with a really really good creamy cucumber salad dressing (which sadly never reappeared at the salad bar the rest of the week), pasta carbonara (good, not too creamy as some restaurants tend to serve it), and an assortment of good desserts. And, once again, I got to enjoy the tremendous view -- this time from sitting outside! The weather was like typically perfect California weather, in the 70s. Or, as the forecast here would put it: 22 degrees.

I've been pretty stressed these last few days preparing for my talk. I actually have never previously had to travel to a conference to give a presentation. This is my first! I feel a bit guilty, running off and hiding at every opportunity and working on my presentation rather than hanging out with other attendees during the brief 30-minute breaks.

To de-stress a little before going back to work in the evening, I left at around 4:30pm to take a short hike. Little did I imagine it would accidentally turn into a long hike. There are pictures that accompany this narrative of my long hike.

How did this transition from short to long occur? I planned to just walk to the Bow Falls vista (a ten minute walk), swing by part of downtown to look around, and then head home. But when I was nearing the vista, I saw a sign: Bow Falls Trail to the left, Viewpoint to the right. I took the trail, assuming (correctly) that it'd be more interesting and (incorrectly) that I could easily hit the viewpoint on the way back.

After walking for ten minutes without even seeing any falls, I found myself at the level of the river. Should I turn around or keep going, I wondered. I kept going. And going I went. Another ten minutes and I wondered where I was, and then realized I had some maps in brochures in my backpack. I figured out roughly were I was (but these maps didn't have any scale!) and decided to try to follow the trail when it veers left and rejoins a road. Then I'd be able to continue and see a vista point before following the road all the way around to the far side of town. I figured I might be able to do all that and fit in a little looking around town.

Boy was I wrong! The first problem was finding the trail veering left. There were lots of minor trails splitting off from the one I was on, but no signs. I'm not sure where they went; a few seemed to just fade away. I kept hiking assuming I'd find the real trail back to the road.

Eventually I'd followed my trail far enough that I realized I was out of the hills and in the valley and beginning a 10+ mile hike to another town. Turning around, I took the nearest veering and headed back to the road. This trail, too, split multiple times and I just headed uphill, knowing that the road was at the top of the hill. Eventually I got there, though I think the last two hundred feet ended up involving climbing a dried creekbed, not a trail.

Back at the road, I headed down to view the vista point, which was a "short hike from the road." It took me half an hour to get to that part of the road (bah: lack of scale on maps!), then the short hike was another 1.5 kilometers each way. I hiked it enough to realize the vista it approached wasn't as nice as some vistas I saw on my preceding hike, then turned around.

At this point it was 7pm. I'd hiked for 2.5 hours without making it entirely to either the falls overlook or the vista point. Dinner would close in half an hour; the Konane tournament started in an hour. I certainly couldn't follow the road around to town to look around; I was around 2 miles from the dining hall. If I booked it, I'd just make dinner in time. And I did book it, and I made it, and thus concludes my story of a short walk to a overlook that turned into a three hour hike in my nice shoes.

At round two of the Konane tournament tonight, and I found out my previous 2-and-1 record was beginner's luck. This round (against harder opponents), I went 0-3, sometimes losing by substantial margins. Oh well.