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Today I wanted to hike up Sulfur mountain. I wokeup to see it was raining and all of the mountains were covered in clouds. At first I was going to cancel the hike but around noon I decided that I'll go anyway. It was not expected to rain too much in the afternoon so it seemed like a good time to go.
I packed some binoculars, camera and a bottle of orange juice. At the base was a nice sign showing the rise in elevation for the mountain as well as some other facts. I had a 2286 foot elevation to tackle. For reference, the elevation of Regina from sea level is only ~1600 feet. Th sign said it was a 2-5 hour ascent depending on the weather, and I also knew a lady at the conference walked up in 2 hours and decended in 1 hour and 15 minutes, so I was determined to best that.
The first 15 minutes had me starting to huff and puff, wtf? I found that the exertion was equally difficult throughout most of the hike. A few areas were extra steep so they were a bit tougher. Finally I found a decent walking stick to help me on my way.
After about 30 minutes I came to this nice waterfall. I noticed that I was already above the snow level. That was pretty cool. I continued on, enjoying the quietness and sights. The path zigzags up the mountain so I crossed underneith the gondola lines many times. The odd one had a passenger but most were empty. I'm not surprised as a round trip is $25.
After maybe 45 minutes I noticed that the paths had fog/clouds in the near distance. It was fun to hike through a cloud that high but my glasses were constantly fogging from the humidity & my exertions. Soon I was very close to the summit and at only 1 hour and 13 minutes I was at the top and looking over the other side of the mountain. Good time!
The visitor center was packed with old people and some asian families. THe observation level was kind of neat but the visibility was not ideal. Luckily the clouds somewhat cleared for some photos. There were also a few bighorn sheep and squirrels up there. Signs everywhere said to not feed the animals but I saw crowds of Europeans grouping to give junk food to some squirrels. I guess they didn't know or care that it is actually bad for the animals to feed them that junk. When they need to hibernate, junk food is not an ideal way to store calories. The Cosmic Ray hut was pretty neat with some good reading on the way. They measure cosmic rays from the station and had some signs showing varios figures and results. All pretty interesting to a nerd like myself but I won't dive into it here.
By this time I was getting really cold as the temp in Banff was 9 and I'm guessing it was near 0 up there, with a mean wind. I headed back and started down the mountain. I part jogged, part walked and made it back down to the base in 40 minutes. I left my walking stick leaning on the sign in the photos for someone else to use and headed to the hotel. Ready to relax.
We leave back to Regina tomorrow so we're packing early and getting to bed early. Have to wake up at 5AM. However, Hawaii in only 4 days!!!!!
-Shawn
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