West Wind Pass

My parents are in town this weekend so we took them for a hike. I chose West Wind Pass, which is a 5.3 km loop with something like 429 m total elevation gain (~387 m max elevation gain)... so comparable to what we tortured Tom & Jane with when they came out. Once again the topo map is having a funny colour day...

This is Spray Lake from part way up:

From the top looking down West Wind Valley (you can see the LaFarge concrete plant in the valley).

Group shot at the top: This is the panoramic view into West Wind Valley. The 360 pan from the other side of the pass into Spray Lake Valley: One last view of Spray Lake:

After the hike we were supposed to head out to Banff for a quick dip in the hot springs... we were running about an hour late but we passed a convenient and completely random phone booth next to an outhouse on the side of the Spray Lake Road (a dirt road that runs through the mountains). I decided to try to call Breanna from there to see if she could let the dogs out... my attempts on the mountain were thwarted by bad reception on our cell phone (it's an emergency phone but is pretty useless as such because of chronically bad reception). We tried to put coins in the phone but it was jammed... Tom managed to shake out 85 cents but still couldn't get out all the coinage. After a bit of trying I managed to get a dial tone and an operator, informed them about the state of the phone, and they patched me through to Breanna's voicemail at work after I coughed up a credit card number... unfortunately did not have her cell phone OR home number with me (just remembered the office extension because I bug her a bunch at work) so hoped she'd get the message before she left for the day. All was well by the time we got home though - Breanna had come to the rescue of Uma & Kali and both pups had been let out and fed!! You're awesome B!