8/6 Banff

On our route maps, Banff is optional, but I imagine most people will take it. As we will. 

Really short morning ride into Banff, dampened by light-moderate rain. Enough to put my phone in a wrap, anyways. 

Yet another tourist town, with one of the less inspired buffets I've been to. Only 3 dishes. Oh well, it's warm and out of the rain. 

After lunch, we scamper over to a cafe. We can't wait out the rain though, so we ride to camp a few miles out of town. It's a hard climb, which had me thinking the whole time, can we get delivery out here?

Fortunately, the rain stops while we're deploying tents. We leave out bags at camp and head over to Banff Upper Hot Springs, which is up another huge climb. As I ride, I'm really debating the value of going there, even more so when we get there and see a pile of people in the springs. 

But we wait and finally wade into the pool half an hour later. Worth it! So warm and relaxing. Really got my muscles loosened up. Had to get out a few times just to cool down and appreciate the warmth. To be honest though, it was just a giant hot tub, with no real natural hot spring element on display. We got these pleasantly old-fashioned rental swimsuits. A stock photo shot at the actual pool:

It was sunnier that day. 

After a nice soaking, we rinsed off, got a drink to wait out the rain, and then headed back into town for dinner. As Banff is such a tourist town, our options are limited, which is a shame since we're here for two nights. My lamb shank at Balkan Greek restaurant was quite good. Hopefully we'll turn up something nice tomorrow night, too. 

We ride back to camp pessimistic about our chances for getting a fire going under the light rain, with the firewood having been rained on. Fortunately, we wised up and asked our neighbors for their hatchet to split open some logs. They graciously donated some of their drier wood and even a burning log. Another neighbor saw that we were having a bit of trouble getting started and came over with a blowtorch to jumpstart our fire. It grew into quite an inferno, which helped us stay warm and dry in the rain. 

Axe-borrowing is on the agenda tomorrow night. We'll stay in the same campground but have to move to a different spot.