Maya In The Rockies, Part 1: Arrival

Posted on June 21, 2010

For our summer break, Shanthala wanted to go to Switzerland. I balked at the suggestion because of the travel time and the jetlag. It takes Maya about a week to recover from her jetlag. If we went for a week, we’d jetlagged for two or more weeks. How about the Canadian Rockies, I suggested ? I’ve heard Banff is spectacular, and you get your mountains and we save on the jetlag, I said. So, we booked our tickets to Calgary (considerably cheaper than the over $1000 per pop ticket to Switzerland) in April. Then came the hurricane of work that buried us and from which we’re still recovering (with no help from FEMA). With Shanthala’s schedule hardly permitting her a break even on weekends, there was a modest possibility that we would even have to cancel this trip. But, almost at the last minute, things perked up for her and we flew to Calgary.

Unlike just five months ago, Maya’s anticipation of the upcoming trip was palpable. She repeated everyday, for over a week, that she wanted to get on an airplane, rent a van and climb mountains (“hattu betta” is her Kannada expression). When we got to the airport, she was thrilled, even if cranky because of the early morning start. She couldn’t wait to board the plane and was busy picking which plane she’d like to board. Running back and forth on a nearby escalator and a front seat view of the runway helped pass time till we got on the plane. She was well behaved throughout the flight. She could barely contain her excitement on getting into the van. “No car”, she declared vehemently several times after she got in.

Shanthala and I have not stayed in hotels since a long, long time. We discovered cottage rentals and have never looked back. For just about the same price, we get a huge place with the convenience of cooking our meals and much more. For example, the place we’re staying at has a giant LCD TV in the living room and plasma screen TVs in each of the bedrooms. Each bedroom is also equipped with its own CD and DVD players. The condo is superby furnished with paintings and other works of art. There are lots of reading materials and cardboard games. The house also comes with free phone usage for calls anywhere within the US and Canada. And a free pass to Banff National Park. Hiking trails begin right outside our condo. The location of course is what most of what these places are about. Here is the view from our bedroom.

And this is what the living room looks like.

We’re staying at Canmore, about 20 kms from the town of Banff, and about 10 kms from the entrance to the Banff National Park. Like many such little towns in Canada, Canmore came to existence thanks to the Canadian Pacific Railway. It became a mining town which drove much of the local economy (so many of the places we’ve come to admire came into existence thanks to the activities of environmentally dismal industries such as mining and railroads). In 1979, the last mine closed down, putting the city on the crossroads to reinventing itself or becoming a ghost town. Fortunate proximity to Banff National Park and Calgary allowed the town to reinvent itself as a tourist spot. The Nordic events of the 1988 Winter Olympics were held in Canmore. And so it now is a popular spot with locals from Calgary who prefer this place to the more expensive Banff.

There is hardly a glimpse of the mountains from Calgary. But here in Canmore, we’re surrounded on all sides by mountains of staggering beauty. The place feels a little like Yosemite on a grander, larger canvas. We even have a mountain, Mt. Rundle, that resembles the famed Half Dome.

As the day of departure approached, I looked at the weather report and was dismayed. Rain was predicted practically every day that we would be there. We landed in Calgary under mostly sunny skies. And today, Sunday, has been picture perfect. Maya has been so strenuously demanding that she climb a mountain, that we decided to hike up Tunnel Mountain. A popular hike because it is short and provides grand vistas of the neighboring mountains and valleys, we started up the trail around 11 AM. Maya was in great form, hiking the little over a mile trail to the summit, but almost 1000 feet up from the start of the hike.

The views along the way were grand.

She was too tired to hike down, but that was as we expected.

And before I close, it seems like I can’t stop speaking of the iPhone. In just about every place we’ve been to, I’ve desperately sought to know the names of the peaks that held us in their thrall. But it was usually in vain. The iPhone has a bunch of apps that use the the compass, accelerometer, camera and GPS that provide a fix for my curiosity. I picked one called “Peaks”, developed by a company called Augmented Outdoors. I looked at a few different apps and zeroed in on this one due to its interface and features, especially its ability to work completely offline. I didn’t want to pay expensive roaming charges to satisfy my curiosity.

Once we were settled in our condo, I started up the app and pointed it at the mountains to see how well it would do. I can’t say that I’m completely satisfied, but its pretty good. Apparently, the compass in the iPhone isn’t as accurate as it can be and this causes errors in the display. However, Peaks provides a few knobs to tweak it and get decent results. One cool feature is that you can take a picture with the information that it provides, overlaid on that picture. For example, here are a couple of pics that I took using this software.

Shanthala and I haven’t enjoyed an outing as much as we did hiking up Tunnel Mountain. Before Maya was born, hiking had been our major recreation. We sought out places that had spectacular and difficult hikes. Since her birth, we’ve not been able to hike much at all. Part of the reason was because Maya refuses to sit in any kind of sling or backpack. But today, she was a champ. This trip is hopefully the beginning of a new life in our hiking adventures.