Western Canada - Part 1- The Beginning

The goal of my blog was to go in order of how I completed my hikes, but I've been thinking about Canada a lot lately so I decided to skip some of my Catskill hikes and jump right into our Canadian adventure. Don't worry, I will be getting back to those eventually!!

Now, bear with me. This blog is going to extend into many parts. We did a lot of exploring on this trip!!

So when you hear someone say, "We went to Canada for vacation," you usually think, if you live on the east coast, somewhere like Niagara Falls, Toronto or somewhere located on the eastern side of Canada. Well, not this time. I wanted to explore the Canadian Rockies. Out west, above Montana, 10,000 foot mountains, glaciers, grizzly bears, elk, massive waterfalls and basically everything you could ever want when hiking. Jessica and I were very excited about this. This is definitely one of the more extreme vacations we've been on.

Some people ask me, what made you want to go to western Canada? Funny thing is, I was playing a hockey game on my Xbox and my team was playing against the Calgary Flames (which is located on the western side of Canada). When they did the introductions, they flew over the stadium and the city, and in the background you could see a massive set of mountains covered in snow. The picture below shows what it looked like from the game

I was hooked. I looked into it more and more each day and everything was just stunning about it. Everything up there looked so natural and unreal. I wanted to see

it out in person and not just from pictures the internet. I showed Jessica some pictures and I asked if she wanted to go. She was blown away and thought that it wasn't real. She said 'If you can plan it, then absolutely!" So I off I went. Planning and booking all that I could think of for this adventure.

First off, living in Oneonta is tough to get good deals on a lot of different things for traveling. The closest 'major' airport is Albany. And it's not really a major airport like the bigger cities. After that, you have to travel at least 4-5 hours to either NYC, Buffalo, Boston or Philadelphia to get good deals on flights. Another thing is that Albany has to fly into other major airports in order to connect with flights further away. Some of the bigger cities have nonstop flights that take you straight to the big cities, even on the west coast. I searched all over the internet and found an amazing price for a flight out of Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton is located just outside of Toronto and is a small city. It was an phenomenal price for a flight and it was nonstop to Calgary. We would have to drive 5.5 hours to get there, but the price and the short flight was worth it. I also booked a hotel near Hamilton, so we didn't have to drive at midnight to get there on time.

It was fun when we crossed the over the boarder into Canada. Jessica had already crossed over into Canada before when she was young while checking out Niagara Falls. I, on the other hand, had never crossed over into Canada. The officer there asked us what our plans were in Canada. While I was telling him our plans, he peered into the back of the car and saw my Ottawa Senators jersey. He asked "Whats that horrible Senators jersey for?" I said, "I'm a Senators fan and we're going to the Hockey Hall of Fame." Mostly everyone up in that area is a Toronto Maple Leafs fan and I knew that, because of his question, he was a leafs fan. He said, "The Hockey hall of fame is going to be tough to get in and out of at this time of day. Instead of driving there, take a train down or just don't go. And if you do, buy yourself a real jersey, like a Maple Leafs one." We all laughed and we continued on our journey into Canada!

Now, Hamilton is located around 45 minutes south west of Toronto. The cool thing about Hamilton is that it lies on the western most part of the massive Lake Ontario. That means there was a beach somewhere nearby and we had to visit it.

Below is a picture of part of Toronto on the edge of Lake Ontario.

After the beach, we checked into our hotel and went to look for something to eat. Now the place we stayed at wasn't really a hotel. It was a college dorm that they rent out during the summer days. It was really cheap and the dorm rooms were actually very comfortable to stay in!! We ventured into downtown Hamilton and found some very interesting bars and restaurants!!

Of course, being us, we found a mexican bar called Uno Mas and decided to check it out. The food was great and so were the much needed margaritas!!

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and settled in for the night. Even though I was super excited for tomorrows flight, we both slept really well.

We woke up the next morning and felt pretty good, packed everything back up and headed to the airport. When we got to the airport, we were stunned by how small it was!! It was so small that you didn't really have to walk anywhere to get to your terminal. All the terminals were located right in the same general area!!

It was great to not have to hustle to get to your terminal. I like to get there super early, just in case there are long lines and such. We learned that when we first flew to Jamaica and almost missed our flight. We chilled in the waiting area and eventually boarded our plane. When we were called for boarding, we got to actually walk onto the tarmac and board the plane. I haven't done this in a very long time!! It was awesome!! We also got treated with a nice sunrise on the way out.

And just like that, we were on our way to Calgary!! I am one of those people who loves flying. You get to see so much while up 30,000 feet in the air!!

Below is a place called The Badlands in Drumheller. As you can see, it's very similar to the Grand Canyon. Flat lands above and below is rock that has been sculptured by massive galciers and powerful flow of water.

Flying into Calgary

The flight was a non-stop flight that lasted a little over 4 hours. It was a smooth flight with very little air turbulence, which was good. When we landed in Calgary, it was beautiful outside. Actually, it was quite warm for late May. Low 80's and sunny skies seemed odd when your traveling to the Canadian Rockies. We get our rental car and started our 1.5 hour trip to our next destination: the beautiful town of Canmore!!