Where to begin.  The contrast between the Greek islands in summer and the Canadian Rockies in the middle of winter couldn’t be more stark.  Truth is, I love extremes of weather, can’t be doing with never-ending greyness.

True, the latest trip to Banff wasn’t as cold as it has been in the past.  Indeed, locals say that December ’24 was one of the mildest they can remember.  January ’25 was warmest worldwide. I went to Banff first in mid-December 2010 when an idea of how cold it would be could be gauged by how far across the car park you got before icicles formed on your nasal hairs.  That was the year I took a selfie which was used for the cover of a book.

Though it had been warm before we arrived, with afternoon temperatures a degree or two above zero on a few days, thankfully it soon turned cold, dropping to minus 20.  There was more open water on the Bow River and in the Falls than I have seen on any previous trip, though still rushing down through broken icefloes as it speeded up on approach to the Falls.

Soon after we arrived, the warm weather began to change, temperatures plummeted.

With this drop in temperature, in order to acclimatise to both the cold and the altitude (Banff is at 1400 metres ASL), and in acknowledgement of my lack of fitness, one of the first walks I did was out to the Cave and Basin Natural Historic Site to witness a strange phenomenon.

Though known to, indigenous peoples for thousands of years, the ‘discovery’ of a hot geothermal spring by three railway workers in 1883 led to the creation of Canada’s first National Park, and the development of the town of Banff. The warm and welcoming visitor and interpretation centre are well worth a visit, but that isn’t what I went to see.

The sulphurous hot springs are constantly flowing and obviously cannot be contained within the site.  They emerge as a heated stream which flows out below the centre, meandering down to the frozen river, steaming lightly.  When air temperature drops well below freezing, this freezes on vegetation, creating an other-worldly environment. Because of low-angled winter sun, it’s in the shadow of Sulphur Mountain all day.  The exaggerated hoar frost is spectacular. My guess was with the sudden plunge in temperature, high of minus 15 in the day, low of minus 20 at night, the creation of this other-world would have begun.  It had.  Not as spectacular as in the colder weather of previous years, but still dramatic.

The water flows no matter how cold it becomes, (I have been there in minus 30-35), and it has it’s own aquatic flora and fauna.  Parks Canada have built boardwalks through it and down over the marshy margins of the river.  Many years ago, small tropical fish were illegally introduced and have survived and thrived, replacing native species. A globally unique snail survives in the warm water but is now classed as ‘endangered’.  It’s well worth a visit if you are prepared to put up with the extreme cold.  Because of the water vapour in the air, it feels much colder than the very dry atmosphere of the rest of this part of the Rockies in winter.  The cold seemed even more so because the view out over the marsh and river was to high peaks in full sun.

Some years ago, I found a another thermal spring feature part way along the frozen Vermillion Lakes.  A pond with fish and bird life.  No ice on the surface, flowing out into the ice of the lake and keeping a channel open in the ice for a good distance across it.  It was still like that on my last visit two years ago.  Now it has been changed dramatically.  An earth bund has been built, making the pond larger in area and deeper. It nolonger flows into the ice of the lake so no open channel and one end of the pond now has a thin ice cover.  It’s also nolonger possible to walk around it so see it from many perspectives, the edges barred by dense brushwood. A disappointment.

January 2016

January 2025

What price Grey Britain compared to this?!?!