fracas

Olga would like to clarify something first.

This is a Gondola, exactly like the one she rode in. Obviously it’s not the one she rode in, or how would she be taking this picture? It is however, one that she took the photo of from the observation deck at Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Click on it if you’d like to see a wider version that shows the car dangling mid-air.

(And a word of advice here now. This post contains many photos of Olga’s adventure up to and atop Sulphur Mountain. I’ve reduced their size for the post, but click on any photo and it will show you a larger, 800 x 600 version!)

From the Banff Info site:

“The Banff Gondola is located just 5 mintues from the Town of Banff, on the shoulder of Sulphur Mountain, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies.

The 360 degree view from the upper gondola terminal, view decks and summit ridge interpretive boardwalk, is the very best vantage point in the west. Safely seated in a 4 passenger gondola cabin, visitors are transported in 8 minutes to the summit at an elevation of 2281m (7486 ft) above sea level.”

You did catch that, didn’t you?

7486 ft above sea level! ***

Olga couldn’t believe the bra-very it took to get in that car once she got there and saw how high up those cars were dangling from those wires. Still… she had her heart set on seeing the tops of those mountains and so she pushed onwards and upwards, just like any good bra would do.

As soon as the car started its way up the mountain, Olga’s became very excited, asking a million questions about what she was seeing.

Clearly, these were the tops of some of the tallest trees Olga had ever seen! It’s truly amazing how tall trees will grow when there’s no one or nothing to get in their way and lots of sunshine and rain to feed them! Olga wasn’t frightened a bit. In fact… she said it made her elastic feel all ‘tight’ again.

While Olga was certainly enjoying herself, I and the fraccy children were a little concerned for her safety. After all, there was that incident where a man fell to his death from a gondola car after breaking through the plexiglass.  Granted… it was suspected that the men in the car (having been drinking) were pushing each other around in the lift and that’s how the freak accident occurred, but I was a little worried about her being so close to the window.

It was open a few inches for respite from the heat on a hot day, but I calculated that Olga was small enough to fall out and so asked her to come away from the window a tad.

Before doing so, she quickly snapped this photo, and mused how it would be grand if Kevin and Sylvie ran another “View From My Window” contest so that she could enter this picture of the view from her gondola window!

Though the ride up takes 8 minutes, it goes by so quickly, you’d swear it was only a minute or two. Olga noticed a building that stood out, seemingly right below us, and asked what it was. We’d driven by it on the way to the gondolas, but the Rimrock Hotel looked quite different from up here. We were so high up, we couldn’t even see the doormen or the valet parking attendants!

Perhaps next time, Olga mused… we could stay there?

When I told Olga that August rates at such a fine hotel were about $230.00 per person, per night, she did the math for five of us on this trip… and said she felt her stitches popping.

Perhaps if Mr. Fracas and I go all by ourselves sometime, I’ll sneak her in!

Finally at the top, we had to take a moment and watch the lifts come in. Standing beneath them is quite a thrill, and how Olga managed to take the photos at the beginning of this story. Wandering around the 360 degree observation deck was a lovely experience. We hiked down a trail and though Olga couldn’t understand why, we ran into a man who said he was contemplating hiking all the way back down. He apparently didn’t enjoy the gondola ride as much as Olga.

Unfortunately, to the dismay of the younger fraccy son and Olga, a kibosh was put on the hiking by none other than me… dear old fracas, fearful that my control-top garment wouldn’t be enough and that silly old hernia would ruin the day.  Olga volunteered to help with that, suggesting that her elastic was good and tight from that exciting trip up, but I had vowed not to put her to work like a certain old git had.

We’d no sooner come around to the main side of the observation deck when a light rain started to fall. People were rushing to the building to head back down, but Olga, the fraccy children and I decided to put up the hoods and press on. We were quite glad we did. For a brief time, we had the observation deck all to ourselves, and though I and the children had been up last year, we’d never gotten to experience it in the rain.

The rain was more of a mist, and it created a misty, foggy, haunted kind of mood that was quite remarkable. Within minutes, the mountains around us, though still visible, were covered in mist.

Almost as quickly as it began, it was over and the sun came back out. We were chuckling about how silly it was for the folks that left to have done so. Looking about, we decided to try the walkway across to the other mountain. It’s about 1 km of wooden trail, stairs up and down as the terrain between the two peaks allows.

We’d no sooner set out across, when Olga noticed the most beautiful rainbow! In fact, if you stood in the right spot, you could see two! It seemed like it was hanging there, just ready for us to reach out and grab it. Olga decided it was her rainbow.

I, realizing what a wonderful experience this had been, took a moment to remind the fraccy children that while others had thought rain was a bad thing… an activity ruined, we had chosen to take the ‘lemon’ we were handed, and make lemonade.

Olga agreed. Lemonade sure never tasted this good before.

On the way back down, Olga was quiet. I asked her why, and in a very tiny voice, she said that while she was very happy to have had this experience, she wished she had been able to share it with her Blog Mistress.

Indeed. That would’ve made it perfect!

*** To compare… The total height of the Empire State Building, including the lightning rod, is 1,454 feet.