But not this year! This year we chose to go north. Ostensibly, we were chasing the elusive northern lights (we've tried multiple times and always failed), but even if the skies didn't dance for us at least we'd still have a good time.

We flew to Calgary. Somehow, the flight is only an hour long. Just when you've reached cruising altitude the plane starts its descent. Maybe we should have driven. But no, that's a minimum of 10 hours if the weather cooperates. Definitely flying is the way to go. Customs entering Canada was a breeze and we crashed into our hotel in downtown Calgary.

We had packed for terrible weather so it was a delight to have upper 30s and clear skies as we wandered around town. The best things? The Lougheed House for history and the +15 Skywalk for craziness. We gained a new appreciation for just how cold it must be in Calgary in winter (this day excepted) to justify almost 100 skybridges linking more than 100 buildings.

We also found the Chinook Blast winter festival was just wrapping up and wondered through the lights, fire-breathing horse, and chainsaw and ice carving demonstrations. All neat, but the big novelty was the frozen channel of the Bow River full of ice skaters. Even at night, there were plenty of folks zipping around.

A storm was forecast for our second full day so we left Calgary early and headed into the mountains. And what mountains they are! Don't get me wrong, I love the Cascades, but the Canadian Rockies are something else. As we approached Canmore we were surrounded by the striated faces of peaks towering thousands of feet above the valley floor. If only the early parts of the storm hadn't clouded the summits.

Canmore is a cute little tourist town with a decent yarn shop (or so I'm told) and a dangerous jewelry shop we weren't able to escape. Good food options throughout and lots of trails nearby. (More on that later.) We saw the first snowflakes in Canmore and made for Banff without further delay.

By the time we got to Banff, all of about 30 minutes later, it was dumping. Rumor has it there are mountains all around Banff, but you could have fooled me. We got into our hotel and sheltered from the snow and wind.

When morning came, much of the storm had passed. The sidewalks and roads were compact snow, but easy to walk on. Cars drove around as though it was dry pavement. Clearly a mountain town. While skiers clogged the sidewalks waiting for buses, we did the tourist thing and visited all the shops. Very, very touristy. Thankfully, no big purchases though there was a full down mountaineering suit that attracted the eyes of some in our party.

As we wandered back to the hotel, we could make out shapes of the mountains around us. They looked amazing. Fingers crossed they would fully appear at some point... I had only to wait a few hours for the clouds to break enough to get a peek. The most prominent and impressive was Cascade Mountain. It felt like it towered over the town and drew me in every time I looked at it.

The next day I did go out for some adventures. After my stupid back went out in January (have I mentioned it's stupid?) I was playing it safe. I did the out-and-back at Grassi Lakes and wandered down to the river at the east end of town. Neither were particularly amazing by themselves, but since the snow covered mountains were set against blue skies it was wonderful.

And cold. Like, really, really cold. The car thermometer read -22C. My imperial units mind says that's just a few degrees above absolute zero. Every breath added to an epic ice beard. If the wind had been blowing it would have been legitimately dangerous. The calm meant it was merely stupid. (And yes, I know -22C is about -8F. I can do math.)

Not having frozen enough, we chose to take the gondola up Sulphur Mountain for dinner. It was crazy to see an honest-to-goodness fancy building with a restaurant at the top of the mountain. Of course, there's a short walk to the summit so we did that, too. We walked through a spectacular whitebark pine forest before reaching the treeless peak. The views, even partially obscured by clouds, were amazing. And the dinner was great, too.

We stopped at a few shops in Banff and Canmore on the way back to Calgary. The big deal was Amy's new favorite yarn store, Ancient Arts, and realized we had a ton of time before we needed to be at the airport. No worries, there's always somewhere to walk. Even better when it has an awesome name like, "Weaselhead Flats Natural Environment Park."

The Calgary airport felt deserted when we arrived and made our way to the gates. Such a different feel than Seatac. A big surprise was we did United States customs before we left. That meant we landed at a domestic gate in Seattle. Nice, but it through off our scheduling since we didn't have to do the hour-long customs dance with everyone else.

While we didn't get the warmth of a southern vacation, I felt completely refreshed after a few days in the Great White North. And now that I can appreciate the adventure opportunities and the ease with which we could get to Banff, I'm sure we'll be back.

📍On the lands of the Ktunaxa ɁamakɁis, the Ĩyăħé Nakón mąkóce (Stoney), the Niitsítpiis-stahkoii ᖹᐟᒧᐧᐨᑯᐧ ᓴᐦᖾᐟ (Blackfoot / Niitsítapi ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ), the Tsuut’ina, and the Michif Piyii (Métis) peoples.