An amazing canyon, and more bears!

We promised to report on last night's dinner. It was actually very similar to airline food, ie not enough. Not sure why the plastic tray had so little in it. The apple and cranberry dessert would have served just as well as sauce for the turkey, as there was no more than a tablespoonful. We boosted the menu with bread rolls and some excellent salad from a bag.

The day dawned cold, overcast and windy, ie like winter at home. Off we went to see some lakes not far away, called Edith (after Edith Cavell whose mountain we saw yesterday) and Annette (can't remember who she was). Very pretty, and we walked right round Annette, although we got rather cold in the process.

We then pressed on to Malign Canyon. The story is that an early explorer found the terrain so rough that he called the lake Malign. The name was then applied to the river and the canyon through which it flows. After lunch we began exploring the canyon, and found it to be the most amazing one we have seen. It is incredibly deep, and extremely narrow - the river has cut through the rock like a knife. But the knife was wielded by an artist, as the sculpture is remarkable. It's almost possible to step across the canyon in places, but there are four foot bridges (and two road bridges where it's wider). Again the paths are very well maintained, with excellent viewing points at frequent intervals. The water disappears about half way down, we learned into an underground system, and then reappears further down.

We planned to do the circuit and return via the high path above the canyon, but missed a turning and found ourselves down at bridge 6, the final one. Hence the total distance walked was nearer to 4 km than the 2 km it should have been, and with the extremely steep gradients we were well exercised by the end of it.

The final objective of the day was Malign Lake, some 40 km up the river valley. It's a famous resort area so we felt obliged to see it. On the way the car came to an abrupt halt on command from the co-driver, who had spotted black bears! On the shore of Medicine Lake a mother and two cubs were calmly feeding on berries ("Nuts and berries - yeuch!"). They were not bothered at all by the small crowd that had gathered, even though two people were far too close. We stood in the cold trying to get good pictures, but the long grass obscured the cubs rather a lot, and like all animals they seemed intent on presenting their rear ends for photography!

Eventually we tore ourselves away and pressed on to Malign Lake, where in view of the late hour we contented ourselves with a few photographs and turned for home (well our temporary home). On the way back the bears were still there, which enforced another stop of course. After passing through a sand storm on the highway up to the cabins, there was yet another stop for a mountain goat, which appeared to be eating gravel in a layby!

The evening started with doing the laundry, which is expensive here. We will then reward ourselves with dinner in the restaurant, having saved money for two nights with down-market frozen food.