Hi Mum,
although we got some rough weather over the last week, today it was a wonderful day (a tad cold maybe 
), so smaug took us up to the mountains again 
. First we stopped at the Norquay Ski Resort parking lot, which was pretty much empty.
As we moved up the mountain we started having a good view (getting blinded by the sun ) of Cascade Amphitheatre on one side...
...and of the of the valley leading to Elk Pass on the other.
Moving further up we started seeing Banff and Vermillion lakes ...
...the front face of Norquay ski area...
...and the valley hiding Mystic Lake.
While we were wondering if we’ll ever go there and be enlightened by some mystic vision , we noticed the more mundane, but equally impressive, amount of snow that the clouds dumped on the top of Cascade Mountain over the last couple of days 
.
So, before pushing for the summit, we decided to get a sugar boost 
...
...and spent some time resting and laying in the sun 
.
Eventually it was time to move on and, as the track was getting snowbound, things got exciting..although I am sure I overheard smaug using very different adjectives to describe the situation .
On the way we started seeing Mt Rundle...
...and the Spray River valley behind Banff .
Still the summit didn’t look much closer...
...while the snow was getting deeper....great for playing 
.
Anyway, we eventually reached the top and we were also brave enough to take a few photos in the freezing wind. We saw Lake Minnewanka...
...the mountains in the west...
...and the Bow Valley heading east .
And that was enough of coping with the freezing cold for me, so I hid back in the backpack until we reached warmer elevations .
