sammino, Calgary, Canada

smaug Posted Apr 30, 2009, 4:43 am	Ciao, ciao, ciao everybody! My name is sammino (that means little Sam, it was supposed to be Sam, but I am so little that it became little Sam...Smaug’s not famous for his imagination with names  ) and I am a little Bald Eagle, wow I can’t believe that I am actually becoming a toyvoyager. I have been asking Smaug to find a website like this for ages , but eventually here I am! Oooh, where should I start from? Well, I spent the first 8 years of my life hanging from the car rearviewmirror: for a while it was good, I saw a lot of places that way, but I was also spending a lot of time alone in the car and that was boring, I love to be around people. So, when the car was sold I managed to hide myself in Smaug’s backpack and since then it has been fun. I travelled a lot around Europe and even managed to see Greenland (my friend Sigfrido the moose joined me in the trip too!!). My only regret is that Smaug always takes pictures of me halfway in the backpack: he says it’s because last time I was taking a picture outside of it I took off in the wind and he almost had to scramble down a cliff to rescue me, what an adventure was that!!! Anyway, now that I heard about toyvoyagers I would like to become a TV myself, but Smaug says that I am too old to travel by myself (I think he just can’t bear the idea of letting me go  ) so I will become a home toyvoyager. I will have to welcome all our TVs guest and make sure they feel home away from home while they are here (that’s a BIG responsibility!!).  I will also have to train his other TVs while they get ready for their big journey and every now and then I will let you know of my own trips in Smaug’s backpack, oooh. I am so excited I can’t wait to welcome our first guest and to send out my next update. Ciao ciao ciao
smaug Posted May 4, 2009, 2:00 am	Ciao ciao ciaoooo Oooh, what a boring few days I had! Smaug was so busy that I could barely see him in the evenings, but today he’s taking me to a short hike on the foothills of Rockies, so he will stretch a bit his legs while I’ll stretch my wings! I am so excited. My friend Paula will come with us too...well, she always comes with us. She is a little duck and she is always hanging out of Smaug’s rucksack, she could almost be a TV herself but (I can’t say this aloud) she just quacks all the time so her travelog would never be as interesting as mine is  . Actually her real name is Paulina but I always call here Paula, she doesn’t really mind anyway...QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK....or maybe she does  . So, when we go hiking I always take care of the most important issue, supplies! I go to the kitchen and pack all...mmm, oh, maybe we’ll just grab a few donuts on the way  . Well, so, off we go without anything to eat: here I am in the car. I always love when we head West towards the mountains because, you never know, I might meet a real relative of mine, oooh! I think that while Smaug’s driving (hopefully he won't get lost if I don't navigate for a few minutes) I’ll have a quick look at the newspaper, maybe there’s been an eagle-sighting....doesn’t seem so. And here we are eventually at the parking lot ready to start the walk: here is the rucksack with Paula and me in my very comfortable pocket, very(cough) very comfortable.......can we please get the binoculars out of here? I feel like a sardine!! Phew, somehow we are off on the trail. There is plenty of snow still, even if we are already in May, so there are a lot of wildlife footprint.  Sherlock-sammino has to investigate: mmm, this one could belong to an elk, maybe a moose, wow...a size 40 boot would actually fit in there quite nicely too. That was steep, wow! Eventually Smaug had to stop and get some rest, so I took the chance for flying on the highest peak that I could find close by and have a look at this new potential hunting territory....mmm barely wide enough for a bald eagle as mighty as I am. Boy, what a day! After my short flight we went to the car and drove back home. Pity that I didn’t see any other eagle, but hopefully it will be next time  . Ciao ciao ciao
smaug Posted May 12, 2009, 5:09 am	Ciao ciao ciao, oooh, this week our second TV came home for the first time (what a trip from the shop where Smaug rescued her!). Her name is Pepita and she was a bit shy at the very beginning but then we had quite a chat and became good friends. It’s a pity that she arrived and left almost immediately. She is going to BC so we all wished her good luck, I'm sure she will have great fun there.
smaug Posted May 12, 2009, 5:27 am	Ciao ciao ciao oooh, today we had a lovely hike, too bad that Smaug forgot me in the backpack side-pocket for most of the day and remembered to take some pictures of me only halfway through the day, but what a place it was! Frozen lake, white mountains, wow  ...still no wild bald eagles yet. We have even been assaulted by a psycho-man-eating-grouse: when I realised the Smaug’s was in trouble getting rid of her I decided to peep out f the backpack and scare her off and, would you believe it, she didn’t care at all  ...I mean, it’s OK not being afraid of humans, but ignoring me!! a bird of prey at the top of the food chain, this is outrageous lack of respect  !!! I was tempted to make lunch out of her but Smaug didn’t let me hurt her so I let him dealing with her. It was so complicated to fend her off and get away that he didn’t even managed to take a picture. What a waste, nothing to document the attack of the crazy grouse  , oooh
smaug Posted May 17, 2009, 8:46 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, Wow, today when Smaug came back from work he found a notice from the post office, so after dinner he went out again without saying where he was going and when he came back he had a little parcel with him…we were all very escited as we were expecting Sully Monster, so we gathered to see if it was him… …and yes!! Here he was  We immediately started chatting, he has so many stories about his travelling to tell us and I can’t wait to show him around Calgary!
smaug Posted May 17, 2009, 10:28 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, Oooh, today we have taken Sully Monster to his first trip out of Calgary. I was afraid that we were never going to leave, Smaug was so lazy today that I had to fly around him all morning urging him to get ready faster  . At one point I was fearing that we were going to have a night hike: I enjoy night hikes, but I am an eagle, not an owl! Anyway, in the end we managed to set off and Sully Monster and I enjoyed the trip from a vantage point in the car  . While he is our guest I’ll share my pocket with Sully Monster, it’s nice to have someone to chat with during a long hike  . Wow, lot of the ice on the lake had melted and there was plenty of open water areas, so exciting. I love to hike close to water bodies because I might meet some other bald eagle  …not today though. Unfortunately it was very windy, so after taking the pictures we were forced to go back in the pocket as Smaug wouldn’t allow us to explore the lake shore by ourselves, he said we might take off and disappear in the water...as if an eagle couldn't deal with a bit of wind  .
smaug Posted May 22, 2009, 3:07 am	Ciao ciao ciao, oooh, this week has been interesting because I heard a lot of stories from Sully Monster about his travellling, but also a bit boring as Smaug was coming back very late from work and always carrying lot of paper so he couldn’t really take us anywhere. So today we decided to organize ourselves and watch a movie in DVD. First we had to decide what to watch, very difficult decision. Someone was pushing for “The march of the penguins”... ...but I wanted to show to Sully Monster my favourite movie “Where Eagles Dare”, oooh, so I insisted until the others gave up  Then we divided the remaining tasks, so while Sully Monster and Paula prepared the DVD player I took care of the snacks....mmm, barely enough for a two hours movie and no crisps  Sully Monster and I agreed that someone had to sacrifice himself for the well being of the others and check if the food was still good....hmmm, looks like he likes breadsticks and nutella as much as I do  So here we are comfortably watching the movie....oooh, I love this movie,  hope Sully Monster likes it too  Later on Smaug came home and let us update our travelogs, ehi! That’s me in the screen, wow
smaug Posted May 25, 2009, 4:07 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today I went out for another hike. We were supposed to leave early this morning, but Smaug had other things to take care of and so we changed our plans and went to a place a close to Calgary in the afternoon. The forest was so thick that there was hardly a place for a good picture. But when Smaug stopped to get some rest, Sully Monster and I explored a bit around...and we found out that a creek had been blocked with a dam, so I explained to Sully Monster that it must have be the work of some beaver... ...wow, look at that! A corrugated steel pipe, nowadays even beavers are embracing technology to survive  The trail was very muddy and sometimes we had to ford a little creek...I’m sure that this one somehow ends up in the Yukon River  ...I’m also sure that Smaug would disagree with that, but what does he know of where this creek goes?  We spent a few hours in the forest but when we eventually reached a clearing the view opened up on the landscape and what a view was that! The trees were going on forever!  Smaug took the chance to give us some very exciting lesson, yaaawn, about the difference between foothills and proper mountains. I don’t remember the details but I’m sure it was something very interesting.  When we eventually made it back to the car Smaug gave us something to eat... ...just to keep us running until we made it home for a well deserved supper
smaug Posted May 25, 2009, 5:14 am	Ciao ciao ciao, Last night we were so tired that we were asleep very early, so this morning we were up very early too, and to spend some time we decided to watch the Montecarlo F1 GP. It was the first time that Sully Monster saw a GP so he was quite excited. I politely whispered to him that it was all fine to cheer on the Aussie driver on the grid, but with Smaug around, should the Ferrari be as rubbish as they have been the rest of the season, it was advisable to keep some sort of low profile during the race  During the race I had some time to tell Sully Monster about my visit to Monaco last summer, I wish Smaug had taken some photos of me that day instead of leaving me in the Casino Square car park all day, but wow, what a glamorous car park was that  As usual the GP was incredibly boring...well, apart for the occasional accident  As the race went on it actually became a really, really boring, but I arranged to have some snacks out and that made the rest of the race more interesting  In  the end neither the Ferrari nor the Aussie driver won, but Smaug didn’t seem too disappointed. During the rest of the morning Smaug was busy cleaning the house, so we decided to keep watching television, English football this time, and of course we kept the cookies nearby  In the afternoon the weather was so nice that Smaug took us out for a walk so we went to take a look at the Saddedome, the main Ice Hockey arena in Calgary. The roof is really shaped as a saddle  Smaug started again with his lessons and explained us that here in Calgary people are quite crazy about all things related to cowboys and that every year in July the city hosts the biggest rodeo in the world. Walking around the dome we met some Canadian geese...but most of them hid when we tried to take a picture of them. On the way back we also got a glimpse of the Calgary Tower It was very hot today (well, not that hot, but, considering that a few days ago it was below freezing point, 20-23 degrees seemed very hot) so when we came back home Smaug gave us some ice-cream to help us recovering, yuumm...
smaug Posted May 27, 2009, 3:26 am	Ciao ciao ciao, This week Smaug told us that soon we might see some new guest arriving, with Mr Bananas likely to be the first, so when tonight we saw him coming back home with a padded envelope in his hands we got really excited: was that going to be Mr Bananas  ? YES, it’s him! Oooh, we all gathered around to welcome him, he must be so tired after such a long trip We immediately started chatting asking him about his travel and about England (me and most of the other "resident" toys have been in England for many years, so we are always curious about what’s going on there) and got to know each other better....he is very nice, he even brought us some chocolate  Wow, we went on chatting for a while but then Smaug came around telling us that Mr Bananas needs some rest after his trip to help him getting past the jet-lag and sp he sent us all to bed, oooh
smaug Posted May 31, 2009, 6:03 am	Ciao ciao ciao, What a week! A new TV has arrived today, Purple Haze!  We knew she was going to be here soon so we were very excited. That makes two arrivals in 3 days, and, what a coincidence, she is from UK and she is having her first trip, just like Mr Bananas . Now she is very tired, so, after a bit of chatting Smaug sent us all to bed...I guess we will keep going with the chatting after he falls asleep
smaug Posted Jun 4, 2009, 4:44 am	Ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a trip into Banff National Park, oooh. We all took a place on the back seat and spent most of the driving time chatting and reading the newspaper. Our destination was a place called Moraine Lake  . Smaug explained us that the lake (as many others in this area) is fed by glaciers up in the mountains. These glaciers scrap from the mountain rock a fine mineral silt and damp it into the lake. This silt is called “rock flour” and gives to the water a strange opaque and milky colour. A catch of this glacier activity is that this particular lake is usually fairly dry until the thaw starts up at the higher elevations and today it was still partly frozen and almost empty: its area was less than half of what it usually is in summer so we could not really appreciate its typical colour, oooh. As it was very windy Smaug tried to take some pictures of us while we were “anchored” inside the backpack. After exploring a bit the lake shore we tried to follow a trail that was still quite covered with snow. After some time we got a bit uncomfortable as we could hear a lot of thunders but the forest was too thick to see the sky. Feeling a certain unrest in the backpack (no one among us really fancied experiencing a thunderstorm while stuck on an uncomfortable trail 1 hour from the car) Smaug stopped and helped us looking through a gap in the tree branches: the thunders were not actual thunders, but just the noise made by avalanches falling from high up on the surrounding mountains  , wow, how exciting  . Of course, I can fly away in case of danger but the others are not mighty fathered creatures like me, so the news did not exactly improve the already general extreme lack of comfort until Smaug told us that the trail was very safe, mah. On the way back we managed to take some pictures of the valley downstream of the lake.
smaug Posted Jun 8, 2009, 1:37 am	Ciao ciao ciao, brrr, who said summer is near? We are almost halfway in June and this morning it was snowing here  It soon became rain, but the rest of the day went on very cold and very rainy. So, since the day was not really good for any outdoor activity, Smaug decided to go to the office to do some work and brought us along  First we had a look out of the window...rain, rain and more rain  So we decided to play a bit on the computer screens... ...but since Smaug actually wanted to do some work he kindly moved us away from the computer and left us exploring the bookshelves. Let’s have a look at this one, the front page looks colourful... ...so, yaaawn, interesting...zzzzz When we woke up we had another look out of the window, ehi, a bit of sun  And you can see downtown Calgary in the background, oooh...of course, rain and clouds were back very quickly. Wow, Smaug has some nice poster of my homeland  Next week Smaug is going to work from somewhere on Vancouver Island and guess what? We TVs are all going with him. He told us that he is not sure that he’ll have much time to take photos but we have hope  I heard there might bald eagles there    I am so excited!
smaug Posted Jun 13, 2009, 9:34 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, as anticipated in the last update, this week we all went with Smaug to Campbell River on Vancouver Island  , where he was working for a few days. Unfortunately his carry on baggage was filled by the laptop and other work stuff, so we were forced to fly in the checked baggage, how uncomfortable, oooh After a couple of boring days at the hotel we had a chance to explore the place. First we walked north of the town along the narrow bit of land (called the Tyee Spit) that separates the actual river called Campbell River from the Discovery Passage. The Passage divides Vancouver Island from Quadra Island and is the main route for cruise ships sailing to and from Alaska. Here we are resting on some driftwood with the Discovery Passage and Quadra Island behind us. Here I am at the very end of the Spit with the Discovery Passage on my left and Campbell River’s mouth on my right. And here are another couple of pictures looking upstream along Campbell River. Going north a few km, the Passage becomes very narrow and near its narrowest point there used to be an underwater island (called Ripple Rock) that in low tides claimed lot of ships and lives in the past. This navigation hazard was removed in 1958: putting there some warning signs might have been a simple and effective idea, but an even more effective solution was chosen and the whole top of the underwater island was blasted off in one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history  On our last evening here we explored the southern bit of the town. As you can see the 50th parallel passes here, how cool  And just south of the 50th parallel there is this big painted rock on the beach just within the high tide line.  It is actually called (you would never think of that!): Big Rock  It is supposed to be some remnants of the ice age, but one legend has it that it is a boastful grizzly bear turned to stone after not heeding the Great Spirits advice and just failing to complete his attempt to jump from the mainland to Vancouver Island. The tide was high and his back paw touched the water and, as the Great Spirit warned, the bear turned to stone.  By the way, grizzly bears are plentiful along the mainland coastal inlets but none are found on Vancouver Island. Here we are taking a photo with the southern tip of Quadra Island behind us, while on our way back to the hotel. And now back to Calgary....again in the checked baggage...where we spent a long long time since the flight was more than 4 hours late, what an adventure
smaug Posted Jun 17, 2009, 4:03 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today we went for a long hike to a place called Aylmer Lookout. This used to be one of the fire lookouts within Banff National Park and , as all the other ones, it has been abandoned a long time ago. But the lookout  location is still one of the best viewpoints in the area, and can be reached via a 12km trail, so we were quite excited, oooh Most of the trail was in the forest and nothing exciting happened along it, so we didn’t take any picture, but once we reached the lookout, wow, it was worth the wait  Here we are enjoying the view over Lake Minnewanka (almost 600m below us). The lookout is usually visited by many mountain sheep, not today though. This is us again looking up the valley leading to Aylmer Pass. While driving back, just after leaving the car park, we spotted a black bear on a tree a few meters from the road side. How exciting, my first bear “meeting” in Canada, it was huge  Unfortunately Smaug didn’t stop to take a picture of each of us with the bear in the background, but just slowed down enough to let us enjoy the encounter and to take a picture of the bear (picture that actually came out dark and out of focus  , I can’t believe it! We urgently need either a new camera or a new photographer.....ehi! what do you mean not coming to the next trip?? I am just worried about the quality of our guests’ travelogs...such a touchy man, always taking constructive criticism as a personal offence). He explained us that stopping so close to a bear might help him in getting used to humans (and that is bad for both bears and humans) or might make him nervous and scared (and that is very bad for humans as you don’t really want to be close to a nervous bear  ).
smaug Posted Jun 21, 2009, 8:16 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, today we went visiting a place called Moose Mountain.  This is a fairly high peak (2437m) that lies on the eastern edge of the Rockies and have a fire lookout (still used) right at the top. To reach the trailhead we had to drive a few km on a gravel road littered with potholes...what a shaking, oooh.  Of course the road was quite dusty too, hmmm, what was the colour of the car?  We could get the first glimpse of our destination through a gap in the trees. After a couple of hours walking (well, Smaug was walking, we were chatting in his backpack  ) we reached the summit. Wow, there was a sea of peaks surrounding us on three sides While on the opposite side the green sea of the prairies was disappearing into the east. We didn’t linger much as the weather was turning ugly. On the way down we managed to take a final picture of the summit... ...before it started pouring down, we even got some heavy hail, what an adventure. But eventually we made it back to the car park without getting too drenched. During the drive back we stopped to take some more picture of the prairies (you might almost see Calgary’s skyscrapers in the distance...well, to see them you’d need the superior vision of an eagle  ).... ...and we explored a natural gas extraction site, oooh.
smaug Posted Jun 26, 2009, 4:03 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today we got a "present" in the post: my friend Pepita came back from BC to spend a few days here (guess there's something she wants to pack in her shell) before leaving for Germany, oooh. Of course we spent the whole night chatting
smaug Posted Jun 26, 2009, 4:36 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today another guest arrived we were expecting PinkyHH to appear anytime soon, so when Smaug came back home with an envelope from Malaysia  we got extremely excited: and it was her! Of course she was very tired for the trip and a bit confused by the jet lag so we let her falling asleep very early, oooh...we’ll have plenty of time to chat tomorrow
smaug Posted Jun 28, 2009, 6:13 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today we went with Smaug to Medicine Hat, a town South-west of Calgary where he had to attend a meeting,oooh.  The place is 300km from Calgary so we had quite some time on the road to look at the prairies. Well, here are a couple of shots that will give you an idea of the landscape. But you shouldn’t think that the view was the same for three hours, there were plenty of changes like hmmm, the odd herd of cows grazing on the side of the road, the side of the road were the odd herd of cows was grazing on and of course the colour of the cows in the odd herd of cows, so exciting  You won’t be surprised that we spent most of the trip reading the newspaper and chatting. We actually didn’t see much of Medicine Hat itself as Smaug was a bit busy so we only managed to get a picture with the biggest tepee in the world, oooh. It is actually a steel structure, much cooler if you are not too close to it When we came back home Pepita jumped in her envelope and got ready to travel to her next host in Germany, wow  I gave a her a big hug and wished her good luck with her travels. Who knows how long it will take before she comes home again, but I’ll follow her adventures on her travelog
smaug Posted Jul 3, 2009, 3:42 am	Ciao ciao ciao, Today was Canada day here and there was supposed to be celebrations everywhere, but unfortunately Smaug was working, so we were ready to spend the whole day at home  . Actually I was very happy anyway because my friend Sigfrido is visiting from Europe oooh. Smaug eventually came back early in the afternoon and we went out for a little (2 hours each way) trip to Moraine Lake  . This time the lake was full, much better than last time we were here  ; too bad the best location for photos was closed due to works on the path, but we still managed to take some pictures. As you can see there was quite a throng  as Sigfrido was there and also a new TV Orpheus  (that I am training to get him ready for his first trip) came with us too, oooh.
smaug Posted Jul 8, 2009, 4:36 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today was the opening day of the Calgary Stampede, that the organizers call “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”,  oooh. Well, that might be an arguable statement, but it’s definitely something big. The core of the show are daily rodeos and chuckwagon races, so as you can guess the whole show has a strong western theme. To get in the atmosphere we decided to wear a cowboy hat before heading down to the Stampede Park...hmmm, finding a hat of the right size was a bit of problem so it was actually the hat that was wearing us Down at the park it was very crowded: fun fairs, markets, animal exhibitions were all packed with people, but eventually smaug found a “quiet” spot where we could take some group pictures overlooking the park. You can even see Calgary downtown  What a long day! And when we came back Orpheus jumped in a suitcase to start his journeys oooh, so we all wished him good luck. I am comfortable that he’ll be OK because my friend Sigfrido will travel with him for a while so he’s in good hands
smaug Posted Jul 11, 2009, 6:16 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, Today it’s PinkyHH’s first birthday, wow! When we woke up we pretended having forgotten it but later we all gathered around her and sang happy birthday for her I decided that we should make the date a bit special, so first we had a hearty breakfast with chocolate cookies  ...damn smaug, I told him three time last week that we needed a cake, and nothing, he forgot, leaving me to arrange something as best as I could, oooh We dipped  the cookies in milk and chocolate while Mr Bananas and Purple Haze had some proper English tea. After that we spent the morning playing cards…salzburger spielkarten, this should have impressed my guests  We played Watten, actually Blind-Watten, and it took a while to explain the rules to everybody  You usually play in pairs, so I arranged the teams:  PinkyHH and Purple Haze  against Mr Bananas and Sully Monster, but as they were were all novices I placed an “experienced player” with each of them to help. I was helping  Sully Monster  Later, after a bit of rest,  I showed everybody how to make a paper frog, well not just a paper frog, but a paper jumping frog  They all got quickly into it and started preparing their own frogs, and after a bit we were all ready to line up the frogs for a race. The race “track” was on the table with some, hmmm, artificial obstacles... ...but after a few laps all the frogs ended up jumping down the table so we called the race off and just spent the rest of the day chatting and relaxing as usual  Later I taught to Pinky HH how to say honey in Italian...I just hope she enjoyed the day
smaug Posted Jul 19, 2009, 9:54 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, after a couple of weeks when we have hardly seen Smaug, today we were active again. The weather forecast was for more than 30 degrees, first time of the year  ....and maybe last time too  So we left very early in the morning to go to a place called Fairview Mountain, that, at 2744m, is one of the highest points that you can reach with a trail in the Rockies national parks. We started taking some pictures while still close to the valley floor. Here is the Bow Valley heading North... And this is our destination for the day, exciting At this point I left the others and went to explore a bit around looking for something to eat for them. Hmmm, the food competition around here is fierce, but an eagle can always outsmart the other hunters, it’s just a matter of stealthy moves and tapping into unknown sources of food. Here are the others resting at the top while smaug is around somewhere. Let’s fly in from the other side of the mountain...quickly check that no one is looking while I approach the prey... ...and get in action... ...the way seems clear...just another little effort et voilà, the hunter is back, successful as always  After refilling our bellies we had a look around. The mountain is called Fairview for a good reason, the view is amazing The peak behind me and covered with ice is Mount Temple, the highest mountain in this part of the rockies. This one is Mt Victoria, that closes  the West side of Lake Louise... ...and that down there is Lake Louise,  1km below me, wow  . That is again the Bow valley. The cut in the trees is Highway 93, better known as the Icefields Parkway...I guess the name is quite self explanatory  On the way down we took a few more pictures. That’s Mount Temple again... ...Fairview Mountain from which we just came down... ...and the Lake Louise ski area.
smaug Posted Jul 23, 2009, 4:17 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today we said goodbye to PinkyHH  : she is travelling to her next host on the eastern coast of Canada, oooh. Of course we all gathered around to wish her good luck in her new adventure  . I was a bit sad as she’s the first guest who leaves the house, so I gave her a big hug: but I’m sure she’ll have great fun and I’ll check how she’s doing on her travelog  .
smaug Posted Jul 27, 2009, 4:44 am	ciao ciao ciao, what a boring week  ! smaug was busy at work and we hardly saw him at all, and today another TV is leaving us: Mr Bananas is moving on to his next host in Germany, oooh, so we all wished him a safe trip. Good news is that next one is a long week end, so hopefully smaug will take us out to do something exciting
smaug Posted Aug 3, 2009, 5:44 am	Ciao ciao ciao, after two boring weeks we were on the road again  . We went visiting a place called Prairie Mountain, just SW of Calgary. On the way there Sully Monster, Purple Haze and I refined the daily plan on the map... When we arrived at the car park there was almost no one there...it was actually very early morning. The car park is close to the Elbow River that here is hidden in the trees somewhere behind me. Here you can see one of the Elbow’s meanders from the trail On the way up we liked this valley  On the summit there is a little cairn, and of course we took a photo. That peak behind me is Moose Mountain, where I have been sometimes ago. And here is more of the view from the top. Smaug allowed Sully Monster and Purple Haze to enjoy the view with his binoculars ...I didn’t use them as being an eagle I have been gifted by nature with a superior vision and need no binoculars  While we were at the top another bald eagle who lives around here came down greeting us. How exciting  , hes the first local bald eagle I met, oooh. His name’s Landroval and after we explained him what TVs do he decided to join us and to become a TV too  .
smaug Posted Aug 4, 2009, 3:23 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today was a lovely day and we went for a walk in Calgary. First we followed a trail on the south side of the Bow river (there’re two rivers in Calgary, one is called Bow and the other Elbow  ...and I never remember which one is which  ). Here is a meander of the river looking downstream... ...and upstream. After a few km we reached a place called Edworthy Park. Going up a hill you have an incredible view of North Calgary  ...houses disappearing in the distance on all sides. This colourful building behind me is the Alberta Children Hospital  And you can even see Downtown Calgary, oooh  Smaug’s pointing out that skyscrapers in Calgary are not all leaning like the Tower in Pisa, but because of the glare he couldn’t really see that the photo was coming out a bit tilted ....can't even take a straight photo .
smaug Posted Aug 9, 2009, 6:02 am	Ciao ciao ciao! Today we went for another hike, this time to a place called C Level Cirque. First we stopped along the way because Smaug had a site visit to do. Unfortunately the visit was on Police land, so for security reason Smaug couldn’t take any picture of us to be posted here  ...but we got a good look around  . As a compensation we stopped at this Bridge on the Bow River in Cochrane to take a photo. Later we reached our destination near Banff. Smaug explained us that in the early 20th century a town of more than 1000 miners was located here working on coal extraction.  C Level was the highest part of the mining operation on the side of the mountain. Along the trail there are a lot of fenced holes in the ground that were the air vents for the mining shafts. Sully Monster was quite keen to jump the fence, go down and check the shafts  and I was happy to go with him but Smaug suggested that we needed some darkness experienced support. Close to the abandoned mines we took this picture of Lake Minnewanka. Then we reached the actual cirque. Cirque is French word used by geologists to define a semicircular, bowl-shaped depression created by an alpine glacier. In this case the glacier is long gone but a little depression is still there, fed by lot of rubble falling down by the surrounding rock walls. We actually followed the trail a bit higher up to reach a good view point where we took some more photos. We didn’t linger as flies and mosquitoes were a bit of pain . Smaug said they were a bit more aggressive than usual as they almost completely ignored the exposed skin, well covered with insect repellent, and instead happily drilled their way to the unprotected skin through the clothes  ....luckily for us, it appears that they are not really interested in TV blood. Once we were back to the car we said goodbye to Landroval who decided to fly all the way to his next host (in Germany  ) rather than using the post. I had a little chat with him in private (I was a bit concerned that he might freeze and fall down like an hailstone while flying over Greenland  ) and I think that I have convinced him to jump on one of the flights to Frankfurt that leave Calgary Airport daily  Bye
smaug Posted Aug 16, 2009, 5:31 am	Ciao ciao ciao, the weather has been horrible over the last few days, oooh, raining all the time and pretty cold  , but a new TV has arrived here, Snuttig, who comes from Austria, so that was great news  . This morning the weather was a bit better, at least it wasn’t raining  , so we went with smaug for a site visit in Cochrane, a small town west of Calgary. Apparently the main business in town is still ranching Here is the Bow River flowing past the town... And here are a couple of photos of Cochrane, you can see the Rockies in the background. On the way back we stopped at Canada Olympic Park. This was the main venue for sky jumping, luge and bobsled during the 1988 winter Olympics and it is still used for training and international competitions....in winter  . In summer people come here for the mountain bike and hiking trails and last week there was a big music festival. First we checked out the luge track This is one of the starts; there are different start points for man, women, junior athletes and tourists Later we had a look at the HS123 (90m) jumping tower. In summer the tower is the starting point of the fastest zipline in North America, with the riders flying down at up to 140km/h  , exciting
smaug Posted Aug 18, 2009, 2:58 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today it was still cold and the weather was rather bad so smaug decided to go to work, oooh...and we went with him  . Most of us have been already there, but it was the first time that Snuttig came to the office. First we checked the view out of the window, not too exciting  . Then, since smaug was working in another room we took control of the computer. Ehi, those are our updates from yesterday, oooh  . After surfing the net we started playing with the screens....mmm, I don’t think everybody is really comfortable up here  And after that we checked the plotter out. After so much activity we decided that we needed some sugars, so we stopped at the snack packs in the kitchen for a well deserved break  ...yumm, almond covered with chocolate, delicious  Tonight we all gathered to say goodbye to Purple Haze. She is going back to England to spend some time at home. I gave her a big hug, wished her a safe journey and make her promise to keep updating her travelog so that we can see what she’s up to  . It’s so hard t see my guests going
smaug Posted Aug 25, 2009, 6:31 pm	Ciao ciao ciao! smaug  was a bit busy recently so I didn’t have updates for while . Good news is that we have come with him to Toronto for a few days, wow  . After spending a day resting at the hotel, today we had our first chance to quickly check out the city. First we walk down towards the CN Tower and took a photo there, oooh. Close to the CN Tower is the Rogers Centre (that used to be called the SkyDome), the main stadium in Toronto for baseball, and Canadian football. There was a baseball game on today, with touts trying to sell tickets at every corner, even in front of the police (isn’t that illegal??  ). Anyway, smaug doesn’t really care about baseball so we just took another photo and moved on. And here are again Rogers Centre and CN Tower from a bit further away. Later on we had to get in the north of Toronto to see the tennis Canadian Open, oooh  . Here I am out of the Rexall Centre, just before reaching the main gate. And here it's me again inside the stadium  . Just while we were taking the photos it started pouring down and we had to run for cover. It kept raining for a good hour delaying the whole programme, but eventually the evening session started.  The only casualty of the downpour was the camera that refused to work again  , but the tennis was good  . I got shocked when I realised that that the system used by the players to challenge calls is called hawk-eye , so I decided to fly down to the umpire offering to upgrade that to my much more reliable eagle eye, but smaug didn’t let me go and forced me to stay on the stands with him and the other TVs  .He said that professional tennis is probably not ready for a TV supporting the chair umpire in his decisions.
smaug Posted Aug 26, 2009, 5:24 am	Ciao ciao ciao, Today the camera was working again...well, it was more or less working. It was actually working quite selectively as, for example we passed twice in front of the City Hall and twice it decided not to work so smaug told us that obviously it wasn’t our destiny to take a photo there, oooh  . But it worked at other locations  . Here I am at Queen’s Park in front of the Ontario Legislature. This man is supposed to be the first Canadian prime minister, but he didn’t even bother to turn around when we said hallo to him, how rude  Wondering around the city we came across this leggy building that hosts a the Ontario college for art and design. We then visited the shore of Lake Ontario and we stopped a bit looking at the boats sailing in the bay between Toronto and the Toronto Islands. From there you can also see Toronto City Airport...if you squint you can see a plane taxiing on the runway behind me. Then we visited the Music Gardens. The garden design interprets in nature Bach’s First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello, with each dance movement within the suite corresponding to a different section in the garden  . Here we are in the Courante section of the gardens. And then it was eventually time to go back to Calgary: bye bye Toronto
smaug Posted Aug 28, 2009, 4:40 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, today smaug had to work in Penticton, BC and he took all of us TVs with him  . Not that we had much time to explore around as we flew into Kelowna airport and drove quickly down to Penticton where we spent the whole day stuck in an office, and then back the same way  . Still, on the way back we managed to take a couple of pictures along Okanagan Lake  . The lake valley is beautiful: full of vineyards and peach trees. Pity we couldn’t stop a bit longer and enjoy the sun on one of the beaches lining the lakeshore, oooh. Instead we took a couple of more photos at Kelowna airport: this is a view of the valley….yes, it is also a detailed view of the car park, we couldn’t really get it out of the photo without climbing on a tree  … …and this is Kelowna airport main terminal. It was a nice day, at least we could enjoy the view from the car without having to drive  . Bye
smaug Posted Sep 1, 2009, 4:28 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, today the weather was gorgeous, not a single cloud in the sky. So smaug took us out for a hike near Banff. We left the car at Mount Norquay car park…that was actually almost empty, oooh. Mt Norquay is one of the three main ski resorts within Banff National Park but in summer everything is closed around here. This is the information map with all the slopes in the area. Most of them are labeled as black-diamond or double-black-diamond: that means they are only for experienced skiers  . On our trail at one point we had to cross this thunderous stream and we were really excited at the idea of wading through it  … …of course, smaug opted for a less wet way to cross  . After a couple of hours we saw the first glimpse of our destination: the place is called Cascade Amphitheatre.  Cascade because it is just below Cascade Mountain and amphitheatre because the valley is closed by an amphitheatre of vertical rock walls. As we got closer we could get some more photos of Cascade Mountain… ...while on the other side you can see other mountains in the distance. And here I was almost below the vertical walls of the amphitheatre. On the way back we stopped to play a bit with the chairlifts in Mt Norquay  . And we also met these bighorn sheep who were kind enough to take a picture with us  .
smaug Posted Sep 7, 2009, 5:50 am	Ciao ciao ciao! Today we went hiking in the Sunshine Village area. Sunshine is one of the most popular ski resorts in Alberta. The valley leading to our destination was covered by a thick forest on all sides with just the road cutting through it. Here we are at the car park. Behind me is the gondola that in winter takes the skiers up to Sunshine Village, in summer there is a shuttle bus carrying hikers there. And here you can see some of the gondola cars left on the ground during summer. We were actually heading to the opposite side of the valley, so we didn’t take the shuttle but followed a trail in the deep of the forest. Occasionally there was some clearance where we could see the surrounding valley. At one point the trail was crossing many times this little stream. The water was so clear  As we slowly got higher, the forest was giving way to alpine meadows. And here we eventually reached our destination, Healy Pass. On this side of the pass we could see Egypt and Scarab Lake... ...and Pharaoh Creek valley and Pharaoh Peaks. I am not sure about the reason for all this “Egyptian” references in the names around here  ...but apparently someone called the pyramid like mountains Pharaoh Peaks, and his followers decided to keep the same theme when naming the other local features  . The campground at Egypt lake is supposed to be the most popular backcountry campground in Banff National Park and Healy Pass is its most popular access route so we were expecting a busy trail...but we didn’t meet more than 20 people in the whole day  . On the other side of the pass the view goes on forever  ... While we were having some rest we convinced smaug to show us the canister that he always carries at his belt when hiking in remote areas. Wow, bear spray  , Snuttig wasn’t very pleased at the idea that there is spray made just to scare off bears away  , but smaug assured him that it is just a last resort should we meet a very aggressive bear, oooh.
smaug Posted Sep 15, 2009, 3:39 am	Ciao ciao ciao! What a boring week was last one  , smaug was busy and all we could do was sitting at home and chatting. But today the weather was gorgeous and smaug was free, so we decided to spend the day on one of the most spectacular day hike near Banff  . The first part of the day was a steady steep uphill trail in the forest...of course, we TVs made that easier by continuously supporting smaug from the backpack during the steepest sections . At one point we got the first glimpse of our destination, Cory Pass. While on the other side we could see the Bow Valley that we had just left below us Once we reached Cory Pass the view over the valley was even better. This is the shoulder of Mount Cory behind us While this is a side of Mount Edith... ...and that thin line on the side of the mountain is actually the trail that we followed to get up here. A bit of history now:  Cory Pass is a narrow gap between Mount Cory and Mount Edith. Mount Cory was named after a deputy minister of interior in the early 20th century, while Mount Edith was named after an assistant of the wife of Canada Prime Minister at the end of the 19th century. (smaug pointed out that there were so many features to name at that time that if I had been born a 100 years earlier there might even be a Mount sammino now  ). The other side of Cory Pass looks very...mmm...rocky. And that is exactly the way we took and we ended up in a narrow valley called Gargoyle Valley, oooh... . Once we reached the bottom of this valley it was a gentle downhill trail in the forest all the way back to the car park, perfect for us TV to enjoy the view from the backpack and to start thinking of a well deserved dinner  .
smaug Posted Sep 16, 2009, 2:33 am	Ciao ciao ciao, today a new guest arrived here in Calgary. He’s name’s Ronnie and he is a Spanish elk who travelled from Scotland, oooh. We were expecting him to arrive soon so when smaug showed us the envelope we got very excited and gathered around it He is really nice and even brought us some presents  , but he was also very tired from the trip, so we let him go to sleep. Plenty of time to chat tomorrow  .
smaug Posted Sep 19, 2009, 6:01 am	Ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug had to do some field work within Banff National Park and we TVs were allowed to go with him . The weather was really bad, it kept raining most of the time  , but we still managed to take some pictures, here I am on the road between Lake Louise and Kicking Horse Pass, very, very wet road, oooh When we reached the pass the weather improved slightly. By the way, there is not really any horse kicking anyone at the pass  , apparently a member of one of the first exploration expeditions that came here was kicked by his horse while in this area and hence the name  . The pass sits on the Continental Divide. That means that rain falling just east of it flows towards Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, while rain falling on West side ends up in the Pacific Ocean  . Actually near the pass there is a small creek called Divide Creek that forks at the pass and its waters flow part towards east and part west....I wonder if by chance any ends up North in the Yukon River too  . Here I am standing more or less on the divide: We barely left Alberta, but were welcomed back anyway, how nice  On the way back the weather improved even more and we found a nice spot for a picture in the Bow Valley.
smaug Posted Sep 19, 2009, 7:36 pm	Ciao ciao ciao! Wow, today a new guest arrived  . His name’s Lysander and he’s a lobster from Scotland, oooh. As always we get very excited when smaug comes home with a parcel and we gathered around to give him the warmest welcome  .
smaug Posted Sep 23, 2009, 4:41 am	Ciao ciao ciao! How cool, today a new guest arrived, oooh: her name is Nathalie and she is a German duckling  . smaug didn’t really warn us that someone else was coming so we got extremely curious when we saw a typical TV envelope, and what a great surprise was seeing her coming out  ...guess we’ll spend the whole night chatting
smaug Posted Sep 24, 2009, 5:44 am	Ciao ciao ciao! Wow, it was so hot here today, it went up to 34C  . It is kind of weird to have the hottest day of the year when we are officially already in autumn, but smaug told us not to get use to it: the forecast for next week said that morning temperature could go as low as -5C or less,  (well, his problem anyway, early in the morning we TVs will be nice and warm here a home  ...shh, hopefully he hasn't heard me  ). So, when he came back from work he told us that we should make the most of the nice weather and we went out for a walk along the river . Here we took a picture from a bridge on the Bow River looking at downtown Calgary. Then we went walking a bit in the river channel and took another couple of pictures. It was getting a bit too dark to take more photos but we kept walking a bit longer before coming home. It was nice, pity it soon will be good to have the tuque ready  .
smaug Posted Sep 29, 2009, 5:03 am	Ciao ciao ciao! today was a lovely sunny day so smaug decided to have a final (for the season) high mountain hike.  Our destination was Mount Allan in the Kananaskis Provincial Park. We spent the first part of the day climbing up a thick forest (where we tried to take some photos without getting anything presentable in an update  ). When we eventually came out of the trees we were on a steep ridge overlooking Kananaskis Valley. From the ridge you could see the valley heading north… …and south… …this big mountain called Mt Kidd... ….and the top of the ridge, called Olympic Summit. Just next to it is the Nakiska ski area (that you can't see in the picture) where all the alpine ski races where held during the 1988 Winter Olympics, hence the name…or at least I guess so  . Once we reached Olympic Summit we were not even half way to our destination  . We had to follow a long and very, very breezy ridge (so breezy, the rucksack was shaking  all the time, wow, I was almost going out to tell smaug that he could walk a bit more steadily…but knowing how touchy he is I didn’t ).  From the ridge we got some lovely views over Kananaskis Valley and the surrounding mountains  . ….and we could also see our destination, Mount Allan. Here you can see Mount Allan on the right and the much higher Mount Lougheed on the left. Halfway through the ridge we came across these funny pinnacles formed by rock that somehow  wasn’t eroded like the rest of the mountain . Eventually we reached the top at 2819m  and the view, of course, was great  : we could see the Bow River Valley in the north-west… …Kananaskis Valley in the south-east… …endless mountains in the north… …and Mount Lougheed just in front of us, oooh. On the way back smaug decided to enjoy a bit the sun by laying in the grass. So we took the chance to come out of the rucksack, have a bit of fun by ourselves and so we went climbing  . Well, the others went climbing. Eagles have wings so I didn’t really need to climb , but Nathalie and I had the task to find out  the best routes and holds from the air and direct and support the climbers . Climbing must be hard work  !! Here I was supporting  Ronnie while he was resting on a ledge. While here Nathalie and I were keeping a watchful eye when the others were going up an angled fissure. How exciting!! And how great to sit all together watching the landscape, what an adventure we had today !
smaug Posted Oct 4, 2009, 8:00 pm	Ciao ciao ciao! Today it was my friend Sully Monster’s birthday, so this morning we all gathered around to sing Happy Birthday for him  . Since smaug was at work and didn’t leave anything special for us, I decided that we should raid the kitchen and find some proper party food. We started with the fridge without too much luck  (I noticed that the man didn’t come back home with any shopping bag for quite few days, so embarassing). The first cupboard we checked wasn’t any better than the fridge, all canned food  Now this is better, not healthy maybe, but tasty  So we stuffed ourselves with nutella, cookies and crisps. After that we checked out the latest updates on toyvoyagers Then, since it was a fairly cold day, we spent the afternoon wrapped in a fleece blanket chatting and watching TV on the sofa...keeping a few extra cookies nearby, just in case
smaug Posted Oct 4, 2009, 11:13 pm	Ciao ciao ciao! Today we said goodbye to my friend Snuttig, oooh. He is travelling to California...wow  ! He is actually moving with a very good timing as here, in the night, it started snowing  . I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe trip  .
smaug Posted Oct 14, 2009, 4:06 am	Ciao ciao ciao! tonight I left all my guests at home and went to meet two new TVs: Hedgie and Mortimer. When smaug put them in his pocket to meet me they were shivering for the cold, so I decided to warm them up before going all the way home. First, I invited them for some drinks  ...and a good supper  With a full belly we all felt like drinking a bit more... ...and when the pints were empty we upgraded to a jug  Maybe we exaggerated a bit... I don’t remember much else of the night, but eventually we ended up home where I introduced my new guests to all the other TVs. I thought that having been out drinking without the others  was very rude, so we had a few more rounds all together at home
smaug Posted Oct 18, 2009, 8:55 pm	Ciao ciao ciao! Today we were all still feeling a bit lightheaded after all the drinking last night  . smaug actually noticed that Mortimer was even too lightheaded and needed urgent surgery before the head came off completely  . Of course, we TVs all gathered around the surgery theatre  to help. I’ll spare you the details of the operation; luckily it was successful and when he woke up he was feeling fine  . Later in the afternoon we thought that we might go out for a walk, but it was still cold and snowy, oooh, so we decided to spend the day nice and warm at home just looking out of the window  .
smaug Posted Oct 26, 2009, 3:41 am	Ciao ciao ciao! It’s been a bit boring around here over the last fortnight as smaug was too busy to take us anywhere  . The only event worth mentioning is the arrival of a new guest last weekend  . His name’s Henry-Bo and he is visiting from Germany. As always we all gave him a warm welcome  . Yesterday we were hoping to do something, but it was snowing again in the morning  , ...so we just spent the day planning future trips. Eventually today the weather was good, so we went for a quick drive in the morning towards Kananaskis Country  . First we took a picture of Kananaskis Valley... ...then we stopped at this falls... ...and well. The well was really nice, but fully filled with soil so there was really no risk of falling inside  . On the way back we stopped to take a picture at Barrier Lake. The lake is apparently famous because it served as Alkali Lake in the X-man movies  . Later in the afternoon smaug had to do some work so we stopped at his office where, to keep us quiet, he damped us at the window with some food  . How embarrassing  , instead of providing us with some proper Albertan beef all he could get was a sandwich in a plastic bag and some sweets. When we went home we found out that Monsters, Inc. was on TV. So Sully Monster told us something about his previous life (before becoming a TV) as a movie star  . I know everthing about him but most of the other TVs were quite surprised to find out they were living under the same roof with such a celebrity  .
smaug Posted Nov 2, 2009, 4:12 am	Ciao ciao ciao! Today the weather was wonderful here in Calgary  , so smaug decided to take us out for a trip to the mountains, but as we left the prairies and approached Banff National Park we were greeted by a mix of rain, snow and heavy clouds  . Still, as we could see some blue gaps in the sky  we headed North hoping that the situation improved. To our supreme disappointment we just entered a thick snowfall with no real sign of improvements on the way. The road conditions were getting actually a bit tricky  . Eventually we just headed back trying to take some wintry picture here and there when the gaps in the clouds allowed it. Here I was at Bow Lake with Crowfoot Mountain in the background... ...and here at Hector Lake. This is a famous bend just south of Lake Louise were road, railway and river are very close to each other and it is a typical location for a picture. Ideally there would be a train  passing by and a sunny view of the mountains...neither of which was really available today  . Later we just run from the storm and headed back home where we were greeted again by a sunny blue sky and spring-like temperatures  .
smaug Posted Nov 4, 2009, 4:01 am	Ciao ciao ciao! Today we said goodbye to Sully Monster who is moving to his new host. Last night we all gathered around to wish him a safe trip  ... ...and, of course, we ended up spending the whole night chatting  . Over the last few months we have become such great friends, so when this morning it was time for him to jump in his envelope it was hard to say anything and we just exchanged a big hug  . I am sure he’ll have such great fun in his new adventures  .
smaug Posted Nov 11, 2009, 7:27 pm	Ciao ciao ciao! today the weather here in Calgary was gorgeous so we thought we were going for some nice trip, but apparently it was snowing on the mountains  , so, to avoid ending up in another blizzard, smaug decided to just have a walk here in town along the Bow River  . At one point we found a platform over the river bank where we could take a couple of pictures...looking upstream... ...and downstream. Later on we found out that the footpath that we were supposed to follow was closed, so we went up an another small road that climbed the hill on the side of the river. It was mainly walking between the trees, but we could occasionally get a glimpse of the river below us and of downtown in the distance, oooh. When we were amost at the top we found another gap from where we could see downtown, But after that we ended up between some houses and, since it was getting very windy, we just decided to head back home.
smaug Posted Nov 19, 2009, 5:10 am	ciao ciao ciao! This week a new guest arrived, oooh! Her name is Lucy K and she’s a goose from Germany...and she brought some sweets for us, how kind of her  ! The rest of the week nothing really happened, but today it was Hedgie’s birthday so we all gathered around to sing Happy Birthday for him  . Later in the day, instead of getting a big cake for the celebrations  , smaug decided to take us for a walk in the forest in the ElbowValley, not far from Calgary. The trail was wide and not really steep, but it was mostly within the trees. I crossed a few frozen streams like this one... ...and occasionally had the chance to see the surrounding mountains  . Later, we found ourselves on a bank of the Elbow River...that gives the name to the valley. And this is the river again from the shore. As you can see it was getting dark and we reached the car just before nightfall. I was so tired when we eventually arrived back home  .
smaug Posted Nov 23, 2009, 5:03 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today smaug took us out for a walk. We went to Lake Minnewanka, not far from Banff. The lakeshore trail is one of smaug’s favourites in winter as even with the snow it is usually passable and safe. smaug was wondering if the lake had already started freezing...not the case as you can see, oooh. After a bit we crossed this small canyon called Stewart Canyon. And it was frozen up  . And in the distance you can see the lake. Here we are back close to the shoreline looking east... ...and west. The trail follows the lake shore up the easternmost point for more than 20km, but we just followed it for a couple of hours and turned back. We passed again close to the mouth of Stewart Canyon. This is where the canyon’s ice meets the lake’s water  . And here is another shot of the lake. On the way back to the car we noticed that someone built a big inukshuk on a beach, so we took a picture with it and the lake behind us. Well, it desn't look so big in this picture  , but it is just behind Henry-Bo's head  . And finally, while already nice and warm in the car, we got a final shot of the lake from its westernmost point. Smaug explained to the others that in few weeks the lake will probably be frozen, but it will take a bit longer before the ice is thick enough to walk on it. Can’t wait to show that to my guests  !
smaug Posted Dec 6, 2009, 5:27 am	ciao ciao ciao! It’s been a quite boring around here recently  as smaug was a bit busy. We had hope to go somewhere this weekend, but on Friday the weather played funny and during the evening commuting hour Calgary roads turned into a giant ice-rink with cars almost unable to turn or stop even at the slowest speed and pedestrians struggling to stay on their feet on the sidewalks (should have been funny to be out there  ). Of course the whole city got stuck in massive gridlock and smaug took more than 2 hours to get home (compared with the usual 15min), oooh. So, when he eventually arrived home, he told us that he had already enjoyed enough driving for the whole weekend  . But today he decided that, with the real winter approaching, there were far too many useless clothes still around the wardrobe and it was time to put them away and tidy up a bit around. I explained to the others that this meant that the house was going to be a total mess (even worse than the usual one  ) in a matter of minutes, so they got really excited . First we helped getting out some boxes. Then we opened them...hmmm, they looked a bit too full to get other clothes in there. But, as I foretold, soon clothes started coming out of the boxes (instead of going in  ) and they got scattered everywhere. We decided that the most interesting items were the cycling and football jerseys, so we started playing with them. But after a while smaug must have decided that we were not being helpful  , so he suggested that we might had more fun surfing a bit internet and to encourage us out of the way he even offered us some ice-cream  . It sounded a bit as a polite way to get rid of us, but the ice-cream was very good .
smaug Posted Dec 11, 2009, 4:52 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today there was a big snowfall here in Calgary  . It started in the morning and became heavier during the day, with strong winds too, wow  . So, since smaug was busy first at work and then trying to make his way back from work  , we TVs spent most of the day chatting and looking at the snow from the comfort of the living room  . Even the balcony, that is quite well sheltered, was soon white with snow, oooh. Later we decided to rummage in the storage room and found some Christmas lights. We particularly liked the ice-cubes lights... ...and the snowball ones (very appropriate to the current weather  ) Hopefully smaug will allow us to help him in putting them up  !
smaug Posted Dec 14, 2009, 2:43 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today we told smaug that we were bored of staying at home and wanted to go out somewhere. He suggested that maybe we should have a look out of the window first...hmmm, al covered in ice...can’t see anything  . We wondered if that was supposed to be a subtle message to discourage us, but it takes more than a frozen window to scare off some bored TVs, so out of we went  . Wow, it was a bit cold, almost -30C  , nothing special for an eagle used to live on the peak of a mountain, but my guests were a bit shocked! But TVs have pride, so we went on and walked along the Bow River. In this section of the river the surface has not completely frozen yet, so the sludgy mix of ice and water is still more than 20C warmer than the surrounding air and causes this strange steamy fog  . As you can see the footpath wasn’t really crowded... smaug pointed out that few people (unless they needed to) were insane enough to be out and about in this weather  . A bit further downstream we reached a section of the river that was almost completely frozen, oooh. We also decided to play a bit in the snow  . It was so powdery that even us TVs were almost sinking in it. Eventually smaug said that his right hand was flirting with frostbite  (due to the fact that operating the camera with a glove on was kind of impossible), so he decided to head back home. I think he might also have noticed some sign of discomfort from our guests and decided that it was better to get them warm soon  !
smaug Posted Dec 22, 2009, 12:06 am	ciao ciao ciao, This evening smaug had to be in Banff, so we TVs accompanied him. On the way we stopped to meet this herd of Elks  . As taking a picture focusing on both us and the elks didn’t work, smaug decided to take a zoomed version of the above photo showing only a part of the herd. We suggested that we could get closer and meet them  , but smaug explained us that elks get a bit annoyed when people approach them and he didn’t fancy spending a few lively moments being chased down by a deer taller and massively heavier than him  . Since we were a bit early for supper, we went to have a look at Lake Minnewanka. You might rememeber that last time we have been there (about a month ago) it was still a…lake. Well, today, thanks to the cold weather, it was a massive slab of ice  . Smaug said that the ice would probably support the weight of the TVs, but their host might not be so lucky, so it will be a few more weeks before we can walk on the ice. On the way down to Banff we stopped taking a picture with another frozen lake and Mt. Rundle in the background. Unfortunately, once we made it to Banff, we were not allowed to attend the supper,oooh, but we found a nice window from where we could look at the mountains while chatting all the evening  .
smaug Posted Jan 2, 2010, 7:44 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today a new guest arrived . His name’s Michel and he is a white bear from Germany.I went to pick him up at the airport and then introduced him to all the other TVs. Later, since his trip apparently had been far from smooth, we helped Michel to recover with some Timbits, and, of course, we provided help in eating them .
smaug Posted Jan 2, 2010, 9:08 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Today we took Michel out for his first trip in the Mountains. As it was a bit cold we convinced smaug to take pictures from inside the car . Here we were entering the Bow Valley. While here we were reaching the gate of Banff National Park. Once in the Park we had a lovely view over Cascade Mountain. Then we took the road to Lake Minnewanka, but we didn’t meet any elk, oooh. And eventually we reached the Lake. Later this evening we were allowed to taste a typical Christmas cake from northern Italy, a pandoro. Not sure how smaug managed to find one here in Canada, but it was delicious  .
smaug Posted Jan 2, 2010, 9:43 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug took us out to visit a place not too far from Calgary called Elbow Falls, where the Elbow River forms some nice (guess what!?) falls  . Here I was just downstream of the falls. (No, there are not ice falls: although it is very well hidden, there is also some “liquid” water coming down ). And this is the river flowing away in a nice little canyon  . Later we played a bit in the snow, but it was freezing cold and we soon make our way for the heat of the car  .
smaug Posted Jan 3, 2010, 10:48 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Today the weather was fine and it wasn’t even too cold (-15C  ), hence smaug decided that it was a good idea to have a walk in the forest to try burning some of the excessive food eaten over the last couple of weeks, oooh. So we TVs went too, working as ballast in the rucksack  . We spent most of the day under tree cover and it was a bit too dark to take photos, but we still found a couple of points where we could take a few decent shots  .
smaug Posted Jan 3, 2010, 11:24 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Today we were all a bit sad as three of my guests are leaving Calgary. Ronnie and Lysander are going back home in Spain and UK, while Henry-Bo is moving to his next host in Hong Kong. So we all gathered together to wish them a safe journey . I gave a big goodbye hug to all of them. Hopefully they will all have a safe and quick trip to their destinations.
smaug Posted Jan 10, 2010, 8:12 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Over the last couple of days temperatures here in Calgary crept over freezing point for the first time in weeks, it was really nice and warm ! To take advantage of this unexpected spell of summerish weather, today we went for a hike around Lake Minnewanka...where temperatures were not that summerish at all  . On the way to the lake we met again the elks. Since they are often at this spot along the road, we decided that they are probably paid by the park tourist board to attract tourists , but they are cute, aren’t they? As you can see the lake was nicely frozen... ...and the path wasn’t in much better condition. At one point we had to cross this frozen stream that looked quite slippery... ...and the little bridge crossing it didn’t give us much more confidence. But somehow we got across, and ended up at this junction where we found this sign: grizzly bears  , oooh! Smaug said that we were not entering that area today and, anyway, all the bears were likely to be asleep for winter. Eventually we reached our destination, a bend in the lake about 10km from the parking lot. Here you can see the “beach” behind me, The lake looking upstream... ...and downstream. Everything was frozen or covered with snow. On the way back it was getting a bit darker so we didn’t take any more photos and we didn’t meet any bear  .
smaug Posted Jan 11, 2010, 1:09 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today one of my guests is leaving: Nathalie is moving to her next host in Russia so we all gathered together to wish her a safe journey . I gave her a big goodbye hug , hopefully her trip won’t take too long.
smaug Posted Jan 13, 2010, 4:31 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today I said goodbye to my friend Krystal: she has seen so many guests coming and going that she decided it was time for her to start travelling too. So today the big day has arrived for her and she is travelling to Europe . I gave her a big hug , wished her good luck for her trips and checked that she was comfortable in her travelling quarters. Hopefully she’ll have great fun in her travelling .
smaug Posted Jan 19, 2010, 5:02 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today smaug had to do some work so, since we were a bit bored, we followed him to the office. As he was busy with his stuff, we started messing around. We tried to call home but smaug didn’t tell us the code to get the external line, so we just managed to make ring every phone in the office  . Then we played a bit with the screens and the plotter, oooh. We even had a look at the books, but there was nothing interesting. So we ended up sitting next to the window and chatting the whole afternoon...that was fun .
smaug Posted Jan 20, 2010, 8:38 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Today a new guest arrived here in Calgary ! Smaug didn’t tell us anything about new arrivals so we were quite surprised when he told us that there was an envelope that we might like to check, oooh. So we got very curious and gathered all around the envelope, apparently it came from the States. As we opened it a little head peeped out of the enveope. It was a Dutch rabbit called Nijntje . We were all very happy to have a new friend here so we started chatting and she told us of her previous journeys, she’s even been Voyager of the Week recently .
smaug Posted Jan 26, 2010, 3:39 am	ciao ciao ciao! The “warm” spell that we enjoyed over the last few weeks is gone. We are back to cold weather and snow...perfect weather for chatting in the warmth of the house . So when today smaug told us that it was time to go for a walk we all wished him a nice day and recommended that he brought back some sweets  . Alas, he meant that it was time for us to go for a walk, so he dragged us along the river path  . The river is covered with ice, oooh. Somewhere the pressure lifted the ice and created some strange  ice-ridges in the middle of the river. Maybe you can see one in the background. Eventually we came back home where we spent the evening surfing the net...it was much nicer inside .
smaug Posted Feb 9, 2010, 4:35 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today a new TV arrived here . Smaug mentioned (for once ) that someone was on his way but without giving us any detail, so we got really excited when the parcel arrived. And it turn out that that our new friend is Dean, a horse from the USA . He brought us some lovely sweets and a nice card from North Carolina . Apparently he is just back from China, oooh, so we are very curious to hear about his trip, plenty to chat about .
smaug Posted Feb 27, 2010, 9:44 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Today we watched a bit of Winter Olympics on TV. First we followed the men downhill, the biggest event of the games . I was cheering on the Italians but they didn’t do very good . Later we watched some cross country skiing and the Italians won a silver medal making me very happy . In the afternoon the weather was quite nice so smaug took us out for a walk . First we went to see the Saddledome. The arena is the home of the Calgary Flames hockey team, but it also hosts other sports, concerts and, during the stampede, you can find games with cattle and horses in there . On the other side we could see downtown Calgary with the Calgary Tower. Then it started getting darker and we went home where we watched some more Olympics on TV .
smaug Posted Feb 27, 2010, 10:09 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Tomorrow Lucy K will travel to her next host, she is going to Lithuania, oooh. So tonight we gathered together to wish her a safe trip . I gave her a big hug before she jumped in her envelope, I can’t wait to see new updates in her travelog .
smaug Posted Mar 8, 2010, 4:43 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today it was Mortimer_'s birthday, so this morning we all sang happy birthday for him . Later smaug and I arranged some special cheese meal for him, oooh. It was hard work, but, with some little help , he somehow managed to finish it . Later we decided to watch a movie . Smaug recently got his new zone-free DVD player so we tried to set it up....without much success . After the failure with the DVD  we sat down to chat a bit. Michel received last week a postcard from his mum and took a chance to tell us something about his hometown, Hamburg. It must be a nice place, I hope I’ll go there one day .
smaug Posted Mar 12, 2010, 6:18 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Today smaug had to drive through Banff National Park and we went with him . He was a bit in hurry, but the day was so nice that he wanted to take some pictures of us and so stopped briefly around Banff. Here you can see the Bow Valley behind me… …while this is Cascade Mountain . Hopefully next time we pass here we’ll be able to take a few more photos .
smaug Posted Mar 14, 2010, 3:43 am	ciao ciao ciao! A new guest arrived today . We were very curious when we saw that smaug came back home with a parcel. And, after opening the envelope, we found out that our new friend is Etwas, a ghost from Germany, oooh. He arrived directly from Russia and brought over a nice card and some lovely Russian chocolate, how nice . We wanted to know everything about his travels, but he is a bit tired after such a long trip, I guess we’d better let him get some rest .
smaug Posted Mar 19, 2010, 3:02 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Michel who is travelling to his next host in China, how exciting ! I gave him a big hug and wished him great fun over there .
smaug Posted Mar 26, 2010, 5:52 pm	ciao ciao ciao, smaug told us that today we are going on holiday , so this morning we helped him in preparing the luggage. We don’t really know where we are going yet , but we are very happy that, despite the main bag being fairly empty, we haven’t be put inside it to fill it up: we are travelling in the carry-on bag instead .
smaug Posted Mar 27, 2010, 1:57 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what? I am home: after a long, very long, and mostly uneventful trip I arrived between the mountains of Northern Italy . Yesterday we had some excitement when, at the security controls in Calgary, they decided to have a closer look at smaug’s carry-on bag and we excitedly popped out of it earning him plenty of odd looks . One of the officers even decided that Dean was in desperate need of some grooming and brushed him with some sort of dust sweeper . The flight only highlight  is that while we were crossing over Greenland we enjoyed a wonderful northern lights show . It was so cool: just like curtains of light moving in the night sky. Pity the photos we tried to take didn’t really come out any better that some dark blur . Anyway, here in Trento we had a quick look out of the window: there’s plenty of green around and even a small river right here next to the house, just as I remembered it . Well, I am sure I will have a chance to show the place to my TV friends, now we are all a bit jet lagged so we are going to sleep .
smaug Posted Mar 27, 2010, 5:43 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today I started showing  my guests around here. First we got a good breakfast of cookies and hot chocolate to get the necessary strength . smaug took us to a to a little village near Trento. The village lies in a sort of balcony on the side of the mountain and on one side sits at the top of a 200m high rock wall overlooking the town . From here you have a wonderful view of downtown Trento. You can also see the valley heading south. Later we went a bit higher up the mountain to a stretch of road nicknamed “7 tornanti”, that in English would sound like “7 hairpins”. It’s called like that because there are 7 hairpins in a very short stretch of road that, as you can guess, looks very “curvy” . From one of the hairpins you can see the valley again, heading north this time.
smaug Posted Apr 10, 2010, 6:57 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today was a gorgeous sunny day and we took a walk along the river. From here you could see the place where we were yesterday, the top of that rock wall in the background. At one point we managed to scramble down the bank and took a picture from the middle of the river . Before going back home we visited the front yard of a little church built on a hill near home. The church itself is not anything interesting, but the view over the valley is really beautiful .
smaug Posted Apr 10, 2010, 8:07 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Who ever said that Italy is a sunny country? It’s been raining for the last two days ! Since we were getting a bit bored, today we explored a bit the house where we are staying. First I introduced the TVs to some of my friends here. There is a big bald eagle... ...and two equally big owls. They were a bit upset that we woke them up in the middle of the day , but they let us take a picture with them. Later we met this interesting frog: apparently his job is to sit on the floor and croak whenever someone enters the door. Then we found this old atlas. It must be old indeed, it still says that this part of Italy is part of the Austrian Empire . At the end of our exploration we found this clock: I explained to the others that it’s been broken for ages and there is no plan as yet to fix it: pity, it must be creepy hearing it at midnight .
smaug Posted Apr 11, 2010, 3:43 am	ciao ciao ciao, The weather did not even slightly improve over the last couple of days so we are still stuck at home . So, today we decided to entertain ourselves with a bit of gambling by playing the roulette . That was good fun. Later we wanted to engage in something more challenging and we organized a checkers tournament. It was a real battle of minds and, of course, I was the best . After so much playing we needed some food , so we had a typical Easter cake. It’s called colomba: that means “dove”, I guess due to a supposed to be bird-like shape...maybe with a lot of imagination . Anyway, it was delicious .
smaug Posted Apr 12, 2010, 3:29 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter from a very rainy Italy! Although we are still waiting for news about the sun , today we had good reason to celebrate: there was a special  Easter egg just for us TVs . Reaching the chocolate was a bit of a challenge: we laboured our way past the wrapping just to find another layer of it . But, eventually, me managed to get the egg open . It was delicious !
smaug Posted Apr 18, 2010, 11:21 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today the sun reappeared in the sky after almost a week of rain , so we decided to go out for a tour around town. First we started up the slopes on the side of the valley. Here you can see  “Trento’s mountain”: it’s called Monte Bondone, and the ski slopes lying on the other side of it can be reached from town in about 20 minutes drive. While here we were looking north up the valley. As we drove by we saw some secondary valleys and more mountains in the background. At one point there were only steep forested slopes and rocky peaks above our heads . By some kind of magic  we emerged back in the main valley a few km south of Trento. Here we could take a look at this nice castle (it doesn’t look like, but it is actually very big, oooh). Before heading back home, smaug took us up a little road on the opposite side of the valley from which we could have a look at the vineyards on the valley floor....I wonder if we’ll have a chance to taste some of the wine .
smaug Posted Apr 19, 2010, 12:21 am	ciao ciao ciao, My (wet ) Italian holiday is coming to an end. Today we helped smaug preparing his luggage and tomorrow early in the morning (very, very, very early in the morning ) we will start heading back to Calgary. See you soon .
smaug Posted May 3, 2010, 3:10 am	ciao ciao ciao! It is like Christmas this week ! Yesterday my friend Pepita came back home after a long time to rest for a few days....and she brought a lot of lovely sweets with her . And today a new guest arrived: Spooky, a nice dog from Japan ! I guess we’ll have plenty to chat about for a few days .
smaug Posted May 3, 2010, 4:26 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today the weather was quite nice (after the blizzards of earlier this week ) so smaug took us out for a short walk in the woods . We spent most of the time under the trees encouraging smaug while he was labouring his way in the fresh snow . But when he stopped to rest we played a bit in the snow by ourselves . At one point we found a place with a good view over the valley. But those clouds in the distance were a bit concerning, oooh, so we decided that it was enough for the day and went back to the car.
smaug Posted May 11, 2010, 2:39 am	ciao ciao ciao! Guess what? It’s been snowing again for most of the week, and we are in May ! At least today the weather was a bit better, so we went out for another short walk in the woods . Some sections had plenty of fresh snow, oooh. On the way we found a couple of nice spots where we could take a photo.
smaug Posted May 11, 2010, 3:16 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today we said goodbye to my friend Pepita who is travelling to her next host . I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe trip, hopefully the journey won’t take too long.
smaug Posted May 15, 2010, 5:33 am	Ciao ciao ciao! Today smaug came back home and told us that Hedgie has been invited to a trip to Fiji and will leave tomorrow to make sure he catches his flight, oooh. So tonight we all gathered together to wish him a safe trip . I gave him a big hug and told him that I am sure he will have great fun, I can’t wait to see his updates .
smaug Posted May 20, 2010, 4:19 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was very warm...for Canadian standards, of course ...so we went for a nice walk to a place called Prairie Mountain. Soon after leaving the car park we could see the Elbow River meandering in the valley below . Once we reached the top it wasn’t that warm anymore, the wind was bone chilling , but the view was great . We had lots of mountains in the West and South... ...and Moose Mountain in the North. smaug said that we might go there in a few weeks when the snow melts. In the East we could see the prairies...and with an eagle eye you could even see Calgary in the distance...but not in this photo .
smaug Posted May 25, 2010, 3:47 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today the weather wasn’t too bad, a bit windy actually , so we went visiting a new place between the mountains. We left the car at Barrier Lake and after a bit of walking we had a wonderful view over the lake... ...and of Kananaskis Valley . Moving up towards the lookout the view opened on the foothills rolling down into the prairies in the East. From the lookout we could see the Bow Valley carving its way into the Rockies. On the way back we followed a trail that was always in a very thick forest, so I just spent the time chatting with the other TVs .
smaug Posted May 31, 2010, 5:06 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to Nijntje who tomorrow is going back home, oooh. I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe trip , hopefully it won’t take too long, that envelope seems so uncomfortable .
smaug Posted Jun 13, 2010, 5:23 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were again up on the mountains . smaug said that we were going to a trail that hopefully should have been fairly clear of snow....in his dreams . On the road we found this sign and suggested that maybe it was a good idea to take the heed and turn back, but smaug said that we had nothing to worry about and went on . Actually smaug was right, the first part of the trail was clear from snow, it was a mucky watercourse instead . But after wading through that for a good hour we reached a nice view point . Later the landscape went back to usual, no shortage of fresh snow at all. But it was worth the effort as we reached a place with an even nicer view . The way back was, of course, very muddy, so I’ll spare you the details of that .
smaug Posted Jun 21, 2010, 4:50 am	Ciao ciao ciao, Today it was (eventually ) a very nice ad warm day, so we went for a long hike . We spent the first part of the day walking among the trees, but once we reached our destination the view was beautiful . Here you can see Lake Minnewanka... ...and some of the surrounding mountains. On the way down we had a few more nice views. As the day was lovely we stopped on the lake shore, where an eagle come down greeting us . It was my friend Landroval, who just flew back from Japan . While smaug was resting in the sun we had plenty of time to chat , and we agreed that I will fly here telling him as soon as smaug has arranged a new host for him.
smaug Posted Jun 27, 2010, 7:51 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Mortimer_ who is going to spend some time at home in Greece for the summer....lucky him ! After having been my guest for such a long time it was a bit hard to see him going , but I can’t wait to see more updates from him .
smaug Posted Jun 27, 2010, 8:20 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we welcomed a new guest who arrived in a very big parcel . He’s name’s Red Navel and he comes from Russia....and he brought some lovely chocolate with him .
smaug Posted Jun 27, 2010, 8:46 pm	ciao ciao ciao, It’s just like being at the train station here in Calgary this week, TVs going, TVs coming . Today there was another arrival: Roderich , who comes from Germany. He brough over some lovely cereal bars and a flower chain in the German colours to cheer on Germany at the football world cup.....I had to quietly tell him that it might not be advisable to support the “wrong” teams too loudly while smaug is at home, just for health and safety reasons .
smaug Posted Jun 27, 2010, 9:40 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today seemed to be a nice day so we went for a walk on the mountains. On the way to the trailhead we got pelted with rain and hail , but once we parked the car it was nice and sunny and the view was wonderful . As we went up the weather started turning ugly. Here we got a view of our destination for the day. Unfortunately we couldn’t take any photo from the top as it started raining heavily, or was it snow ? On the way down we met again Landroval.I told him that there is a nice host  waiting for him in the States, so he said goodbye to us, helped himself with our lunch and just flew away.
smaug Posted Jul 2, 2010, 1:39 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today we said goodbye to Etwas, who is travelling to Hong Kong, wow ! I gave him a big hug (although hugging a ghost it’s kind of complicated ) and wished him a safe trip.
smaug Posted Jul 10, 2010, 4:44 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were going for a trip on the mountains but, on the way, smaug noticed that there was something wrong with the car: we got a punctured tyre ! Of course we decided to change it with the spare tyre all by ourselves . Smaug said that we need to get a bit faster if we want to join a F1 pit crew , but I think we were great . Too bad we had to come back to Calgary and get the tyre fixed, so the trip to the mountains was very short .
smaug Posted Jul 11, 2010, 2:32 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a hike near Lake Louise to a mountain called Fairview Mt., so we hoped to find a nice view . And actually it was nice indeed . Here we were resting after reaching the top. Then I took a look around. That is Mount Victoria... ...here is the Bow Valley Looking north... ...Mt. Temple just in front of us... ...and that down there is Lake Louise. Leaning out from a ledge we could see the Saddleback from where we passed on our way up . On the way down we asked smaug to let us play a bit in the snow. How often can you play in the snow in July ?!
smaug Posted Jul 11, 2010, 4:52 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I had to leave my guests here alone for a few hours to go to the airport and pick up a few new guests:  HolgiHH, a nice donkey from Germany and my friends Krystal and Sigfrido . On the way home I showed them the road into Calgary. This building under construction that we saw entering downtown is The Bow, that once finished will be the tallest building in Canada west of Toronto. All the red flags at the traffic lights have been put there for the Calgary Stampede that started earlier today. Once home I introduced the new arrivals to my current guests, but since they were a bit jet lagged they went to bed very early. We’ll have plenty of time to chat tomorrow .
smaug Posted Jul 24, 2010, 6:44 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today the weather was horrible so we just went for a short walk in downtown Calgary. Luckily it’s Stampede time, so there are plenty of places where you can snatch a free pancake breakfast around town . We found one where we could even stop eating indoor Calgary has the world most extensive pedestrian skywalk system, so you can explore several kilometres of downtown without ever going outdoor. Here I was on a bridge with the Calgary Tower in the background. Eventually we tried to go outside, but not for long . We found some shelter in this big shopping center until it was time to go home. The great thing of being a Toyvoyager is that, even when the sky started dropping golf-ball size hailstones on smaug's head, we were safely hidden in a rucksack .
smaug Posted Jul 25, 2010, 3:48 pm	Hi Mum! Today we went visiting the Stampede Park ! First we got ready for the day with a filling breakfast. Krystal, HolgiHH and Sigfrido brought some delicious chocolate Madeleines from France that we quickly ate . Just to be sure not to run short of energy we got also some bread and nutella . On the way to the stampede park we passed through this nice park. Eventually we arrived at our destination. First we checked out the Stampede Market where we found some nice “western” corners. There was even plenty of straw to play with... Then we played cowtoyvoyagers with  this saddle. We also found a chuckwagon... Later we explored a bit the park. On the way home we decided to get some typical food found in every cattle ranch: cowboy popcorns ! Delicious .
smaug Posted Jul 29, 2010, 5:06 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather was gorgeous, so we went for another walk in downtown Calgary . On the way we took a picture of some of the skyscrapers. Later we grabbed another free pancake breakfast...why isn’t  it always stampede time ? Once we had a full belly , we went visiting the Calgary Tower. It might not be so obvious in the photos , but the view was great !
smaug Posted Jul 31, 2010, 6:12 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today we went visiting Banff . Here we were comfortably settled in the car. The drive was a bit long, but eventually we arrived close to our destination... ...and entered town. We spent most of the day dodging showers , but we managed to walk a bit along the River Bow without getting too drenched. Here you can see the Bow falls . Later we got a glimpse of the Banff Springs Hotel, one of the most luxurious resorts of the Rockies . Eventually it was time to go back home. On the road we got a bit scared when we saw a truck driving the wrong way on the highway towards us ... ...but it was just being towed .
smaug Posted Jul 31, 2010, 3:50 pm	ciao ciao ciao! Today we went visiting the Dinosaur Provincial Park: we were very excited at the idea of meeting a T-Rex strolling on the road . The drive was long and a bit boring, so we spent most of the time chatting. We also stopped to take a couple of pictures at the prairies. Eventually we reached dour destination . Here the prairies are carved deeply by the Red Deer River and its tributaries, so there are plenty of these deep gorges with luscious vegetation at the bottom. At some points the landscape turns quite “lunar” . Disappointingly, we didn’t meet any dinosaur walking around , just a lot of information panels describing all the different skeletons (an awful lot apparently) that were dug out in this area.
smaug Posted Aug 5, 2010, 3:40 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to Krystal and Sigfrido who are on their way back to France, oooh. I gave to the both of them a big hug and wished them a safe trip , hopefully I’ll see more updates from them soon.
smaug Posted Aug 5, 2010, 4:45 am	ciao ciao ciao, This week end we are in Jasper and today we immediately explored a bit around the town . First we jumped on the Jasper Tramway that took us up a mountain with a lovely view of the valley, oooh. With a short walk we reached the top of a nearby mountain called The Whistlers, and the view was even better . This peak is called The Whistlers because of the sheer number of Whistling Marmots living here. They didn’t seem to inclined to take a photo a with us , but we managed to at least take a decent shot of one of them. Later we moved a bit on the side of the peak to enjoy more views. Here you can see Jasper again with the Upper Station of the Jasper Tramway... ...and here is the ridge that we walked on to get o the top . From the opposite side of the mountain we could see in the haze the Athabasca Valley, with the Athabasca River being that silver ribbon on the valley floor. What a great day !
smaug Posted Aug 8, 2010, 1:05 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were supposed to visit a glacier, but the weather had other plans so after trying to reach it and getting drenched in the process we had to change destination, oooh. So we checked out a little lake near Jasper town called Lake Annette. Nice place, and it wasn’t raining . In the background you can see a green space. There was actually a beach there with someone swimming in the lake, crazy people ! Back to our hotel we gathered some wood... ...and decided to use the fireplace . Unfortunately smaug said that the room was already warm enough and we just have to chat imagining to sit in front of a fire .
smaug Posted Aug 8, 2010, 4:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we are going back to Calgary, so on the way we took a couple of photos. One with the Athabasca River... ...and one with Mount Fryatt .
smaug Posted Aug 20, 2010, 4:03 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered to say goodbye to Spooky and Roderich who are leaving Calgary tomorrow. Spooky is going home to rest a bit, while Roderich will stay in Canada visiting the west coast, oooh. Of course, I gave a big hug to both of them and wished them a safe trip .
smaug Posted Aug 24, 2010, 5:09 am	ciao ciao ciao! smaug has to work for a couple of weeks in the Vancouver area, and we TVs came along .  First thing we did as we arrived was to explore the hotel room. There is a big television... ...an (empty ) fridge... ...and a tiny microwave oven. Well, I am not sure about the waves, but the oven is micro indeed . As we overheard smaug saying something about microwaved TVs for dinner , we quickly scrambled out of it and found a nice place where to spend the evening chatting...with some supplies close at hand .
smaug Posted Aug 31, 2010, 5:08 am	ciao ciao ciao! Today we had a chance to get a very quick glimpse of Vancouver . Here we were just out of the sky train station looking at North Vancouver across Burrard Inlet. While here you can see Lions Gate Bridge behind us. Unfortunately smaug was a bit busy for the rest of the day and we were forgotten in his bag , maybe another time we'll see a bit more .
smaug Posted Sep 1, 2010, 5:29 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather wasn’t very nice, but we tried to take a walk around Burnaby anyway. So, we discovered that we are close to the western end of the Trans Canada Trail . Although we all agreed that more than 11,000km to get to Newfoundland seemed a bit too much even taking a few “shortcuts”, smaug pointed out that the trail is kind of exploring the country and so wanders around a lot, rather than crossing all the way to the east with a direct route, mah . Between the trees we could occasionally see Burrard Inlet with some dockyards and the mountains north of Vancouver in the background . And here our exploration was cut short by the rain that started falling down rather heavily .
smaug Posted Sep 5, 2010, 4:34 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to HolgiHH and Red Navel who are travelling to their next hosts . I gave to both of them a big hug and wished them a safe journey. Can’t wait to follow their new adventures .
smaug Posted Sep 7, 2010, 5:13 am	ciao ciao ciao, today after a couple of rainy days we saw a nice clear sky and, since today is a holiday , we decided to go outside. As the temperature in the morning was far from summerish , we decided to give the sun a few hours to at least try warming up the air a bit. Eventually we went out for a walk near the Bow River . All the way we had a nice view of the river... ...with the occasional glimpse of downtown Calgary in the distance. The Canadian Pacific railway passes close to the river too. Behind me you should be able to see a train. This train was very short, just more than 80 railcars . Eventually we reached our destination: a park next to the river with a steep hill in it. From there you can see downtown Calgary... ...and north Calgary. I am not sure how clear it is in the picture, but some of the trees are already turning yellow and golden, oooh .
smaug Posted Sep 13, 2010, 4:28 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went to stretch our legs not far from Calgary to Prairie Mountain. After leaving the car we immediately had nice views of the Elbow River. As we were getting impatient we asked smaug how far was the top and he showed us that were supposed to go all the way up there...so we just went back chatting into the bag . The trail was mostly between the trees, but we got the occasional nice view between the branches. Eventually we reached the summit ridge... ...and the view opened up on the surrounding mountains. From the top the view was even better , both towards the mountains... ...and the prairies . At this point I had to leave Dean for a while. smaug mentioned that over here there is possibly a portal to a place where lost toyvoyagers end up . Must be that hole in there: it looks pitch dark, oooh. Luckily I brought with me some help: an owl . He’s a bit sleepy this late in the morning , but with a few nudges to keep him awake he was able find his way in the darkness. So, off we went. At one point, despite not being able to see anything, I heard voices so I called out and someone answered “The reception’s here”. They must be very organized . “Excuse me, I heard there are lost toyvoyagers here”......”what, this is the LAND OF THE DEAD!?!?!?!?! ” I am going to have a very lively conversation with Mr smaug this evening. Anyway, since I am here let’s ask: “Do you perchance have here an Orpheus that doesn’t really belong here?”....”Yeah, I am sure all those down here think they don’t belong , but why not checking, just out of curiosity”....”oh, you have two, and you wouldn’t mind getting rid of them, fantastic! Let’s see the first one’s profile: mmm, he’s at his second visit, has been year a few thousand years, was literally in pieces when he came down and keep singing about some Eurydice, I don’t think he’s the right one. What about the second one, let’s see: used to be yellow when he arrived here, says he’s Canadian, has been here less than a month, and keeps complaining about Scottish hospitality: it’s him! Any chance I can take him out, you know, he’s such a young toyvoyager.”......”Really, he can come! What’s the condition you mentioned?”....”I can’t turn around to look at him until we are out or he’ll disappear forever. Why would I want to turn around to look at him? I can’t even see my talons down here !.” “Anyway fine to me. It was a pleasure dealing with you. Wait a minute: what does USED TO BE YELLOW mean?”.....”oh, this place deeply changes its visitors . Should I get worried?” But I didn’t want to linger down there any longer and keeping close to my friend owl I found the way out. After a few seconds a colourful bird came out. Definitely my friend Orpheus, just like he’s been repainted. I quickly checked myself to see if I was still the same as before going in that hole (everything seemed OK ) and then welcomed back my friend . Sob, he hasn’t realised that he isn’t yellow anymore. Let’s hope he never sees a mirror while I look for a cure for that. Later I introduced him to Dean who was about to make some comment about Orpheus colour, but I stopped him just in time . What a day, oooh!
smaug Posted Sep 17, 2010, 6:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we spent the day helping Orpheus getting used to be free again. There was so much to tell him about what happened over the last year. But it was soon time to say goodbye as he will leave tomorrow to travel on the WTVT . And we are leaving too, we are accompanying smaug back to Vancouver for another couple of weeks . I gave him a big hug and wished him good luck...hopefully his future hosts will keep him away from mirrors .
smaug Posted Sep 20, 2010, 3:29 am	ciao ciao ciao, This couple of weeks we are in Vancouver again with smaug, so this morning we visited downtown. This is the same spot where we took a picture last time we were here...yes, there should be some mountains somewhere in those clouds . While this is Stanley Park seen from downtown. From here we could also have a look at downtown skyscrapers. That strange thing in the middle of the square is the 2010 Winter Olympic cauldron . Later, when the rain occasionally stopped we managed to take a couple of more pictures. This is BC Place, the stadium where the Olympic ceremonies were held. They must be working at the roof, so it looked a bit a mess. And smaug told us that the steel globe back there must be part of the World of Science. Not sure if he’s right, but it looked cool, so we took a picture of it .
smaug Posted Sep 29, 2010, 5:32 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we met up with AbbyB and her TV guests for coffee and also went visiting Chinatown , so I met again my friends Hedgie and Roderich . First we came across this nice gate. Then we took a group photo in this lovely garden. Later we found this war memorial. And eventually Abby showed us this giant abacus with beads made of jade . It might not be the handiest one to tally up numbers , but it’s nice looking .
smaug Posted Sep 30, 2010, 5:34 am	ciao ciao ciao, today the weather was very surprisingly nice and warm, albeit maybe just a touch windy , so we went for a nice walk in the mountains . We left the car at Barrier Lake where, despite the wind, smaug managed somehow to take couple of photos...without having me covered entirely by his hand. From here we headed towards Barrier Lake Lookout. On the way we could hear the wind battering the treetops above us, or we were just battered ourselves when we came out of the trees . Still we found a few spots where we could take some photos. Here we could see Kananaskis Valley in the distance, oooh. While a bit higher up we had nice views of Barrier Lake ... ...and of the prairies. Eventually we reached the lookout, from where we had a nice view over the Rockies . On the way back smaug said that he had enough of being pushed and pulled by the wind at every step, so we took a longer route through a nicely sheltered little valley. The view wasn’t that good in there, but there were lovely autumn colours all the way .
smaug Posted Oct 4, 2010, 3:39 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came home with a parcel saying it was a surprise for us TVs, oooh. As we opened it a new guest came out: Penny a nice cat from the US . And she brought over chocolate and a lovely card from Russia . We wanted to hear everything about her travelling but she was a bit tired after the long trip so we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
smaug Posted Oct 12, 2010, 2:26 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was Dean’s birthday, so this morning we all sang happy birthday for him . I wanted to get him a typical horse meal, but smaug obviously forgot to get any fresh hay so I had to settled for some delicious chocolate biscuits . Later we spent the afternoon chatting and checking TV updates....with the occasional bite at those biscuits .
smaug Posted Oct 12, 2010, 3:02 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was nice and warm so we went for a nice hike on the mountains . We spent a couple of hours between the trees but at one point we could see this little peak and thought that it might have been our destination, but smaug said that it was just about halfway to where we wanted to go . A bit higher up the view became quite nice . Some sections were a bit steep . Eventually we had a glimpse of our destination in the distance and, guess what, there was snow at the top . Once we reached the top we found a survey point... ...but we forgot quickly about it and looked at the landscape. We could see the ridge that we walked up from and far down the valley where we left the car. Back in the distance we saw the Bow Valley... ....and Kananaskis Valley on the opposite side of the mountain. What a nice day !
smaug Posted Oct 15, 2010, 5:18 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was warm again , although not exactly sunny , and smaug said that we had to make the most of this nice weather before it starts snowing around here , so he took us again up the mountains. The first challenge of the day was fording the Elbow river which is fairly wide but at this location flows mostly underground (at least at this time of the year), so I got my talons only a bit wet . Later we headed into the trees and didn’t see much for a while. But we occasionally had views of the valley from where we started. A  bit further on we saw where we were going. Once we reached the top the view was nice as always . We could see the Elbow Valley both west... ...and east. Someone built this massive cairn right at the top of the trail. It seemed about to collapse any time soon, but probably it was faring much better than we did in the wind . Eventually smaug pointed out that those clouds looked like trouble so we hastily made our way downhill.
smaug Posted Oct 31, 2010, 6:43 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was a nice sunny day, so we went for short walk along the river . No mountains this week: I think that, with winter approaching, smaug’s getting a bit lazy and, just like bears, he’d be ready for spending a few months sleeping . At one point, getting very close to the shore we could almost see downtown. By crossing the river (luckily we didn’t need to wade through it ) we gained a better viewpoint, before going back home to warm up a bit.
smaug Posted Nov 15, 2010, 3:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, Over the whole month we have been several times in Vancouver with smaug for short working trip and he never took a single picture of us , so this week we made it clear that, no matter how busy he was, we wanted the camera to be used . Well, I can’t say that we have been very successful: we just got a few out of focus shots tonight at Vancouver Airport . In the international departures hall... ...and later waiting to board the plane. Still it was kind of a little improvement
smaug Posted Nov 15, 2010, 4:09 am	ciao ciao ciao, We have seen very little of smaug over the last couple of weeks as he was always busy at work. But it doesn’t mean we have been idle: in his absence the task of keeping the house habitable fell on us TVs and the responsibility for all the chores were on our shoulders. How embarrassing! I wonder what my guests are thinking of this type of hospitality . We had to take care of sweeping the dust... ...ironing... ...and doing the washing up. We even had to cook our own meals...but, considering the type of supplies available, that wasn’t a very challenging task .
smaug Posted Nov 22, 2010, 5:04 am	ciao ciao ciao, Look what came to Calgary this week! Can’t see anything, can you ? Well, that was a window covered with ice! Let’s try with this one. It’s snow ! It’s been snowing all week and temperatures have been consistently deep in the minus teens or even twenties since Tuesday . I was very happy that eventually winter showed up properly as I wanted my guests to experience some proper Canadian winter, though for some reason I had the feeling that they were not welcoming this weather enthusiastically . Anyway, today we went out for a walk along the river. Unsurprisingly there was hardly anyone on this footpath. As you can see the river here wasn’t frozen yet. It’s been really, really cold only for a few days, so here there was just a sludgy mix of water and ice. While here the current is much slower, so there was already plenty of ice around. As I had a feeling that Dean and Penny were about to freeze we soon headed back home where we got a nice hot chocolate to warm us up .
smaug Posted Nov 29, 2010, 5:13 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Penny who is travelling to her next host in Brazil . I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe trip .
smaug Posted Dec 1, 2010, 5:08 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was much warmer than earlier in the week (well, -10C is way better than -30C ) so we decided to go out for a walk and enjoy the snowfall. As usual the footpath was pretty much empty. We kept walking up to the river. Later Dean and I decided to play a bit in the snow. But we soon got cold and decided to keep moving towards downtown... ...where, on our way home, we met this funny fellow . He didn’t seem to be too fazed either by the snow, or by us paying him a visit .
smaug Posted Dec 12, 2010, 6:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I was skiing ! We went to Lake Louise, a ski area that calls itself “The Rockies’ Biggest, Canada’s Best” ....something that some of other resorts would probably argue with , but the place is impressive indeed. Here we were ready to start the day on a gondola called Grizzly..which unfortunately didn’t mean that a friendly grizzly bear was waiting for skiers at the top . The day was a bit foggy, and the windows were even foggier... ...so we decided to open one of them and look outside. Alas, smaug wasn’t really inclined to go all the way up with an open window but we could still have a glimpse at the slopes. There was plenty of fresh snow on the trees. Later we managed to get take a few pictures out of the fog. That white area above my head is the actual lake (frozen solid at this time of the year) that gives the name to both the village and the ski area. While here we were running in fresh snow ... ...and having a look at the back side of the ski area. Throughout the day Dean and I enjoyed special “seats” . My talons are sore for holding on to the ski all day and I got so much snow in my eyes...but it was great fun .
smaug Posted Dec 27, 2010, 12:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, Merry Christmas! Today a visitor arrived here: no, not Santa , just my friend Sigfrido ! And he brought us a present, one of my favourite chocolate sweets, a Mozartkugel ! Actually he got us a whole box, how nice ! He even taught us some of the history of this sweet . Later in the evening we helped out in opening the Christmas presents... ...but we were soon distracted by dinner. We found this big pandoro and decided to claim it for ourselves . Alas, smaug said that it was too big for us and that we were going to get indigestion with it, oooh, so he gave us a TV-size one, well, better than nothing .
smaug Posted Dec 29, 2010, 3:00 am	ciao ciao ciao, Merry Christmas again! Today we were feeling a bit full after spending last evening eating, so we went for a walk to burn a bit of the excess food . We spent some time along the river, which is mostly frozen, oooh... ...with the odd pool of open water. Later we walked down to the City Hall... ...where we met this friendly family of horses . We chatted a bit a with them and then went home: hopefully there will be some sweets left in the kitchen .
smaug Posted Dec 31, 2010, 1:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we hoped to go out somewhere on the mountains, but it was snowy, windy and pretty cold so we changed plans. Sigfrido told us that he had some tests to check and mark, so we decided to help him . It was fun giving marks, so Dean stepped in. Of course this was hard work, so we took a break . We decided to change task and write some postcards. Later we checked some of the stuff that Sigfrido is bringing back to Europe, oooh. We were particularly intrigued by this box... ...but we couldn’t find anything inside . Eventually we got back to work....but keeping at hand a nice mug of coffee .
smaug Posted Jan 2, 2011, 5:26 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I said goodbye to Dean who’s going to spend some time in Europe with my friend Sigfrido . I gave to both of them a big hug ... ...wished them a safe trip and checked that they were comfortable for the flight. I hope they’ll enjoy celebrating the new year on a plane . Happy New Year !
smaug Posted Jan 23, 2011, 5:36 am	ciao ciao ciao, As I was feeling a bit lonely over the last few days I decided that this week end we should have gone skiing ...but smaug pointed out that it was a bit cold for that....mmm, guess he was right . So instead of skiing we went for a short walk on the mountains . The trail was a bit snowy, but walkable... ...and the trees were covered in snow . Here I stopped to check this map.  Amazingly it seemed that smaug didn't manage to get us lost...yet . Eventually we reached the highest point of our walk, and, although it was a bit chilly, the view was great . Back home I had work to do. Smaug told me that I had to search travelogs to find some suitable potential nominations for the Golden Bears 2011: luckily my friend Paulina helped out a bit. Not sure why, but smaug also said to avoid picking only photos of myself . Why not ?!
smaug Posted Jan 25, 2011, 5:20 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I went skiing to Nakiska, where the alpine skiing races where held during the 1988 Winter Olympics, oooh.  I had my first look at the slopes from the parking lot. While here I was going up to the top on the chairlift. The view from the top was great . After some time I demanded that we chose a run which had “eagle” in its name . A full eagle would have been preferable, but I had to settle for just the tail . Of course it turned out to be the best run of the day . Yuhu! That was fun .
smaug Posted Jan 31, 2011, 5:42 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today a new guest arrived, Dottie Mouse ! And she brought over a lot of very tasty European coins , how nice of her . As I was very curious about her travelling, she showed me the train tickets from her trip to London ... ...and the photos of it. She wanted to know if I had been in England before, so I showed her my old oyster card that I used to travel on the tube when I lived in London. As she was getting curious, I showed her some pictures of my private photo album from before becoming a TV . Later she told me how surprised she was of the warm weather here in Canada and I had to explain that she arrived on a warm record breaking day for Calgary in January , but there’s plenty of snow in the forecast and temperatures should plunge by more than 30 degrees in the next 3 days. Later I suggested  that she should eat something to recover from the long trip, and had a full piece of Parmigiano ready for her...I think she enjoyed that .
smaug Posted Feb 2, 2011, 5:59 am	Ciao ciao ciao, As the forecast said, temperatures fell in the minus teens and twenties and it’s been snowing since yesterday evening . It wasn’t very good weather for going skiing so I showed Dottie Mouse a bit of the town. We walked along river, which, at this time of the year, is frozen solid. As usual when it’s so cold, we hardly met anyone...I wonder why ? The trees were covered in snow . On the way home we stopped in this little park in the middle of the skyscrapers. In summer it is a very nice place full of people, not today though . I noticed that Dottie Mouse was getting a bit cold so I thought that playing around might help her warming up a bit , but it didn’t really work, so we just headed home.
smaug Posted Feb 12, 2011, 6:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it is Groundhog day, when rodents gifted with foresight around North America announce if there’s gonna be an early spring or 6 more weeks of winter. The local weather seer lives in Balzac (just north of Calgary) and is called Balzac Billy . Unofortunately he predicted 6 more weeks of winter. Dottie Mouse was a bit disappointed but I explained to her that Billy is not even a real groundhog, but just a guy in a groundhog costume so his predictions are probably not very accurate....and there’s going to be at least 3 more months of winter anyway . To lift her mood we decided to check if there was any Parmigiano left. So we tried to break into the fridge to find out. It wasn’t an easy task, but after some time we managed to open the door just enough to let her in. And it was still there ! Not much left though, better planning an urgent chat with smaug about supplies . Later we played a bit on the computer. First we played a strategy game: Civilization. Of course, I was the best . Later I decided to train Dottie Mouse for the mountains and showed her a very, very, very old skiing game. It was fun, but she got a bit concerned when a bear came out of the trees and ate our skiers . I explained that real bears are asleep this time of the year...or at least they should be .
smaug Posted Feb 16, 2011, 5:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I went skiing again ! As in Calgary the weather was nice we headed to the mountains where we found out that it was slightly less nice, it was actually snowing . Of course that didn’t stop us and here I was going up on the chairlift. Once we reached the top I got a bit disappointed as the clouds and the snowfall hid all the views, but the runs looked in great conditions . I explained to Dottie Mouse that TVs enjoy first class seats when skiing. She seemed a bit concerned at the beginning and I bet that some of the screams that I heard when we started going down the hill were not very friendly (but I don’t understand German so I can’t be sure), but I think that after a few understandable seconds of panic she enjoyed it a lot . Over the rest of the day we kept hoping that the sky might clear up but, if anything the snowfall turned into a full blizzard , so we couldn’t take any more photos. But when we went back to the car we found it covered in over an inch of fresh snow . Hopefully next time we will see the sun too .
smaug Posted Feb 22, 2011, 3:10 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came home with a parcel and said that likely it was a new friend, so we got really curious . And he was right! Out of the envelope came Pitzelpatz a nice TV from Germany. He showed us the lovely card that he brought from his hometown and we spent the evening chatting .
smaug Posted Feb 22, 2011, 3:41 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug told us that he’s going for a few days on site and asked if we wanted to join him . He also accidentally mentioned that temperatures at the site are well in the minus thirties ...so after a brief chat we all agreed that we would have loved to go, but we were a bit uncomfortable at the idea of going without the appropriate health and safety training , so we decided to stay home. As a gesture we offered to help in sorting his safety gear. So, it looked like the high visibility clothes were ready. The hard hat looked in good order... ...and so did the safety glasses. Finally we inspected his boots, that looked warm enough. Well, everything seemed ready, so we just found a nice spot here at home and wished smaug a safe and funny trip .
smaug Posted Feb 25, 2011, 3:49 am	ciao ciao ciao, Tonight smaug came back home and not only he didn’t have any visible sign of frostbite , but he also had an envelope with him. It turned out that it was a new guest , Fiete a nice cow from Germany! As we wanted to hear everything about his travels we spent the evening chatting .
smaug Posted Feb 28, 2011, 12:49 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today is an holiday in Alberta , so smaug wasn’t working and took us out to breathe some fresh air. At one point we had to leave the car as the highway is closed in winter. The trail was very snowy and mostly between the trees... ...although we could occasionally see our surroundings . Eventually we reached the summit of Prairie Mt., from where I could see the prairies in the east... ...and mountains everywhere else . Those clouds didn’t look nice... ...and the wind was freezing cold , so I took a final photo with the summit cairn and we quickly headed back to the warmth of the car .
smaug Posted Mar 2, 2011, 5:03 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug took a day off and told us that we were going skiing . As we knew that temperatures in Calgary were going to be a bit frigid , we checked how things were on the mountains....not a comforting sight . We tried to suggest that it was maybe a good day for staying in bed with a hot chocolate , but smaug wouldn’t listen to reason, so, to help easing my guest’s shock of going outside, we decided to train a few minutes in the freezer ....cold, very cold, but not nearly as a cold as our destination. If anything it was actually way colder than what the forecast said, so, not surprisingly, the runs were nearly empty ... ...but the views were great . And once my talons were so frozen that I couldn’t feel anything it was actually great fun, off we go !!
smaug Posted Mar 8, 2011, 4:42 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we asked smaug if we were going to hit the slopes again, but he said that his toes where still a bit too frostbitten and insensitive from skiing last week and he didn’t want to lock them in the ski boots yet...so we went for a hike around Banff instead . At the beginning of the trail we crossed this nice little canyon. In the distance you can see Lake Minnewanka...completely frozen. When the trees opened up a bit we could see more of the lake . It seems that no one has been on this trail for some time....we actually started wondering if it was a trail at all . Eventually we reached our destination, the shore of the lake a few km away from the parking lot. Here the landscape was very...white . We walked to the middle of the lake to take some photos from there . Eventually the wind started picking up and quickly the temperature fell down, so we decided to hide in the backpack for the rest of the day .
smaug Posted Mar 19, 2011, 4:14 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we had a new arrival here in Calgary . It’s Monkez, a nice monkey from Russia travelling on the WTVT, and he brought over a lovely card from his last host .
smaug Posted Mar 29, 2011, 4:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today is the first day of spring and we are celebrating it...with a fresh dump of snow, of course . Well, we were not going to do anything anyway, since smaug was at home sick . So we actually had to make sure that he took the right medications. I suggested to give him every pill in the house to speed up his recovery , but we all agreed that we didn’t really want to take the chance of poisoning him, so we just followed the doses suggested on the packages. Later I showed to my guests some of the maps of my pre-TV travelling life ... ...and some photos from my private album. I think they particularly liked the photos from Greenland .
smaug Posted Apr 4, 2011, 3:38 am	ciao ciao ciao, It seems that someone forgot to tell to Old Man Winter that we are supposed to be in spring, so the weather is “not particularly nice” and this week end we didn’t do anything more than a short walk to stretch our legs. The atmosphere is still very wintery. We walked down to the river to take a couple of photos... But when we asked if we could jump on the ice smaug told us that the river ice is not good for walking so we just headed back to the warmth of home .
smaug Posted Apr 11, 2011, 4:41 am	ciao ciao ciao, When yesterday the weather forecast issued a snowfall warning for Calgary we noticed that it was April 1st and had a laugh about it . Well, it was no April’ fool, oooh, and today we woke up under a thick snowfall ...which made the trees look very pretty. Walking around town we could barely see the buildings around us. We wanted to play a bit on the ground , but the snow was so deep that we were sinking in it ... ...so we just let smaug do the walking .
smaug Posted Apr 23, 2011, 4:17 am	ciao ciao ciao, Not much happened here in Calgary over the last couple of weeks ...of course, we got more dumps of snow, but that’s no big news anymore . But today smaug showed up with a big envelope and told us to take good care of it...there was something moving in it . It turned out that it was a new guest arriving here in Calgary, Clifford and he brought over a lovely card and some delicious sweets . We told him that he got here with a perfect timing as we are going skiing this week , something that I guess shocked him a bit ....he’ll soon get used to Calgary “spring” .
smaug Posted Apr 25, 2011, 3:39 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went skiing in Lake Louise ...where, to be honest, the morning temperatures were not really spring-like . Here we were leaving the base of the mountain on the Grizzly gondola. As we went up the view improved . Later we reached the top of a chair called “Top of the world”: very fascinating name although maybe a bit of an overstatement as there were plenty of higher peaks around . For instance that one behind me is Mt Whitehorn, from where, apparently, in the afternoon smaug decided to practice tumbling downhill in a quite disorderly fashion . Luckily by that time we had already left his backpack and were relaxing at lodge, otherwise we’d be a bunch of much thinner TVs now . Here there’s the opposite side of the valley behind me. Those seemly harmless clouds soon covered us making it almost impossible to tell the snow on the mountain from the clouds with everything turned into a milky fog . So we didn’t take any more picture on the mountain. We tried  our luck later in day at the village, but again we were pounded by a blizzard. We eventually drove over to the lake that gives the name to both the village and the ski resort and the weather decided to give us a break . This is the west side of the lake... ...while the eyesore behind me is the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, one of the most luxurious and pricey hotel in the Rockies .
smaug Posted Apr 28, 2011, 4:59 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter! We wondered if smaug was going to get us a giant chocolate egg , but he said that it would have been to much for such small TVs ....so we got a TV size egg each instead , better than nothing !
smaug Posted Apr 29, 2011, 5:15 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered together to say goodbye to Monkez who is travelling to his next host on the WTVT . I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe and quick trip. I hope that spring will look more spring-like in Hong Kong .
smaug Posted May 3, 2011, 4:36 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug said that he found a parcel for us TVs in the mail . I explained to my guests that that meant there was likely a new guest in that parcel, so they all got very excited . And yes, out of the envelope came Mandy Sheep a nice (guess what ?) sheep from Germany. She showed us the lovely card that she brought with her (that smaug forgot to include in the photo ) and then we spent the night chatting about our travels .
smaug Posted May 4, 2011, 4:53 am	ciao ciao ciao, There’s been a bit of parcel traffic here in Calgary over the last few days , and a new one arrived today . And of course that meant a new guest, Kirin a nice giraffe from Chile . She brought over a lovely card and some delicious sweets , so of course we spent the night chatting and eating .
smaug Posted May 15, 2011, 10:46 pm	ciao ciao ciao, It’s been a bit boring here in Calgary recently. Last weekend we were stuck home as it rained all the time (which is a very good sign of the approaching spring , as temperatures are now warm enough to get rain rather than snow, although my guests are not really convinced about this ). The only excitement has been the strengthening of our troops due to a new arrival today . It’s Frankie_Blue a nice bear (although he’s not thoroughly convinced of being one ) from Germany who is travelling on the WTVT. Of course we wanted to know everything about his travels, so we spent the night up chatting .
smaug Posted May 16, 2011, 5:49 am	ciao ciao ciao, This weekend the weather seems to eventually be quite nice, so this morning we went for a short walk on the mountains .I explained to the others that we can’t go very high as, apart for a few places, there’s still a silly amount of snow at high altitude so we chose a low altitude trail in a valley that got relatively little snow this winter (of course, I could fly to the high places, but I guess that wouldn’t be a proper gentlehost behaviour ). When we arrived at the parking lot there was no one around. After walking a bit we crossed this muddy creek and wondered if we were going to spend the whole day wading into mud . But the trail winding between the trees was actually quite nice and dry... ...with the occasional view of the mountains around us . Eventually we reached the highest point of our trip...not a very high one as there was no snow around . But the view was great . The trail that we took to go back was a bit less nice, actually it was very mucky, so we decided to stay in the backpack chatting and let smaug toiling his way back to the car .
smaug Posted May 23, 2011, 4:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today, for once, we had some nice weather over the weekend, so smaug took us to the mountains for a walk . First we spent some time along the shores of Lake Minnewanka...which looks still pretty much frozen. Later we headed up on the side of the mountain to the location of an abandoned fire lookout from where the view of the lake was much better . My guests seemed to be a bit puzzled by all the thunders that were hearing, so I explained that they were just avalanches coming down from those mountains behind us. The explanation sparked a bit of panic , so I tried to reassure them that we were in a safe place, but I had a feeling of not being convincing enough . On the other side of the valley the snow covering Mt. Aylmer seemed less likely to come down...for now. Funny enough, someone put up here a makeshift swing, so we played a bit with it . As we were getting hungry we asked smaug if he had packed a full 3 courses meal plus dessert . Disappointingly he didn’t planned the day properly and just handed us some energy bars . Apparently this lookout is famous for being visited by lots of bighorn sheep but there was none around today...although there were plenty of traces of their passage here, very smelly traces that did not make for interesting photos . Talking about smelly things, another very common and slightly less pleasant resident here is the wood tick, so smaug spent the day covered with this fairly disgusting insect repellent...which made the experience of being around him very tough on our smell sense and which also probably explains why (despite this being May long weekend) we hardly met anyone (people, TV or wildlife) the whole day . On the way back to the car we stopped on the lake side. Very close to the shore the ice is starting to break up so the lake might be open soon . Too bad it soon started to rain a bit, so we hid in the backpack and wondered if there was going to be a 3 courses meal with cake waiting for us at home .
smaug Posted Jun 4, 2011, 8:45 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to Mandy Sheep who is flying back home to join her mum for a trip to Denmark. I checked that her travelling quarters were comfortable enough, then gave her a big hug and wished her a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jun 5, 2011, 4:16 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today three guests arrived here in Calgary for a short visit : my great friends Dean, Krystal and Sigfrido . They were a bit jet lagged so we welcomed them and then let them go get some sleep .
smaug Posted Jun 5, 2011, 4:52 am	ciao ciao ciao, Krystal, Dean and Sigfrido will spend a few days in Banff for work , so today we all accompanied them to check their accommodation .  Here we started heading towards the mountains ... ...and got closer to Banff until we reached our exit from the highway. Driving through Banff was very nice . At the conference centre we inspected the room: the view was nice... And the furniture seemed comfortable enough . As the place looked OK we left them here and headed back to Calgary.
smaug Posted Jun 12, 2011, 5:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, Yesterday Dean, Krystal and Sigfrido came back home and since today the weather was very nice, we all went for a short walk along the Little Elbow River . First we took a couple a photos from almost the middle of the river. Then we kept walking between trees, mountains and the river. What a nice day .
smaug Posted Jun 30, 2011, 3:52 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today it was party time as it is Krystal birthday ! We got her a lovely cake and, of course, we let her have the first big slice and helped ourselves with the rest of the cake . Today it was actually also goodbye time: Dean, Krystal and Sigfrido are all flying back to Europe tomorrow, so we all gathered to say goodbye to them . I gave to each of them a big hug and wished them a safe trip, I hope to see news of them soon .
smaug Posted Jul 7, 2011, 4:07 am	ciao ciao ciao, This week we never saw smaug and, as we were running a bit short on sweets , I noticed that my guests were getting a bit worried. I explained to them that he was probably just trying not to be eaten alive by bugs on some horrible site in northern Canada....so there was really nothing to worry about...which for some reason didn’t seem to comfort them . Anyway, today was Kirin’s birthday and, despite the food shortage , we managed to organize a little party for her .
smaug Posted Jul 7, 2011, 5:11 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I explained to my guest that this week some of them will leave Calgary, and I convinced smaug to take a few detours during a site visit to show them some nice view of the Rockies . First we stopped looking at the Bow valley. Later on we took a look at one of the most famous views in this part of the Rockies, Peyto Lake . On the way back home we stopped at an even more famous view: Moraine Lake and the Valley of Ten Peaks (no, we couldn’t get all ten of them in the photo ), which apparently used to feature on the old $20 notes. I am sure those notes would have looked lovely if I had been on them too .
smaug Posted Jul 10, 2011, 10:59 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered together to say goodbye to Dottie Mouse who will be travelling to USA tomorrow . I made sure that she had enough energy for the trip by letting her have a final piece of parmigiano ...and then I gave her big hug and wished her a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jul 10, 2011, 11:15 pm	ciao ciao ciao, This week Calgary looks like a departure lounge . Today we gathered to say goodbye another one of my guests, Clifford, who will travel home to the UK tomorrow. I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jul 10, 2011, 11:28 pm	ciao ciao ciao, No wonder we don’t see smaug often these days....he’s always at the post office ! Today we gathered to say goodbye to Frankie_Blue who will travel tomorrow to his new host on the WTVT in Hong Kong . Of course, I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jul 11, 2011, 3:21 am	ciao ciao ciao, It might be the almost the middle of July, but today we were reminded that we are still in Canada . Today smaug decided that the weather forecast looked good so we went for a walk on the mountains....but obviously the forecast wasn’t that accurate....or maybe smaug was a bit sleepy when he checked it . It was ridiculously windy and we got hit a by a few little blizzards too. Anyway,  by the time we reached the highest point of our walk, it was still windy but the clouds had lifted a bit so we could take some pictures. Dark in the East we could see Kananaskis Valley and further away the foothills and the prairies. These rocky peaks looked a bit grim. The weather farther West over the Bow valley wasn’t much better. But this little valley seemed very nice . On the way back to the car some blue patches appeared in the sky, so we took a final look at the Bow Valley before taking shelter from the wind in smaug’s backpack.
smaug Posted Jul 18, 2011, 3:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all said goodbye to Pitzelpatz who tomorrow will start travelling to his new host . I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jul 18, 2011, 5:07 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we had a day of proper summer weather , so smaug took us to the mountains on one of the most popular scrambles in the Rockies...the fact that we met less than twenty people in the all day makes me wonder how quiet the less-popular ones must be . Anyway, we started hiking in very shadowy forest so we spent most of the time in the backpack. We stuck our nose out of it when we thought we could have a look at our destination, but smaug said that we could see only part way up the mountain from this gully. Eventually the view improved . We could see Sulphur Mountain with the summit station of the gondola. Later on we finally came out of the forest and the view was even better. We even had our first glimpse of our destination...which seemed to be still quite far away, but also appeared as prime eagle territory . When we reached the summit it was definitely worth the effort . The slope on the opposite side was a bit steep and I think my guests felt a bit dizzy when they looked down , but the sightseeing was amazing. We could see the Bow Valley more than a mile below us... ...Cascade Mountain in front of us... ...Lake Minnewanka in the distance... ...the east side of the Bow Valley with Canmore... ...more mountains in the south... ...and again the Bow Valley heading north towards Lake Louise. What a day !
smaug Posted Jul 21, 2011, 4:15 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Kirin who tomorrow will leave Calgary and start travelling to her next host in Finland . I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jul 24, 2011, 5:50 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today a new guest arrived in Calgary . HelgaHH, a nice ladybird travelling on the WTVT . She was a bit tired, so we saved all our questions for later .
smaug Posted Jul 24, 2011, 6:27 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went out on the mountains again. The car park was very quiet, but it was a nice morning . The first part of the trail was in the middle of a forest, until we reached Baldy Pass, where the view was very nice. Here we also got a glimpse of our destination for the day...which looked still quite far . But, somehow, smaug’s legs managed to propel us to the top where we were greeted by a great view . We could see Baldy Pass below us... ...the prairies in the East... ...the Rockies extending in the North... ...and a very concerning storm over Nakiska ski area which seemed to head straight for us . And it actually hit us very quickly, but it also went away very quickly, giving us a chance to take a photo with this nice rainbow . Before starting the trip back we all signed the summit register . And back at the car we had a final look at Midnight Peak which by now, of course, was shining in the sun .
smaug Posted Aug 1, 2011, 7:07 am	ciao ciao ciao, This week smaug left us all alone all week but when he came back last night we were very pleased to hear that the weather was going to be gorgeous and that he was going to take us to the mountains today . After spending, as usual, a lot of time under the shadow of the trees we had our first glimpse of the mountains encircling Hidden Lake, which, true to its name, was hidden from our eyes the whole day . Moving on we reached Boulder Pass, from where we could see better the same mountains... ...and where we saw for the first time our destination of the day....which seemed easily accessible. Later we reached Deception Pass from where we could see back Boulder Pass, Mount Redoubt and Ptarmigan Lake... ...and Skoki Valley. From here Fossil Mountain appeared still a bit far up above us...a walk in the park for a mighty eagle . Somehow smaugs’ legs managed to propel my guests up to the top without me needing to lift up him and the whole rucksack , and from there the view was great . We could see Skoki lakes with the Wall of Jericho (don’t even think of asking me who and how came up with the names around here )... ...again Boulder Pass with Mt Temple and Mt Victoria far in the background... ...and more beautiful mountains and small lakes in all directions. On the way back we stopped for lunch . While smaug was retrieving the supplies we checked our daily progresses. Then we focused on the food: the energy bar and drink were far from appealing... ...but luckily smaug packed some lovely chocolate too ! With a full belly we had a look around: our lunch spot had a lovely view over Skoki lakes... ...and valley. Eventually it was time to head back, but still we took a photo with Ptarmigan Lake and Mount Redoubt... ...and some more photos from the lake shore. After that we dived back in the rucksack and helped ourselves with what was left of that lovely chocolate .
smaug Posted Aug 12, 2011, 3:59 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was a holiday, so we had another chance to spend some time outdoor. This time we stayed close to Calgary in Kananaskis Country. And we were lucky with the weather again , and had a nice view right from the car park. Later we dived into the trees, and came out of them already up on a ridge, from where we could see the Elbow River flowing east to Calgary... ...and the Rockies over to the west. Looking down to the valley we could see that the car park was still completely empty...other than for our lonely car . Once we approached the summit we had to follow a nice and gentle grassy ridge. Until we reached the top, from where we could see both the prairies and the Rockies . On the way back the wind suddenly became a bit uncomfortable, which sent us back hiding into the backpack .
smaug Posted Aug 12, 2011, 4:23 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today Fiete got ready to leave, so first we helped him with one of his missions by letting him sit on a Canadian note....I was planning to use something fancy like a $100 note , but $20 was all we could find inside smaug’s wallet . Then it was farewell time... ...and I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Aug 27, 2011, 6:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was another nice day , so off we went to the mountains again. We drove over to Lake Louise and walked up to one of the peaks near the lake. Halfway up we reached the saddleback, from where we had our first look at the summit... ...and we even saw Mt Temple, clad in ice . Once at the top we braved the freezing wind and had a look around. We had Mt Victoria in front of us... ...and we could see Lake Louise down there. We had again a great view of Mt Temple... ...and of the Bow valley heading north towards Jasper . On the opposite site of the mountain we saw the Lake Louise Ski Area (I explained to HelgaHH that I was still skiing there just over 3 months ago )... ...and the Bow Valley heading south. Eventually it was getting a touch too cold for a gentle ladybird like HelgaHH, so we got some shelter back into smaug’s backpack .
smaug Posted Aug 29, 2011, 4:59 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was another lovely and warm (for Canadian standards, of course ) weekend summer day and smaug took us out for an easy scramble. After walking a bit in the trees we found this lovely waterfall . Later we reached Bourgeau Lake still clad in shadow. From here we saw Mount Bourgeau looming over the lake. Moving up we found this lovely unnamed lake . Eventually we reached Harvey Pass with Harvey Lake. On the other side of the pass we could see Mount Assiniboine towering in the distance... ...and the mountains disappearing west in British Columbia . At this point I suggested to walk up the gentle ridge to the top Mount Bourgeau, so off we went. The summit at first was a bit of a disappointment as it was cluttered with all sort of stuff . But once we looked around we changed mind . We could see Banff down in the valley... ...Mount Assiniboine again,... ...Sunshine Village ski area below us... ...and generally the view was incredible . On the way down the ridge we leaned over the edge of the ridge to look at the valley that we walked up in the morning... ...and at Bourgeau Lake. For lunch we chose a spot below Harvey Pass from where we could see both the pass... ...and the little unnamed lake . Before diving back into the trees we took a last view of Bourgeau Lake... ...and Mount Bourgeau, from where we just came down. What a day !
smaug Posted Sep 1, 2011, 4:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug brought back home a parcel which got us very excited as we have been expecting a new guest for a few days... ...and yes, a new guest it was : Sofia, a nice hover-fly from Finland . And she brought over some lovely presents...no need to say that the chocolate soon disappeared in our mouths . And actually it was a day full of arrivals . Late at night smaug disappeared and when he came back he had three more toys with him: my great friends Krystal, Landroval and Sigfrido who will be here in Calgary for the whole weekend .
smaug Posted Sep 5, 2011, 3:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a quick walk around Calgary downtown. We saw some of the skyscrapers .. ...a C-Train station... ...and these strange structures . Of course, we stopped for food ... Before taking a final look around and head home.
smaug Posted Sep 7, 2011, 5:13 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short visit to Banff. On the way we had privileged seats to enjoy the view of the mountains ... ...and just as we were parking, we met this big group of horseriders . We had a look at our surroundings... ...and off we went in the middle of the Bow Valley. It was very hot, so the river was really inviting us for a skinny dive ... ...but smaug said that the water was too cold , so we moved on and passed by this lovely wetland. Later we stopped at Sundance Canyon, with it’s narrow gorge . In the evening we took a ride on the Sulphur Mountain Gondola. Although the sun was setting, the view from the top was great . We could see the Banff down in the valley... ...the summit station of the gondola... ...and the whole Mount Rundle ridge .
smaug Posted Sep 8, 2011, 5:23 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was farewell time, as Sigfrido, Krystal and Landroval started to head back to Europe . We all gathered together to say goodbye to them... ...and before they jumped in the luggage I gave them all a big hug and wished them a safe journey .
smaug Posted Sep 13, 2011, 4:28 am	ciao ciao ciao, 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 smaug, as usual, was relentlessly moaning about the walking conditions . 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 took a few photos in the freezing wind. We saw Lake Minnewanka... ...the mountains in the west... ...and the Bow Valley heading east . And at that point I noticed that my guests were struggling a bit in the freezing cold, so we all hid back in the backpack until we reached warmer elevations .
smaug Posted Sep 30, 2011, 2:18 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what? Today was a holiday in Canada, so we could take advantage of the lovely long weekend weather and head again to the mountains .  After the usual long chilly walk at the beginning of the day, we emerged out of the trees and got greeted by a lovely little lake called Tower Lake. From here we had also the first glimpse of our destination of the day, Castle Mountain . Moving up a bit we reached another little lake, Rockbound Lake. As the name suggests , it’s fenced almost on all sides by steep rockwalls... ...which made us wonder how the heck smaug thought to get past that, but he said that the scree slopes on this side looked walkable enough. I had a feeling that an emergency call to sammino-eagle-rescue-services was going to happen soon . But apparently they were walkable indeed, as we got to the upper ledge without any accident . From here we were able to see the Bow Valley in the distance... ...the summit of Castle Mountain... ...and Rockbound Lake just below us. Moving on the landscape turned a bit “lunar” ... ...and as we approached the summit ridge some scary cracks allowed us to have a peek at the other side of the mountain. Eventually we reached the top, from where we had a great view of the Bow Valley,... ...Vermillion Pass heading to British Columbia... ...and of Rockbound Lake, which now looked quite far away. What a day !
smaug Posted Oct 3, 2011, 3:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, Once again smaug left us home alone for a few days and disappeared on site. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t enjoying our time . We have regular cereal based breakfast...with a touch of chocolate of course . Then we check the latest TV updates... ...have nutella at pleasure throughout the day ... ...play computer games... ...and we are also eating strictly “Albertan” : burgers and steaks at every meal . Let’s just hope that smaug won’t overreact finding the refrigerator empty when he comes back .
smaug Posted Oct 5, 2011, 2:26 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to HelgaHH who will start travelling to her next host in Germany tomorrow. Before she jumped into her envelope I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe journey .
smaug Posted Oct 8, 2011, 3:08 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug had a day off and the weather was gorgeous so we went for a long hike . It was still a bit dark (and very cold ) early in the morning... ...but when we emerged from the trees things looked brighter and we enjoyed the view of the mountains around the valley leading to Aylmer Pass. At this point we left the trail and headed up this gully . When we eventually got out of it, we had a nice view over Lake Minnewanka... ...and got our first look of our destination for the day, Mt Aylmer . Moving up we reached a little saddle from where we could see the valley on the opposite side of the mountain. As we kept gaining elevation the summit seemed to be almost within our grasp... ...but at this point smaug checked the watch and decided that there was no way that we could reach the top and be back to the car safely with only a few hours of light left. So, reluctantly, we took another photo of Lake Minnewanka in the distance and headed back . Luckily, once we reached the shoreline the sun was still shining, so we stepped a bit out of the trail to take a couple of more photos .
smaug Posted Oct 12, 2011, 4:00 am	ciao ciao ciao, It’s been raining most of this week, which means snow on the mountains . So today we went checking out how deep it is . The first part of the day we were mostly in the shadow of a narrow valley and could only see the morning sun shining on the surrounding peaks. Eventually we reached Ribbon Falls, where we took a customary photo . Moving a bit further up, looking for the sun, we enjoyed some nice view of the valley that we had just followed . At this point I noticed that the cold was making Sofia feeling a bit uncomfortable , so we decided to hide back into smaug’s backpack .
smaug Posted Oct 20, 2011, 5:03 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today is a holiday here in Canada, so we had a free day to go to the mountains . Early in the morning we spent some time in a colourful, but very dark little valley... ...with only glimpses of the sun shining on the other side of the valley. Slowly we got high enough to enjoy some sun on our faces...and, of course, this meant also snow under our feet . Eventually we reached our destination , Old Baldy, a fairly barren ridge at the foot of that tall mountain in the background. The wind was a touch cold, but the view was great , so we took a few photos before hiding back in smaug’s backpack .
smaug Posted Oct 22, 2011, 4:40 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came back home carrying a parcel..which got us very interested . Seeing that it was coming from Japan, I guessed it was my friend Orpheus coming home, so I whispered to Sofia, regardless of the shape, size or colour of the bird coming out of that envelope, to please pretend that it was a canary . And it was indeed Orpheus , who showed us the lovely present that his last host gave to him and then started telling about his adventures on the WTVT.
smaug Posted Oct 22, 2011, 4:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was like being in the arrival lounge at the airport , as smaug showed up with two parcels, both likely to carry a new guest here in Calgary . And yes, new guests they were : Quentin Ducky from the UK and Jujube from the USA. They showed to us the lovely cards that their last hosts gave to them and then we started chatting and telling stories about our TV life .
smaug Posted Oct 26, 2011, 5:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I took my new guests to their first visit to the mountains . As we left the car we were followed by light sleet, and the first glimpse of our surroundings wasn’t great: dark clouds... ...and snow at high elevations. Well, not even that high, the whole upper part of Nakiska ski area seemed already ready for the winter season . From a bit further up we saw Barrier Lake in the distance and even what looked to be some sunrays . While in the direction that we wanted to take things were less encouraging, but not too bad . Eventually we reached the top of the valley, from where we could see the surrounding mountains ... ....and the ridge that we just followed. I suggested that we should have tried to reach that peak behind me , but as usual smaug started whining like a mule and made up an excuse about not wanting to be on that face if the weather turned ugly, so we had to turn around and head back home .
smaug Posted Nov 17, 2011, 3:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, Once again smaug suddenly disappeared for work and left us alone for almost two weeks . What was very disappointing is that he didn’t leave us very well supplied at all . Anyway, by somehow rationing the chocolate , we made it. And when today he eventually reappeared, he even had a surprise for us: a parcel, maybe holding inside a new friend . And, yes, it was a new guest: Cherry Lola , a nice Zebra from the US. And she brought to us a lovely card and some delicious sweets ....which where a blessing for our starving stomachs .
smaug Posted Nov 19, 2011, 4:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what? Today smaug showed up with another TV-suspicious parcel. Of course we all gathered to see who was going to come out of it. It was Cassiopeia, a nice turtle from Germany . I was actually getting a bit worried as I had expected her to arrive for some time, so it was a relief to see her popping her head out of the envelope . She is one of the most experienced TV ever, so we didn’t really give her the chance to rest and we pinned her down all night to hear everything about her travelling .
smaug Posted Nov 21, 2011, 4:20 am	ciao ciao ciao, It sure looked like being at the airport arrivals lounge here this week . For the third time smaug came back with a parcel holding a new guest inside . It was Sweetsy, a nice gingerbread man from Germany ! And he brought over some great gifts for us: a lovely “self-themed” card and some delicious German Christmas sweets ...which, of course, fuelled a long night of chatting .
smaug Posted Nov 22, 2011, 3:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, Temperatures were unseasonably cool over the week end , but I thought that this was a great chance for my guests to get acclimatised to the proper Canadian winter weather and I convinced smaug to take us for a short walk in the foothills . And the sun was shining . The trail was covered in snow, but just a couple of cm. We stopped at this sign to check where we were: luckily smaug didn’t get us lost . Eventually we reached the highest spot of our walk, where we had a great view of the mountains around us . At this point we stopped to recover and I treated my friends (who looked a bit tired) with a cup of boiling tea and a well deserved bar of chocolate ....I guess they appreciated .
smaug Posted Nov 24, 2011, 3:46 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Sofia and Orpheus who are ready to travel to their next hosts . They are both going to Germany...but using separate envelopes . I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe journey . I am actually quite curious to find out which envelope will arrive first .
smaug Posted Nov 29, 2011, 4:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short hike in the foothills . As it often happens, we spent the first part of the day between the trees, but soon the view improved . This ridge was very exposed to both sun and wind, so all the snow had disappeared, oooh... ...but our way forward looked snowy enough . Luckily TVs are lighter than humans and don’t sink so much into the snow, so, since the trail was well marked, we left smaug toiling up his way behind us and I lead the others ahead . Eventually we reached the summit ridge where the view was great. We could see the prairies and even Calgary far in the east ... ...and mountains everywhere else .
smaug Posted Dec 25, 2011, 12:29 am	ciao ciao ciao, After a long time being very quiet (smaug was quite busy and, despite our best efforts to get his attention, we felt a bit invisible over the last few weeks ), today we had the first glimpse of hope of being active again . I left my guests alone for a few hours to pick up some more guests....who turned out to be so asleep that I had to carry them home in a bundle . My "gentle" dropping of them on the sofa, seemed to be enough to wake them up and here they were, my friends Landroval and Sigfrido . Of course I introduced them to my current guests . They offered to us some lovely (and very appropriate) sweets that they collected while travelling here . But they also told us that they have even more interesting goodies hidden somewhere in their baggage, can’t wait to see that .
smaug Posted Dec 26, 2011, 3:57 am	ciao ciao ciao, Merry Christmas ! This morning we found a lot of presents on the floor... ... but, since they didn’t seem to be for us , we focused our attention on some of the sweets that Landroval and Sigfrido brought from France and Italy . Later we decided to burn some calories and went for a walk along the river. That red bridge over there is a new pedestrian passage over the river which was supposed to be open almost 18 months ago ...and that hopefully will be open sometimes next year . Back home I think everybody expected to have a turkey meal, but I he had organize and unconventional Christmas lunch based on my favourite local product...massively thick steaks ! After that, to be even more unconventional, we topped the meal with a lovely chocolate cake . Well, eventually we were so full that we fell asleep...dreaming of more food, of course .
smaug Posted Jan 1, 2012, 4:31 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short trip near Calgary in the Elbow Valley. First we walked a bit along the Elbow River . Moving on we reached the Elbow Falls and had a look at the falls from the upstream side...which looked a bit scary. While the canyon immediately downstream was quite nice ....but a touch cold, so we just went back hiding in the car .
smaug Posted Jan 3, 2012, 2:29 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we explored a bit around Calgary . First we roamed around the streets looking at the skyline. Then we entered a mall and stopped a bit to rest. Those flags are for the Junior Hockey World Championship which is going right now in Calgary. Later we explored a bit the mall... ...and just before heading home we found this lovely curtain of lights ...it probably looks better without the daylight coming in from the glass roof .
smaug Posted Jan 3, 2012, 4:10 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered all together to say goodbye to Landroval and Sigfrido who are travelling back to Europe and will arrive just in time to celebrate New Year’s eve ...assuming they won’t be too jet-lagged . I checked that their travelling quarters were comfortable enough... ...and then drove them to the airport . On the way we passed by Calgary Tower and The Bow... ...unitil we eventually reached Calgary Airport. Here I gave them a big hug and wished them a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jan 9, 2012, 3:50 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short hike near Calgary. Most of the route was between trees with the occasional viewpoint . Once we reached the summit the views were great and, funny enough, the place is so windswept that there was hardly any snow around . On the way down we noticed that someone had built a igloo . The outside didn’t looked exactly state of the art in igloo construction ... ...but is seemed solid enough, so we went inside to take some shelter from the wind and have some rest. And it was actually very warm and comfortable , too bad eventually we had to leave and go home .
smaug Posted Jan 23, 2012, 3:18 am	Ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye to both Quentin Ducky and Cassiopeia who are travelling to their next hosts in Chile and Germany . I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jan 30, 2012, 3:39 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug showed up with an envelope that looked like having a new guest inside . And it was a new guest indeed , Commodore Quack a nice duck from Wales. Of course we gave him a warm welcome and spent the night chatting and listening about his travels .
smaug Posted Feb 2, 2012, 4:59 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were bored to stay at home so, despite the weather forecast not being exactly beautiful, we convinced smaug to head to the mountains . It was actually a bit cold and cloudy, so we hid in the backpack until we reached the first stop of our day, Rawson Lake. The lake was frozen solid and covered with snow (like everything else around it ) but, half covered by clouds,  we could see the imposing face of Mount Sarrail at the back of it. On the opposite side of the lake we could see our destination, that ridge up there. So, up we went in the middle of the trees. Breaking trail in the deep snow was hard work...so we left smaug taking care of that . Once we reached the top, the clouds were getting thicker and lower, but we still could see the frozen shapes of Kananaskis Lakes. On the way down we had a great idea: instead of sticking with smaug at his painfully slow pace, we decided to practise glissading on the snow and wait for him at the bottom. It was so much fun ! On second thought, maybe it wasn’t the best idea ever . Oouch! After this little accident we humbly went back in the backpack ad nursed our wounded pride with some chocolate for the rest of the day .
smaug Posted Feb 21, 2012, 2:42 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug had some time for us, so he took us up to the mountains to snowshoe a bit .  As usual his trail selection strategy left a lot to be desired as it seemed that for the whole day the sun was always on the opposite side of the valley, but our complaints on the matter where ignored . It was funny that, while we had to proceed in deep snow,... ...some of the peaks around us were almost snow-free . On the way we stopped to talk to this friendly bird and asked for directions . Eventually we reached our destination, which unfortunately was battered by the wind and clad in clouds ...except for the direction from which we had just come. So we took a photo and quickly took cover .
smaug Posted Feb 29, 2012, 5:00 am	ciao ciao ciao, It was fairly cold and snowing here in Calgary this weekend, so we stayed in town and went just to stretch our legs along the river, which is mostly but not completely frozen. Not surprisingly not many people were around . On the way we stopped to check how construction of the Peace Bridge is progressing....it seems there are chances that it might open less than 2 years late from the expected date . Later on, my guests gave me vague messages suggesting that the cold was starting to cause them some form of minor discomfort . So we took a final look at downtown Calgary and headed back home... ...where we spent the afternoon nice an warm playing computer games .
smaug Posted Mar 11, 2012, 10:14 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today was a nice and warm day so we went for a short walk to the foothills . It was actually nice and warm in Calgary, but only nice and freaking windy a bit higher up . Luckily most of the time we were walking between trees... ...passing by the occasional viewpoint . Once we reached the highest and most exposed spot of our little trip it got very, very windy, so we took a couple of shots trying not to get blown away and then took cover for the rest of the day .
smaug Posted Mar 25, 2012, 7:57 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today eventually smaug had some time for us, so, even if the weather wasn’t exactly great, we went for a short hike in the snow . After a a bit of walking we crossed this lovely canyon . Then we reached the best viewpoint of the day: on a "normal" day this is a great view of the lake and of the mountains behind it....not today . So we kept going along the trail. Later on we decided to walk down to the lakeshore where the view was a bit clearer...although it was hard to tell what was lake and what was shore . And at that point the camera’s battery surrendered to the cold and, despite our best efforts, there was no way  to revive it. So I’m afraid I will not be able to document all the lovely fog and clouds that we enjoyed during the rest of the day.
smaug Posted Mar 29, 2012, 4:19 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came home with a parcel that looked very likely to be the travelling quarters of a new guest , so we got very excited. And it was a new guest indeed, Petit Lapin , a nice rabbit from Germany who is traveling the Round Robin 16.  He showed us the lovely cards that he brought with him , and then we spent the night chatting about past and future travelling .
smaug Posted Apr 8, 2012, 5:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today a new guest arrived in Calgary . smaug brought back home an envelope and we immediately knew that it was a TV. And yes, a TV it was, Melek a nice hedgehog from Germany ...and he brought with him a lovely card and some delicious sweets . Of course the chocolate helped a lot in keeping high our sugar levels as we spent the night chatting .
smaug Posted Apr 8, 2012, 11:59 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Not only today is a holiday, but the weather looked gorgeous this morning, so we went for a bit of outdoor exercise .  We picked a trail in the trees not too far from Calgary. The trees around us where still covered with the snow fallen last night  . As we moved uphill the view even improved. By the time we reached the highest point of our day the weather has taken a sudden turn...for the worse , and the snow started falling. Soon the light snow turned into a heavy snowfall, so we took shelter under a tree. As we were cheering ourselves up with some tea and a chocolate bar , my guests seemed a bit puzzled by how suddenly the weather had changed...but all I could tell them to explain it was : “Welcome to Calgary” .
smaug Posted Apr 10, 2012, 4:40 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter ! We were hoping to celebrate with some gigantic chocolate egg , but smaug was concerned about our diet , so we just got small TV sized egges ....luckily there was enough of them for everyone .
smaug Posted Apr 19, 2012, 5:14 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to Jujube who is travelling to her next host in the US . I gave her a big hug (or at least tried to...it’s not so easy to find a way to hug such a tall alien ) and wished her a safe journey . Hopefully it will be a quick one.
smaug Posted Apr 25, 2012, 5:16 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we are having a little taste of summer , so we expected to go to the mountains and find the snow gone for good...well almost . We spent the first part of our day in this nice little valley from where we could see the runs at Nakiska ski resort...all still open . Moving on we entered a forest where the snow didn’t really seem in the mood to disappear. Eventually we reached the top of this trail, from where we had nice views in the direction we came from... ...and on the opposite side, to the East . South of us we could see Midnight Peak. I explained to my guests that, without snow, it would be a nice walkable ridge ...but not now with all that snow, maybe in a few weeks....maybe .
smaug Posted Apr 30, 2012, 5:04 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today I turned into an adult eagle , which means I can now vote, run at elections and even drive smaug’s car by myself . And, guess what, my guests threw a little birthday party for me . They blindfolded me and took me to the “party room”... ...where they had prepared a mouth watering cake ,... ..., a lovely “themed” card, and they sang Happy Birthday for me . I even got a present from my great friend Sigfrido in France who sent me a little lovely artwork that he started working on last autumn and finished just in time for today (takes a lot of time to draw with hoofs I guess ). After singing and laughing it was time to get to the real business, the cake ...which turned out to be delicious .
smaug Posted May 5, 2012, 6:20 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today once again the weather was reasonably warm, so we went for a short hike . We actually have been in the same area a few weeks ago when it was covered with snow, but today the lower parts of the trail were almost bone dry . Of course there were plenty of spots where the snow was still unchallenged . Eventually we reached a nice viewpoint at the top of a ridge where we could see the mountains in the west ... ...and even the prairies far in the east. And, as usual, it soon started snowing, so we hastily made our way back home .
smaug Posted May 7, 2012, 3:45 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Petit Lapin who is travelling to the US to his next host in the RR-16 . Before he jumped in his travelling quarters I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe trip .
smaug Posted May 9, 2012, 4:36 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what?! A new guest arrived in Calgary today . smaug came home with a strange parcel that got us very excited. And, as soon as we managed to open it , a new TV popped out, Greeny delMonte a nice bear from Germany . Even if he was a bit jet-lagged we wanted to know everything about his travels, so we spent the night up while helping ourselves with the delicious treats that he brought with him from Japan .
smaug Posted May 14, 2012, 4:55 am	ciao ciao ciao, Spring is coming here in Calgary . We had a bit snow during the week, but today it was nice, warm (well, kind of ) and sunny, so we headed to the mountains. Our trail passed by a lovely viewpoint over Lake Minnewanka . Later we dived into the trees, but soon we started gaining elevation and saw the lake again. Eventually we reached our destination, the site of an abandoned fire lookout. Here we could see the valley leading to Aylmer Pass,... ...Mt Aylmer,... ...and again Lake Minnewanka which, in the upper part, was still partly frozen . On the way back we stopped on the lake shore to enjoy the sun . The water looked so crystal clear that my guests were tempted to go for a swim ...so I reminded them of the ice that was still covering part of the lake and the general consensus was that maybe it was better to postpone the swimming for a few months .
smaug Posted May 17, 2012, 5:17 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came home with a small parcel and told us that we should probably be the ones opening it , so we got very curious. After working a bit to get it open, a new guest appeared : Elisa a nice sheep from Germany . Of course we want to know everything about her travels...so it’s going to be a very late night .
smaug Posted May 29, 2012, 4:50 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug took us out for another trip to the mountains . Our destination was a valley west of Calgary. After walking some times in the tree we reached the valley...which is more or less the (mostly) dry bed of a seasonal creek. Moving on we could see snowy mountains around us... ...and Nihahi Ridge just behind us. After fighting a bit with deep snow and thick trees we reached the northeast ridge of Mt Fullerton . Here we could see the valley that we just left far below us... ...again Nihahi Ridge... ...and the summit of Mt Fullerton. At this point we made a surprise to Melek and organized a sudden birthday party for him . Of course we sung Happy Birhday... ...and had some special sweets ready. Unfortunately neither begging nor attempted blackmail managed to talk smaug into bringing a cake up here , so we had to do with some chocolate cookies .
smaug Posted Jun 2, 2012, 7:49 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what?! Another guest arrived today (it’s getting crowded around here ). Once again smaug came home and told us that there was a parcel for us . And, as we managed to open it, a new TV popped out of it, Tatanka, a nice buffalo from Germany . He showed us the wonderful presents that he brought along and then we spent the evening chatting and listening about his recent travels .
smaug Posted Jun 14, 2012, 4:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, These days neither the weather (always bad in the weekend) nor smaug (always at work) are helping much in keeping my guests entertained , but luckily, as for yesterday, we have some distraction: football ! The Euro Cup 2012 has started and we have plenty of matches to watch on TV . Of course, I am supporting Italy, but I also have to remember my hosting duties and so turned a blind eye to the excitement in our little German colony today as they started waving their colours when Germany were ready to take on Portugal (luckily smaug wasn’t around for that )... ...so we started watching the match all together. They got even more excited when Germany scored.... ...and when the match was eventually over. Just too bad that smaug didn’t leave any appropriate victory-party food supplies (how embarrassing )...maybe for the next match .
smaug Posted Jun 18, 2012, 3:46 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what, a new a guest arrived in Calgary today . smaug came home with a parcel... ...and, when me managed to open it, a TV jumped out of it, Tucker a nice turtle from Germany . He brought with him a lovely card and some delicious chocolate . Of course we spent the evening chatting and occasionally having a bite of that chocolate .
smaug Posted Jun 18, 2012, 5:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today, after a few quiet weekends, smaug took us again up to the mountains. As it often happens, the first part of the morning was spent between trees...a wonderful excuse to let smaug do the walking, take a little nap in his bag and make up for the sleep lost due to the early wake up . Eventually we reached a spot with a bit of view where we could look at both the mountains around us... ...and the prairies far away in the east . The weather didn’t look very nice, but I was pleased to hear that, for once , smaug didn’t use it as an excuse to turn back and said there was no reason not to try reach our target of the day, that peak up there . So, off we went. Listening to the wind howling outside the rucksack was very exciting  (although my guests look more concerned than excited ), and when we reached the top we managed to take a few photos in the wind. From up there we could see the Nakiska ski area... ...mountains both south and north... ...and again the prairies in the distance .
smaug Posted Jun 23, 2012, 5:24 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to Cherry Lola and Greeny delMonte who are travelling to their next hosts in Germany and the US . Before they jumped in their travelling quarters I gave both of them a big hug and wished them a safe trip. .
smaug Posted Jun 23, 2012, 8:11 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today I informed my guests that they should get ready to go for a trip . They were obviously very excited and curious about our destination, but I thought that I’ll leave that as a surprise .
smaug Posted Jun 30, 2012, 11:55 am	ciao ciao ciao, I’m back in Europe ! After an awfully long trip including a missed connection we eventually reached our destination while my guests were already fully asleep, and this morning I helped them waking up by having a lovely breakfast ready. Once we were all refreshed and with a full belly , I introduce them to some of the local residents... ...including, of course, my bigger twin . As it is quite hot, we decided to finish recovering from the trip and spend the day chitchatting on the window sill, where we enjoyed a bit of breeze .
smaug Posted Jun 30, 2012, 9:23 pm	ciao ciao ciao, It’s freaking hot here , and having just arrived from Canada it feels even hotter . So I guess it’s no surprise that we are spending most of the time sheltered indoor . Today, to keep ourselves entertained, we decided to play some roulette. The professional skills of our feathered croupier appeared to be at the very least questionable , but generally luck seemed to ignore me, so I am afraid that my first private jet yet will have to wait a bit longer . After that we decided to do something more challenging and organised a chess tournament . It was a real battle of minds and, of course, I was the best . Later we explored a bit the bookshelves and found this old atlas, which seemed a bit strange: I didn’t remember Germany to be so big when I last checked .
smaug Posted Jul 9, 2012, 3:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today two new guest arrived: my friends Orpheus and Sigfrido , who will spend a few days here with us.
smaug Posted Jul 9, 2012, 3:41 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we had a very important football match to watch: the Euro Cup semi-final between Germany and Italy . Even our German guests tried to camouflage themselves as Italian supporters for a bit ... ...but, by the time the teams came on the pitch, there were easily identifiable German and Italian camps in front of the TV, and emotions were running high. As Italy swept Germany away we were very happy... ...but I guess that my wild celebrations on top of the TV are not exactly in the manual of the perfect host .
smaug Posted Jul 9, 2012, 3:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, After just a few days, today we had to say goodbye to Orpheus and Sigfrido who are travelling to Rome . Before they jumped in their travelling quarters I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jul 18, 2012, 5:04 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we headed into the heart of the dolomites , where early in the morning we were welcomed by pouring rain , and as we left the parking lot there were limited signs of improvement. Still, we started walking up a narrow valley and when we came out of the trees things got better . We were following a very nice trail... ...with lovely peaks surrounding us all the time . As we gained elevation, the view improved further... ...and we eventually saw the highest point of our day, a narrow pass at the top of the valley, oooh. Once we got up there we saw a plateau that apparently we had to cross... ...and more mountains around us . A few hours later , we were looking at the same plateau from the opposite side... ...before diving down this wonderful valley and go back to the car, where we arrived just minutes before the rain came back, perfect timing .
smaug Posted Jul 24, 2012, 4:52 am	ciao ciao ciao, I’m back in Canada , oooh! Alas, the holiday ended soon , but when we arrived in Calgary we found a surprise: an envelope that looked like there was a new guest inside . And yes, there was actually a new guest , Shooga, a nice TV from Germany and she brought a wonderful card with her . But today it was also goodbye time as we said farewell to Melek who is ready to start travelling to his next host. Before he jumped in his envelope I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe trip .
smaug Posted Jul 30, 2012, 2:38 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather didn’t look too good, but it was actually quite warm, so we headed to the mountains for a little hike...hoping not to get drenched by rain . The first part of the day wasn’t too exciting, until we started to see something between the trees. Eventually we reached a ridge were the view was much better : we had some nice rock walls in front of us... ...and could see the Bow valley far in the distance. My guests thought that this peak was our destination, but I had to tell them that it was just a little hump along the ridge . On the way we got distracted looking at the many flowers, we really like these little ones . At last we reached the top where the view was a bit of a disappointment . It was so foggy that the only thing we could barely see was the ridge that we had just walked up from. Interesting enough, despite the elevation, it was full of mosquitoes...and fairly vicious ones too. So we hastily found cover in the bag and left the blood thirsty bugs to feast on smaug .
smaug Posted Jul 30, 2012, 4:42 am	ciao ciao ciao, For once the weather was gorgeous during the weekend so, of course, we headed to the mountains. After a bit of walking we reached our first view point, where we had the side of Mt. Glasgow just in front of us . From here our path followed this nice valley... ...that soon became very wide. I noticed that some of my guests were finding the place somehow familiar, so I pointed out to them that we have been here a couple of months ago when the deep snow thwarted our attempt to hike up Mt. Fullerton over there. From here the valley started getting narrower... ...and then even narrower and narrower . But the view improved: we had a good look at the back of Mt. Fullerton... ...and some glimpses of the top of Mt. Howard. Eventually we reached a nice little cirque where we had a great view... ...and could also see the headwater of the creek that we followed the whole day, with Mt. Howard slopes on he right. At this point I told my guests that we were going to be bold  and push for the summit of Mt. Howard. At first they didn't seem too convinced about this being bold business , but once we reached the top they changed their mind . What a day !
smaug Posted Jul 31, 2012, 4:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was a big farewell day as we all gathered together to say goodbye to Elisa, Tatanka and Tucker who are all moving into new adventures . Before they left I gave a big hug to all of them and wished them a safe journey .
smaug Posted Aug 20, 2012, 4:41 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather was gorgeous, so we headed deep into in the mountains . We actually left fairly early and slept comfortably in smaug’s bag until he woke us up (rather abruptly ) and told us that it was time to take some photos. So we came out and found ourselves on some sort of slope with a nice view on the opposite side of the valley . I was very happy as our destination seemed close enough . So we went on and, as we gained elevation, we started seeing Peyto Lake in front of us... ...and Bow Lake far in the south...it looked like this mountain was actually going to live up to its name . And the summit was almost within our grasp. Eventualy we got to the top and the view was spectacular . We could see Bow Lake and the Wapta Icefields in the south,... ...Peyto Lake just below us... ...and the valley heading north to Saskatchewan Crossing. At this point I had to explain to my guests that we had just reached a false summit and that the true summit was at the end of that ridge. So we moved on and reached the real top, where the view was still good, but probably not as good as before . But it was a nice sheltered place for lunch . While eating we checked our daily progresses and noticed we were well above 3000 m, so my guests asked me if we were going to need oxygen masks , but I told them that we were likely going to survive even without them. Eventually it was time to go back, but we took a final photo of our “conquest” before jumping in the car. What a day !
smaug Posted Sep 4, 2012, 12:14 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather wasn’t really nice, but still it was warm enough to go out for a short hike...hoping not to get pelted with rain .  After some time between trees we started having a nice view of the Elbow valley in the east... ....and west . Later we found a nice view spot along the ridge that we were following. Eventually we reached the highest spot on the ridge, from where the clouds in all directions seemed to be getting darker and darker ... ...so we decided to hastily move back to the car .
smaug Posted Sep 4, 2012, 12:27 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all said goodbye to Sweetsy, who is ready to travel home . Before he jumped in his envelope I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Sep 4, 2012, 1:15 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a gorgeous trip to the mountains . The drive to the trailhead was bit long but, after the first usual boring tree covered part of the trail we reached Sherbrooke Lake where the view improved. Here we had our first glimpse of our target for the day ...and the reflections in the lake were beautiful . As we gained elevation we passed by some wonderful waterfalls . Eventually we reached a little pass from where we could look back at the final section of the valley that we just left... ...and on the opposite side we could see glaciers . The summit of Mt. Niles was very close, but my guests seemed concerned about how steep the way looked like...so I had to encourage them a bit . Of course, we made it to the top and the view, of course was amazing . We could see Emerald Lake and the Little Yoho Valley in the west,... ...the Waputik Icefield,... ...the peaks along the Continental Divide in the north,... ...Sherbrooke Lake far in the south... ...and even the Bow Valley in the distance . Of course, we all signed the summit log . Once back at the car we took a final photo at Wapta Lake with the sunset light, then we fell asleep and left smaug to take care of getting us back home deep in the night . What a day !
smaug Posted Sep 4, 2012, 1:26 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Commodore Quack who is travelling to his new host . Before he jumped in his envelope I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe trip .
smaug Posted Sep 4, 2012, 2:41 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today, once again we went over to the mountains . The trail wasn’t really exciting until we reached this waterfalls and the canyon originating them . Later we reached the second Memorial Lake...smaug explained to us that we skipped the first one, but we were going to see it anyway from a vantage point. After gaining a bit more elevation we reached a saddle overlooking the third lake. From here we could see the impressive shape of Mt. Bogart. I offered to take Shooga up there , but I could see that the idea seemed a bit crazy to her , ... ...so, we decided to just walk down to the lake and roam a bit around the shore . And, guess what, we actually had a chance to see the first lake , tugged down there in the middle of the valley.
smaug Posted Sep 10, 2012, 5:00 am	ciao ciao ciao, We spent the last few days packing boxes to help smaug moving, hard work , but eventually today we went to the new place where we found a new guest waiting for us. His name’s Chino and he’s a nice TV from Germany . Of course we decided to let smaug dealing with the boxes and found a quiet spot near the window to chat about our travelling .
smaug Posted Sep 17, 2012, 3:09 am	ciao ciao ciao Today we went for a short hike near Calgary . Most of the trail was between trees but we had the occasional view of the Elbow River... ...and of the mountains. Eventually we reached the top were we could see the prairies in the distance... ...and mountains in every other direction . Still, it was very windy , so we quickly jumped back in our bag and headed home.
smaug Posted Sep 17, 2012, 3:23 am	ciao ciao ciao, Back home we were about to start fixing something for dinner when we heard a knocking at the window and when we checked who it was we found an eagle waiting outside . He quickly explained to me that he needed my help for a rescue mission so I told my guest that I was going to be away for a couple of days, and then we both flew away.
smaug Posted Sep 17, 2012, 4:00 am	ciao ciao ciao, we flew all night and part of the day until my friend aimed at a ridge where a lonely buffalo was sunbathing on a log, and as we approached I recognised my friend Tatanka . He was very happy when I told him that he was welcome to spend some time with me in Calgary . So we said goodbye to our eagle friend and headed home.  I guess Tatanka was hoping to fly all the way, but I had to explain him that even if eagles are the mightiest of all birds (and, of course, bald eagles are the mightiest among eagles ), they are not long haul cargo planes , so we were going to walk most of the way.
smaug Posted Oct 1, 2012, 4:11 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was another lovely sunny day, so we went hiking around Lake Louise . As we emerged from the trees we had the first glimpse of Mount Richardson, our destination today,... ...and of Mt Temple in the opposite direction. Later on we reached the lovely Hidden Lake . As we gained elevation we had a better view of Hidden Lake, not so hidden from up here . We could also see Kicking Horse Pass... ...and the summit of Mount Richardson, getting closer and closer. Eventually we reached the top from where we had a great view of Merlin Lake and valley (but no round table knights ),... ...of Mount Hector in the north, ... ...and of Lake Louise and Mt Victoria . We could also see the backbowls of the Lake Louise ski area. I explained to my guests that the area just behind my head has the best runs in the whole western Canada and it’s called, of course, Eagle Ridge . On the way back we stopped to take a final photo of Mount Richardson from Hidden Lake and then headed back to the car .
smaug Posted Oct 11, 2012, 4:33 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went hiking again around Lake Louise. Our destination was a nice little lake called O’Brien Lake . As we were feeling energetic we went up the slope at the far end of the lake and found a couple of lovely little tarns . My guests asked me if we were going all the way up the valley  but I explained that, despite the blue sky, the forecast called for rain and we didn’t want to get soaked higher up the valley...and guessed what, we were not even halfway back to the car when it started pouring down .
smaug Posted Oct 15, 2012, 5:28 am	ciao ciao ciao, Old man winter might arrive at any time so I explained to my guests that we have to make the most of every decent day while we still can and this morning we found ourselves at a trailhead near Lake Minnewanka at touch early in the morning, maybe too early . So after taking that photo we decided to get another short nap (just over a couple of hours ) and woke up when it was time to leave the trail and follow this gully. As it turned out, the gully was way steeper than we first thought... ...but once we reached the top we could see the lake again, this time far below us . From here we could see two peaks that seemed easily accessible and my guests asked me if one them was our destination... ...but I had to tell them that we were actually aiming for the bigger one covered by the clouds . So we started walking again and after a few more long hours we reached the top and the clouds had been kind enough to open up for us . Of course, it was freezing cold and the wind was almost gale-force , but the view was incredible . We could see Banff,... ...Lake Minnewanka,... ...the Ghost River valley and even the prairies in the distance ,... ...and some very dark and concerning clouds in the north. So we decided not to linger and quickly headed back. We reached the shore of the lake just when the sun was setting over the trees in their fall colours ... ...and by the time smaug brought us back to the car, the night had fallen and we were deeply asleep . What a day !
smaug Posted Nov 5, 2012, 1:16 am	ciao ciao ciao, The weather is turning cold at an alarming speed , but today we were very brave and decided to go hiking anyway. Early in the morning it was a bit dark, but we still had a good view of the Three Sisters... ...and of Mt. Lougheed and Mt. Allan in the south . As we gained elevation we started seeing Canmore... ...and the Bow River below us . Once we reached the summit the wind strong enough to chill us to the bone . Still,  before strategically retreating to more a sheltered spot along the summit ridge , we managed to take a few shots. We could see almost as far as Banff in the west... ...and countless peaks in the south . On the opposite side we had a great view over more piles of rubble ... ...and we could even see the prairies in the east .
smaug Posted Nov 5, 2012, 1:37 am	ciao ciao ciao, smaug has been a bit too busy at work over the last couple of weeks and has almost abandoned us , but over the last few days we entertained ourselves watching the first snowfall of the season . Hopefully we’ll soon be out there playing snowballs battles .
smaug Posted Nov 14, 2012, 5:27 am	ciao ciao ciao, It did snow most of the week, but just in the time for the weekend the weather was kind enough to get better and we were able to go for a short walk on the mountains . This side of the ridge was well exposed to the sun and the wind so the snow had already mostly gone . On the way we stopped to check where we were on this map. Eventually we reached the nicest panoramic point of the day from where we enjoyed the view of the Rockies in the west . As we crossed to the opposite side of the ridge, it got colder and the trail was still covered with snow...a good time to go back in the backpack and find something to eat .
smaug Posted Nov 18, 2012, 4:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, It’s been snowing again this week, and quite a bit, so when today we went to the mountains we were not surprised to walk between trees loaded with snow . And the mountains in the distance were clad in white too . As we moved on, it looked like the snow was getting even deeper making progress slower and slower... ...so we decided to rest a bit under this tree . Eventually we reached the summit . From there we could see the prairies,... ...the ridge that we just climbed... ...and beautiful mountains covered by snow in every other direction .
smaug Posted Nov 26, 2012, 4:08 am	ciao ciao ciao, After a few freezing, very freezing days, today it was suddenly well above zero degrees, so we made the most of it and headed to the mountains . After a bit of walking in the trees we reached our first viewpoint from where we could see Powderface Ridge (where we were just less than a week ago),... ...Nihahi Ridge... ...and the Rockies in the west . With another little effort we reached the summit. From there we could see the Elbow Valley making its way north-east,... ...the prairies in the distance,... ...and the Big Elbow and Little Elbow valleys . Near the top we found this impressive cairn . I noticed that it had grew taller since the last time I was here and pointed out that now it was probably even taller than smaug . At that point it occurred to me that the wind must have been a bit cold for my guests as rather than trying to find out if I was right, they all very quickly disappeared into the backpack .
smaug Posted Dec 3, 2012, 3:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we celebrated Tatanka’s birthday . First we blindfolded him and lead him to he kitchen... ...where we sang Happy Birthday for him and partied all day with a delicious cake .
smaug Posted Dec 3, 2012, 4:18 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we got excited as a smaug came home with a little package saying it was for us . And as we opened it, my friend Pepita came out of it. smaug explained us that she will be spending some time at home so we’ll be spending Christmas together . She showed us the lovely card that her last host gave her and then we spent the night up listening about her travels : after more than two consecutive years away from home, I wanted to know everything she has been up to .
smaug Posted Dec 9, 2012, 4:16 am	ciao ciao ciao, We got even more snow today ! So we went for a walk around the river where all the trees were covered in frost . Later we found this nice trail... ...that took us close to the Peace Bridge, where the river was mostly frozen . On the other side of the bridge there was open water. I explained to my guests that it has not been cold enough yet for everything to be frozen solid . At that point I noticed that, even if  the river wasn’t going to freeze completely very soon, the cold was definitely taking its toll on my guests , so we quickly went home where we enjoyed the afternoon looking at the snowfall from the window and sipping a delicious cup of hot chocolate .
smaug Posted Dec 11, 2012, 4:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, We were getting a bit bored of being stuck in town by the weather , so today we convinced smaug to take us to the mountains even if it was freezing cold . We walked for some time at the bottom of a nice and snow covered little valley . Even the map seemed to be a bit frozen . Eventually we reached a nice viewpoint . From there it looked like the sun was trying to show up, but the wind was really cold and my guests were clearly a bit uncomfortable , so we quickly went back in smaug’s pack and stayed safely in there until we made it back to the car .
smaug Posted Dec 16, 2012, 7:42 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Great news, I’m going on holiday ! Of course, I want to keep my guests wondering about our destination a bit longer , so I just told them that it involves air travel, maybe not much of a hint .
smaug Posted Dec 23, 2012, 3:50 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what, I am back in Italy ! And it’s just like being still in Canada, there’s snow everywhere . As soon as we arrived I introduced my guests to some of the local residents...a group of fairly imposing fellas, but they are very friendly . Anyway, now I urgently need some sleep , so time to go to bed.
smaug Posted Dec 23, 2012, 4:32 pm	ciao ciao ciao, I didn’t have much time to show town to my guests as today we went skiing . First, of course, I arranged a proper sugar-loaded breakfast . Later we drove to Selva di Valgardena where we started a round trip that took us over 4 passes and into 4 different valleys . We had some lovely views of the small valleys carving their way into the Sella Group . From one of the gondolas that we used during the day we could see the Saslong Group... ...and the mountains lining Val di Fassa. As we reached Passo Pordoi we had an even better view of the Saslong... ...and on the opposite side we could see as far as the Tofane Group, looming over Cortina d’Ampezzo . All the way we had the imposing walls of the Sella Group looking down at us. Later we reached Passo di Campolongo, where we entered Val Badia. Eventually we reached the last pass of the day, Passo Gardena. From here the view opened on to the west... ...and eventually we saw the other side of our friend Saslong . And from here it was all downhill back to Selva, what a day !
smaug Posted Dec 24, 2012, 2:42 pm	ciao ciao ciao, A few more guests arrived here today: my friends Orpheus, Landroval and Sigfrido have come home to spend the holidays with us ! And they even brought along some delicious TV-made sweets , so we spent the evening chatting and, mostly, eating .
smaug Posted Dec 24, 2012, 3:17 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short hike on a mountain just next to Trento . After trudging along a narrow and shadowed trail we reached a nice ridge from where we had a great view of the valley both north... ...and south. Some passage along the trail was great fun . Eventually we reached the top, from where the view to the north opened up a bit more. And we could see the whole Trento just below us .
smaug Posted Jan 14, 2013, 2:16 am	ciao ciao ciao, Tonight there was a lot of action going on under the Christmas tree, but our attention was mostly focused on how to open the pandoro . It was a bit of work ... ...but we eventually managed to get our well deserved slice . Merry Christmas !!
smaug Posted Jan 14, 2013, 2:44 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today is our last day in Italy so we went for a short walk on the side of the valley next to town . The path was a bit steep so we occasionally stopped to get some rest. Eventually, just before the sun started setting, we reached a nice spot from where we could see the mountains to the north... ...and east of town .
smaug Posted Jan 14, 2013, 3:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today, in the wee hour of the morning I woke all my guests up, explained that it was time for travelling again and said goodbye to all my friends here. My friends Sigfrido, Pepita and Orpheus will linger here a bit longer, so I gave them all a big hug and wished them safe future journeys . Eventually it was time to leave and I provided the transportation in the form of a “modern and comfortable” airport shuttle. My guests didn’t seem to impressed, but somehow we all managed to "comfortably" cram ourselves on it . Off we go !.
smaug Posted Jan 14, 2013, 3:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, I’m in Germany ! Well, only for a stop on the way to Canada . The stop is actually a bit of a long one, so smaug told us to watch the planes and behave like well mannered TVs . Actually watching planes turned out to be freaking boring, so we decided to spend the time in a slightly more entertaining fashion by sampling some local delicacies .
smaug Posted Jan 14, 2013, 4:03 am	ciao ciao ciao, I’m back in Canada ! We arrived just before midnight in time to celebrate the new year . Actually we were so tired after the trip, that we quickly took advantage of what we picked up at the duty free and went straight to bed .
smaug Posted Jan 23, 2013, 4:31 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy New Year!! This morning we were so jet-lagged that we were up very early in the morning , so smaug decided to take us for a quick trip to the mountains . It was a bit dark when we started walking, but soon we saw that the day was going to be gorgeous . And our destination was already basking in the early morning sun. Eventually we reached the summit where, with not a single cloud in the sky, the view was great . We could see the prairies almost all the way to Calgary... ...and the Rockies on the other side .
smaug Posted Feb 18, 2013, 1:13 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to Chino who is travelling south to the US . Before he left I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Mar 4, 2013, 4:50 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was unusually warm, so, after spending weeks stuck at home tending smaug’s ankle , we convinced him to put on some very stiff boots and try to take us out for an easy walk. The weather was quite cloudy, but the sun was kind enough to suddenly show up when we reached a nice viewpoint . Later we spent some time under this imposing ridge... ...and had to cross the stream down in this large valley . As it happens, the ice was a touch treacherous , so predictably smaug spent all the time of the crossing whining and moaning . Eventually we reached the back side of Prairie Mt and we knew that we made it almost all the way back to the car .
smaug Posted Mar 11, 2013, 2:46 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we all gathered together to say goodbye to Landroval who is travelling to his next host . Before he flew out of the window (don’t ever ask to a Rocky Mountains eagle if he’s going to travel in an envelope, he might get offended just at the idea ),  I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Mar 11, 2013, 3:58 am	ciao ciao ciao, This morning we got a big snowfall , so, as soon as the snow started falling, smaug took us out to take some photos along the river . The snowfall was so heavy that from the north bank you couldn’t even see downtown . Later we crossed the river to take a look at the Peace Bridge... ...and noticed that there was a narrow channel of open water. Even from here downtown was invisible. Eventually the cold started to take its toll on my guests, so we decided to watch the snowfall from a location where we could both stay warm and chit chat at pleasure ...back home on the window sill, of course .
smaug Posted Mar 25, 2013, 2:11 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Shooga who is travelling to her next host in the US . Before she left, I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe journey .
smaug Posted Apr 3, 2013, 5:26 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today eventually smaug was fit enough to take us out again , so we went hiking on the shore of Lake Minnewanka. Soon after leaving the car we had some lovely views of the frozen (very frozen ) lake . On the way we crossed this little canyon, also packed with ice . Then we dived into the trees, until we reached another nice viewpoint . Later we found this funny sign about grizzly bears that caused some reason for concern with my friend Tatanka, but I explained that most bears are still asleep (lucky them ) for the winter, so there were few chances of meeting one . Of course, we met no bear, but we reached a slightly higher viewpoint from where we took a few more shots of the lake before the clouds moved in and covered the sun for the rest of the day .
smaug Posted Apr 18, 2013, 5:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter! Today we all got a TV-sized chocolate eggs ! Once again, a few days ago, I made a pitch for some properly sized eggs , and once again smaug said that eagles have eyes bigger than the stomach and chose small eggs ....I guess I’ll try again next year .
smaug Posted Apr 25, 2013, 4:58 am	ciao ciao ciao, Spring has arrived here in Calgary too, or so they say. We didn’t really notice as, again, this morning we woke up to be greeted by the snow falling in large flakes . In order to kill time we decided to watch a bit of the Formula 1 grand prix . These days smaug is busy studying, so later we decided to check out one of his books. It was so interesting ... ...that even spending the day watching more snow falling down seemed a much more exciting idea .
smaug Posted Apr 28, 2013, 5:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug took us out for a short trip . We went to Barrier Lake, that was still frozen solid . From the lake we could see the ridge that we wanted to reach . As we actually reached the ridge, the clouds came down low and it started snowing a bit, so we could just about get a faint view of the lake under the clouds. smaug decided to go back using a different route in a nice little valley sheltered from the wind, but unfortunately, not sheltered from the snow at all. The snowfall became fairly heavy and us little TVs were getting covered within seconds each time we ventured out of smaug backpack ... ...so we just decided to stay safely in the backpack until we were back at the car .
smaug Posted May 6, 2013, 3:55 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we tried once again if we can have a walk in the mountains without getting buried by the snow . The first view was encouraging and we could even see some blue sky ... ...but that storm over the Nakiska ski area was a bit concerning. As we walked up we saw Barrier Lake... ...and a nice mountain in front of us . We could also see the ridge that we were supposed to follow...with some very scary clouds in the distance. Slowly, despite some attempt from the sun to show up, the clouds got closer... ...until it started snowing , again, and we decided to take cover after taking a last photo.
smaug Posted May 13, 2013, 4:17 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what, we had a sunny week end ! And some of the snow was gone from the lower sections of some trails. Well, the lack of snow didn’t last long and soon we were trudging along a very snowy trail . But when we reached the top, for once the view wasn't only of grey clouds . We could almost even see Calgary between the hilltops behind us .
smaug Posted May 19, 2013, 5:01 am	ciao ciao ciao, It was sunny and warm again today , so we went back to Lake Minnewanka. Remember how when we were here last time everything was completely frozen? Well, it isn’t anymore . This time, with a bit less snow on the trail, we managed to reach Aylmer Lookout .  From up there we had a great view over the lake and we saw that there was still some ice on the surface. Those rock walls were shedding snow in the form of avalanches (very, noisy avalanches) the whole day . Those foundations are all that is left of the old fire lookout. Ant that one is Mt. Aylmer, that we climbed last year . One the way back we stopped to take a few more photos of the lake .
smaug Posted May 26, 2013, 4:40 am	ciao ciao ciao, It has been raining the whole weekend, but luckily this is a long weekend and the weather was nice enough to improve just about enough to allow us to go for a short hike today . The views were, as always , great... ...although some very dark clouds were lingering right in the direction we wanted to take . Later on, the view improved further. Still, those clouds were getting closer... ...so we decided to relax and enjoy a lovely bar of chocolate before the rain could reach and drench us .
smaug Posted May 26, 2013, 5:08 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came back home with a very interesting parcel.... ...that turned out to be hiding a new guest, ThomasHH, a nice giraffe from Germany . A very nice new guest indeed , he brought with him a lovely postcard and some delicious sweets . After tasting the sweets , we showed him the view from the window and the heavy rainfall outside . We explained that rain was actually very exciting as only a few weeks ago this would have been a blizzard .
smaug Posted Jun 4, 2013, 4:45 am	ciao ciao ciao, The weather is a bit wet (to say the least) here these days , but today smaug decided to take us hiking anyway . Soon after leaving the car we had a lovely view over this meander of the Elbow river... ...and over the valley heading west. As we gained elevation we could see that the Rockies were covered in clouds . Moving on the rain started turning into snow ... ...and we ended up being right in the clouds. For some reason smaug did not consider either of these developments as an improvement of the weather conditions and decided to do an about-turn and go back to the car...where we arrived thoroughly drenched.
smaug Posted Jun 10, 2013, 4:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug took us out for a bike ride to Highwood pass, the highest paved road in Canada . Until we reached the pass smaug was not really inclined to take photos of us, but once at the top we had great views over Kananaskis Valley (from where we just came)... ...and of the area around the pass . The greatest part of the day was that this section of highway was still under winter closure to motorized vehicles, so there were only bikes around. As we were feeling bold we decided to dive on the other side of the pass into the Highwood River Valley. There we enjoyed more lovely views . Eventually it was time to turn around, face the headwind and head back to the pass. I’m not sure what the particular bee in his bonnet was this time, but during the climb smaug became grumpier and grumpier , so we deemed safe to keep a low profile until we were back to the car.
smaug Posted Jun 20, 2013, 5:45 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug brought home a suspicious parcel  . ...that happened to hold a new guest inside, Mr. Blubber ! Of course, we wanted to hear everything about his recent travels, so we spent the night up chatting
smaug Posted Jun 23, 2013, 9:44 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we celebrated ThomasHH’s birthday . smaug has disappeared for days for work, but I had everything under control, of course . First we sang Happy Birthday and feasted on a lovely cake . Later we kept the celebrations going by enjoying some lively drinks in this funny shot glasses made of ice . The challenge was to drink as much as possible before the glasses melted out , but before they were totally useless we were all very cheerful and a bit weak on the legs . After a nap we recovered enough to surf internet for the rest of the afternoon .
smaug Posted Jun 23, 2013, 10:01 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Exciting news! smaug’s back , it’s the first day of summer and Calgary is in state of emergency . It has rained for over two days over the mountains west of the city and last night the rivers has started going all over the place. Most of downtown is under water... ...and almost 100,000 people are being evacuated in town alone . We were wondering if we were going to be swept away by the raging waters , but smaug said that we are reasonably safe up here .
smaug Posted Jul 12, 2013, 5:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, This weekend the weather was gorgeous, perfect for going to the mountains . Too bad that most of the roads and almost all trails were still closed after the flooding , so smaug took us out for a bike ride south of Calgary . On the way we could barely see the mountains in the distance... ...and the rolling foothills on the opposite side. From another hill the view was even better . On the way back we had a glimpse of downtown Calgary (just beside my head ). Later smaug decided to rest a bit and we stretched our legs running in the fields ,  but we had to keep smaug’s rest short when Tatanka accidentally brushed a couple of sheds . Just before we reached the car we even met a herd of buffalos .  Tatanka was not impressed by the fence around them, but I explained to him that the flooding had caused enough damage and the province could not cope with herds of buffalos accidentally knocking down any more buildings .
smaug Posted Jul 21, 2013, 8:53 pm	ciao ciao ciao, As the roads are becoming passable again, today we went for a hike up the mountains . First we reached Baldy Pass, where the view over the foothills was very nice. From there we could also see our destination for the day, Midnight Peak . Eventually we reached it, and from the top we could see Baldy Pass far below us,... ...the Nakiska ski area... ...and more mountains both north and south. That storm was a bit concerning , but luckily it steered clear of us. Before leaving we all signed the summit register . On the way back to the car we took a closer look to the damage caused by the flood. There wasn’t much trail left, but finding a way around the erosion channels and sinkholes was easy enough.
smaug Posted Jul 28, 2013, 5:43 am	ciao ciao ciao, Once again, today we went to the mountains, near Banff this time. We gained elevation very quickly and had a lovely view over the Bow Valley . That one is the valley that leads to Sunshine Village. The road there is still closed to flood damage . Later we reached a higher point from where we saw the Bow Valley heading north... ...and Castle Mountain in the background. A bit further on we stopped to rest at this lovely little meadow forming a balcony over the valley below . The last push to the summit seemed a bit challenging... ...but, surprisingly enough , smaug managed to get us to the top. The view from there was great as we were surrounded by mountains in all directions . It was also a bit cold , so we didn’t linger and quickly retreated down to warmer elevations .
smaug Posted Jul 29, 2013, 4:37 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today a new guest arrived in Calgary . smaug came back home with a very interesting parcel... ...and when we opened it a TV came out of it, Benno, a nice bear from Germany . Of course we wanted to know everything about his recent trips, so we spent the evening chatting .
smaug Posted Aug 5, 2013, 5:13 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we managed again to go for a nice hike . The start of the day was a bit boring, but eventually we reached a ridge that should have had a nice view. Well, the view of those clouds wasn’t really very promising . Funny enough, on the other side we could see the sun shining in the Bow Valley . Still, we pressed on and, according to smaug, we reached the summit. Not that we could really tell, as the view was consistently like this for well over one hour . On the way back we decided to make up for the disappointing sightseeing by feasting on smaug’s chocolate supply . And, guess what? Eating chocolate actually helped as the clouds opened up enough to let us see Mt. Lougheed for a bit . Before reaching the car we stopped to see some more of the damage caused by the floods in June. This used to be a little harmless-looking creek. Now it looked like the Urubamba had flowed here .
smaug Posted Aug 18, 2013, 8:16 pm	ciao ciao ciao, The weather was, again, not so good, but good enough for a short hike in the morning. From  the parking lot, things actually looked very promising as we took a look at Barrier Lake . As we moved up we could see Kananaskis Valley.... ...and again Barrier Lake from further up. Some stretches were quite steep ... ...but slowly we got close to the summit. Just before reaching the top we stopped to take a few more photos of Kananaskis Valley,... ...the mountains in the west,... ...and of the prairies in the east . It was actually good that we took those photos, since as soon as we reached the summit the clouds moved in and visibility was a bit reduced . So we quickly turned around and managed to get back to the car before a big a downpour.
smaug Posted Aug 28, 2013, 4:49 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today, even if the weather wasn’t really that good we went for a bike ride at Bow Pass, along the Icefields Parkway. In between showers , we managed to take a few photos. That is Observation Peak from Bow Pass . While this is Bow Lake with Bow Glacier and falls (a lot of things are Bow something around here ) in the distance. Here, in between trees, you can see Hector Lake with the peaks along the continental divide in the background. And that’s it for photos of the day. Apparently the camera enjoys being wet even less than we do .
smaug Posted Sep 1, 2013, 1:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today a new guest arrived . smaug came back with an interesting envelope... ...and when we managed to open it a new TV came out, Shakespeare, a nice turtle from Germany . He showed us the delicious sweets and lovely card that he brought from Switzerland . O fcourse we spent the evening chatting...and eating .
smaug Posted Sep 2, 2013, 4:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug had a day off, so, despite another flimsy weather forecast , we went out for a hike . We started from Barrier Lake... ...from where we could see our destination at the top of that ridge. Once we got there we had a great view over the east side of Barrier Lake,... ...Mt Baldy... ...and Kananaskis Valley . We decided to go further up and reach the fire lookout. From there we could see the Bow Valley where heavy rain was heading straight for us . We took the hint, hastily retreated and managed to get back to the car without getting too drenched .
smaug Posted Sep 3, 2013, 1:00 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today, for once, the weather was gorgeous, so we had all we needed for a good trip to the mountains. After some times in the trees the view opened up over the Elbow River valley . Further up we could see the prairies in the distance. On the way, we boosted our sugars with some chocolate . Eventually we reached our destination, a gorgeous ridge, with an even more gorgeous view over the Rockies in almost every direction .
smaug Posted Sep 7, 2013, 5:14 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went exploring a trail in Yoho National Park . After a bit of walking in the trees we emerged on a ridge with a great view of Takakkaw falls ... ...and of the peaks on the east side of Yoho Valley. As we moved up we realized that we were surrounded by majestic peaks and glaciers . One of those glaciers was looming almost directly above our heads for most of the way . We kept going until the view opened up over the north side of the valley . We also noticed the clouds building up in the south, so we decided to head back and for once we made it to the car without getting drenched .
smaug Posted Sep 16, 2013, 5:05 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to ThomasHH who will take a plane to Japan tomorrow . Before he left, I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Sep 22, 2013, 6:24 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for another hike, this time in the area of Highwood Pass, where the road has been closed for more than two months after, guess what, all the floods in early summer. We walked a bit in this lovely meadow ... ...before the trail dived under the tress as usual . After a bit the view improved... ...and improved even further as we came out of the trees . Eventually we reached Grizzly Col, from where we had a lovely view of the valley heading south. From here we could also see Mt. Tyrwhitt, that would was our planned destination. Unfortunately a few gentlemen were already hiking up the mountain and clumsily dislodging tons of rocks in the process, and smaug decided that he didn’t fancy playing the target, so we just enjoyed a bit more the sun before heading back to the car.
smaug Posted Oct 7, 2013, 11:22 pm	ciao ciao ciao, It’s very boring here this days . smaug is always out of town for work and comes back very occasionally just to make sure we have enough water and food . Today he actually came home with a surprise too, a nice little package. When we opened it a TV popped out of it: my friend Krystal who has come home to spend some time with me . And she brought some delicious sweets with her . At least we’ll have some new story to hear to help us killing time .
smaug Posted Oct 28, 2013, 2:00 am	ciao ciao ciao, Yesterday smaug made one of his rare apparitions and today we went to the mountains . One thing that has change since the last time we were out and about is the main colour of the landscape as we could see from the parking lot that there is way more white around these days . After walking along a frigid and shadowy trail for some time we eventually had a nice view of the top of the valley with the Rockwall glittering in the morning sun . The Rockwall is an almost completely uninterrupted 35 km long and 900 m high rock face and it is, needless to say ,  spectacularly impressive. As we approached Floe Lake we could see a bit more of it . Floe Lake is nested under the rock and does not see much sun at this time of the year... ...but the reflection in the still water was almost as nice as the mountains around it . On the way back we had a chance to take a better look at Floe Creek valley... ...and at some of the other snow-covered peaks around it .
smaug Posted Nov 3, 2013, 1:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were up to the mountains again . As usual it was some time before we enjoyed a bit of a view, but as soon as we were out of the trees we could see the mountains around the Little Elbow river... ...and Nihahi Ridge. From a bit further up we could see the Elbow river valley disappearing in the mountains too . As it happens, we were already high enough for our trail to be covered in snow . But, with a little extra effort, we eventually reached a lovely (and incredibly windy ) viewpoint from where we could see mountains in one direction,... ...foothills in the other,... ...and even the prairies in the east .
smaug Posted Nov 4, 2013, 4:57 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye to Benno who is travelling to his next host tomorrow . Before he jumped in his travelling quarters I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Nov 24, 2013, 5:49 am	ciao ciao ciao, Once again we are all alone at home. Not that it makes much difference as the weather is very wintery most of the time . To make things worse, I was forced to leave the window ajar as, before leaving, smaug told me that Landroval could arrive home soon. The others were not appreciating, but I could not risk to leave my friend waiting out of the door. So, in a freezing house, and with food supplies running out, today we decided to decide who was going to have the last piece of the last chocolate bar with a card game. With so much at stake, emotions were running high and arguments about alleged cheating were endless. We were so busy yelling at each other, that we almost didn’t notice that someone had entered the house and was eating out all the chocolate left . As it happens it was Landroval and he brought back lot presents, including tons of chocolate with him . It seems we are not going to starve for a few more days .
smaug Posted Nov 24, 2013, 5:40 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye to Mr. Blubber who is ready to travel back home . Before he left I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Dec 1, 2013, 11:39 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we had a good excuse to have some cake , Tatanka’s birthday! Of course, we sang happy birthday to him and then quickly moved to the more pressing matter of the cake .
smaug Posted Dec 2, 2013, 12:19 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather wasn’t very good, but we were tired to be home and smaug was tired of working, so it was quite easy to convince him to go for a short hike near Calgary . Despite the dark clouds it was kind of warm (Canadian warm , of course) and we had a nice view of the mountains . On the way a local eagle came down to greet us. As we were chatting Landroval explained that his little friend wanted to live with the eagles and that he planned to spend a few days there too, to catch up with his friends on the Rockies, so we agreed to meet up again for Christmas .
smaug Posted Dec 26, 2013, 4:00 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug showed up with a parcel and said it was likely to be of interest to us . Of course, we started working to open it and when we succeeded, a TV popped out, my friend Pepita coming home for the holidays !  And she brought some delicious sweets and a beautiful card with her. Of course we wanted to know everything about her recent trips and spent the night up chatting .
smaug Posted Dec 26, 2013, 4:21 pm	ciao ciao ciao, We are on holiday ! Yesterday I told my guest that it was time to jump in the luggage... ...and today, very late at night, after an horrendously long and boring trip, we arrived in Italy ! It was a bit late for exploring around, so we got a delicious midnight snack and went straight to bed .
smaug Posted Dec 26, 2013, 5:18 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for our first trip on a small mountain next to the town . Some sections of the trail were a bit craggy, but you could get glimpses of the valley below. Later we found a summit log . That was a bit strange as we were not even remotely close to the summit, but, of course, we signed it anyway . A bit further up the trail offered some nice views over Trento . Then things took quite a steep turn into what appeared to be prime eagle habitat . Eventually, we reached the summit. There was no summit log here , but we had stunning views over Trento and the Val d’Adige . The place was so nice that we decided to enjoy the sun a bit and rest on this bench . On the way back we crossed a ridge to take a look at the valley on the opposite side of the mountain ... ...before ducking back under the trees on the way home, where, hopefully, a nice hot chocolate was waiting for us .
smaug Posted Dec 27, 2013, 9:29 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a ski trip on the dolomites . We went over 4 passes around a big mountain group. Over the first pass smaug was a bit distracted so we have no photographic evidence of being there, but once we crossed Passo Pordoi we could see the Tofane Group in the distance . Later we crossed Passo di Campolongo and entered Alta Badia. The last pass we crossed is called Passo Gardena. From there we could see the Saslong... ...and more mountains in the west . We also noticed the sky was getting cloudy and I had to recommend to my guests that they made the most of every single ray of sun still visible as, according to the weather forecast, we were not likely to see any more of it for a good week .
smaug Posted Dec 28, 2013, 2:19 pm	ciao ciao ciao, As the weather forecast predicted, it turned rainy and we are spending most of the time chit-chatting. Today I had to abandon my guests for a few hours, but when I came back I had a big surprise: I was with my friends  Orpheus and Sigfrido who came home for Christmas. I guess there will be even more chatting and storytelling in the next few days .
smaug Posted Dec 28, 2013, 2:52 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Merry Christmas ! Here in Trento we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so this evening there was a lot of fumbling with presents under the tree. Taking advantage of the fatc that everybody was distracted, we decided to help ourselves with the Pandoro ahead of everybody else . Getting it out was hard work. But eventually we managed to access it and ... ...cut a delicious slice just for us !
smaug Posted Jan 12, 2014, 7:55 pm	Ciao ciao ciao, After a few very relaxing days, mostly due to endless rain , it is time for us to get ready to leave, so today we said goodbye to all my local friends who kept us company over the last couple of weeks . We also said good bye to Sigfrido, Pepita and Orpheus who will hang around a bit longer . As this was the first time that I was together with all the friends that I trained to go exploring around the world and we don’t know when that will happen again, we gave ourselves a big hug and wished each other more great and safe adventures .
smaug Posted Jan 12, 2014, 8:23 pm	ciao ciao ciao, This morning, a bit too early morning as far as I am concerned , we went to the airport, where we explored a bit around . Since Sigfrido, Orpheus and Pepita had decided to accompany us, we had a final round of farewells before going through the security checks .
smaug Posted Jan 12, 2014, 8:45 pm	ciao ciao ciao, On the way back to Canada we had a bit of a long layover in Frankfurt, so we took the chance to have a look at some of the planes... ...and, most important, to find something yummy to fill our bellies .
smaug Posted Jan 12, 2014, 8:56 pm	ciao ciao ciao, We are back in Canada ! After some disappointing delays, we eventually arrived in Calgary in wee hours of the morning. As we were a bit too tired to do anything else, we quickly munched on some of the delicious things that we collected on way and headed straight to bed .
smaug Posted Jan 20, 2014, 1:48 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy new Year ! Today we were still a bit jet lagged and inevitably we were up very early in the morning , so we convinced smaug to go for a morning hike. After leaving the car we quickly got to a nice view spot over the Elbow River. As we gained elevation the sky got brighter and we started seeing the Rockies in the west . Eventually we reached the summit where the wind was freezing cold, but the view was great . We could almost even see Calgary. Before leaving for (hopefully) some warmer location , we took a final customary photo with the summit cairn.
smaug Posted Jan 20, 2014, 1:59 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we decided that we wanted to go outdoor , but, after a quick check of the weather... ...we decided that I nice day indoor was probably a better idea . Hopefully it’s going to get warmer sometime soon .
smaug Posted Feb 2, 2014, 6:55 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug was being lazy, as usual , but even if the weather wasn’t that great we convinced him to go for a hike near Calgary. Most of the way we were on a nice snow covered trail in the trees . At one point the view opened up a bit, but the clouds didn’t allow to take in much of the landscape. As we moved on and gained elevation, we noticed snowflakes falling around us and quickly they turned almost into a blizzard . Eventually we reached the top of the trail where usually there is a wonderful view of the Rockies . Apparently today we were not going to enjoy it as all we could see were clouds and snow , so we quickly turned around and hastily made it back to the warmth of the car .
smaug Posted Mar 3, 2014, 3:34 am	ciao ciao ciao, This weekend, again, temperatures were low enough to discourage smaug from engaging in any significant outdoor activity , but at least we managed to convince him to take us out for a walk along the river . Lesser beings would have quailed at the sight of what was waiting for us, but not, of course, a mighty bald eagle . So we headed out and reached a point where the river is moving too fast to freeze even with this cold . As a result, the open water is creating a bit of a fog. Further downstream the river slows down and it was frozen solid. Even, under the Peace Bridge there was no visible sign of open water. At this point we decided that, rather than visiting downtown, it was wise to head straight home and deal with the first few signs of frostbite .
smaug Posted Mar 24, 2014, 3:11 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came home with a parcel for us TVs, which got us very excited . As we managed to open it a new guest popped out, Lotta, a nice sheep who travelled all the way from Australia . And she brought some lovely Aussie sweets with her . Of course, a late night of travel chatting followed .
smaug Posted Mar 31, 2014, 3:31 am	ciao ciao ciao, We are in spring ! Not that we really noticed, as it has been relentlessly snowing over the last few days . But today it was sunny enough to try going for a quick trip to the mountains . The trees were covered with nice fresh snow... ...so we decided to stop playing into one of them . Sometimes a nice viewed opened up along the trail. Eventually we reached the highest point of our hike. We were thinking to reach the top of that ridge,... ...but looking west we noticed the it was probably snowing heavy over the mountains and it looked like the storm was coming towards us . With temperatures deep in the minus teens, not everybody was comfortable with having to deal with a blizzard too , so we urged smaug to turn around and walk fast back to the car.
smaug Posted Apr 21, 2014, 2:24 am	ciao ciao ciao, Not sure if we will ever see something resembling spring this year . It’s getting warmer, but it’s also snowing more often. Today, for instance, it wasn’t very nice, but we went for a short hike anyway. As soon as we reached the parking lot, it was clear that lack of fresh snow was not going to be an issue . The trail was actually very nice with the trees all covered in snow ... ...but the view left a bit to be desired as the snowfall was clouding everything around us. So we decided to hide in the backpack and helped ourselves with smaug’s supplies until it was time to go back home.
smaug Posted Apr 22, 2014, 4:33 am	ciao ciao ciao, After more snow yesterday, this morning the weather was gorgeous , so we went for a walk close to Banff...and we walked in the sunshine . After a short time we started having lovey views over Lake Minnewanka . Later we reached a nice viewpoint where we could enjoy more views of the lake... ...and of the mountains surrounding it. As we started gaining elevation the trail was getting very snowbound, to the point that we worried we were going to have to turn back soon . But, for once, smaug was prepared , so we put on the snowshoes he carried up here and we were soon back on the move . Eventually the snow became too soft and deep to keep going even with snowshoes , so we took a final couple of photos of the lake before heading back to the car.
smaug Posted May 4, 2014, 7:40 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter ! Today we were hoping to get a gigantic chocolate egg each , but we had to settle for something more TV-size . Luckily, there was enough for everybody .
smaug Posted May 4, 2014, 8:02 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was my twentieth birthday ....can’t believe so many years have gone by since I first started soaring over the world . My friends had a lovely party planned for me , which quickly turned into an assault to the cake and in stuffing ourselves with it the whole day .
smaug Posted May 19, 2014, 10:55 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Look a that! This is getting funny ! We are in May and still are getting another fresh dump of snow . I guess this is going to be another boring weekend .
smaug Posted May 20, 2014, 12:58 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we managed to go for a short walk near Calgary. After a bit we started having a nice view over the River Elbow . We were hoping to reach the top of that ridge,... ...but going through the trees the snow was getting deeper and deeper, to the point that even smaug was sinking up to his waist , so we eventually opted to follow a more exposed and less snowy path up to a nice viewpoint. We could see Moose Mountain in the north... ...prairies and foothills to the east... ...and again the mountains around the Elbow Valley to the south and west .
smaug Posted Jun 2, 2014, 4:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for another short trip to the mountains . The first part of the trip was fairly boring in the middle of the trees, but after some time we reached a nice viewpoint from where we had a lovely view over Barrier Lake ,... ...the Prairies... ...and Kananaskis Valley. As we move further up we could see the Bow Valley heading deep into the mountains... ...and the front face of the Rockies in the north. The view of the Prairies got better too, but the sky was also getting a bit darker , so we quickly got on our way down .
smaug Posted Jan 5, 2015, 3:03 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was a beautiful day, so we went for a bike ride in the Elbow valley and took a few pictures .
smaug Posted Jan 6, 2015, 3:05 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came home with a very interesting parcel, so we all gathered to open it . And guess what? A new friend came out of it, GustavHH ! Of course, we wanted to hear everything about his adventures, so we spent the whole night up chatting .
smaug Posted Jan 11, 2015, 9:56 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today we went for a nice hike within Banff National Park . First we walked a bit along Lake Minnewanka... ...before making our way up to the site of a former fire lookout, where the view was great . It was also cold and windy, so we chose to quickly move down and walk a bit on the lake shore. Down there it was actually so nice that we decided to cap the day with a few hours of relax and sunbathing .
smaug Posted Jan 12, 2015, 12:17 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we went for another nice hike . It must have been fairly early since the parking lot was empty when we left the car. After a bit of walking we started having some nice view over the Rockies in the west . Eventually we reached the summit, where the view was great, but the clouds looked quite bad, and the wind was blasting cold too (so much for the first day of summer ),  so we took some photos and headed back.
smaug Posted Jan 12, 2015, 12:38 am	ciao ciao ciao, a new guest arrived today . smaug brought home a little parcel... ...and when we opened it Stoker came out ! Of course, we wanted to hear all about his travels, so he didn't have a chance to rest for a while .
smaug Posted Jan 19, 2015, 2:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, It’s time to go on holiday ! Today, we closed our bags and got ready to drive to the airport .
smaug Posted Jan 19, 2015, 3:28 am	ciao ciao ciao, During a stopover in Frankfurt my friends Sigfrido and Orpheus came over for a little Rendezvous . Of course, there was a lot of chatting involved . Since I am not sure of when I’ll see them again, I gave them both a big hug before jumping on my next flight.
smaug Posted Jan 26, 2015, 3:19 am	ciao ciao ciao, I am back in Italy ! Today we were a bit tired and jet lagged, so we got a lovely breakfast, where we met my friend Pepita , who is staying here for a bit... ...and then went back to sleep .
smaug Posted Jan 26, 2015, 3:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we went for a bike ride just out of town . After a long climb we reached the top of the road to Monte Bondone, one of the hardest and more prestigious mountain of race when the Giro d'Italia comes around here, so we were very proud with our effort . As we moved on the other side of the mountain we could see the Brenta dolomites... ...and the Adige Valley in the distance . Further on we could see another nice valley. At that point we launched ourselves downhill , so we decided that it was better for smaug to put away the camera and focus on the handlebar .
smaug Posted Jan 29, 2015, 4:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we went for a nice hike in the Dolomites . After a bit of walking in the trees we started having a nice view... ...although it looked like we had still quite a way to go to reach the top of this valley . Eventually we reached the highest point of the day, where the view was very "rocky" , but unfortunately the weather seemed to be ready for turning wet. As it happens we managed to cross all this plateau without getting drenched... ...and later we headed into this nicely U-shaped valley that took us back to the car .
smaug Posted Feb 2, 2015, 3:57 am	ciao ciao ciao, today the weather was not great, but it was warm , so smaug took us for a little hike close to town. After a bit of walking we started having a nice view... ...and we had a glimpse of our destination: apparently we were aiming first for the peak on the right, and then we were going to follow the ridge heading left  . From the summit the view was great in every direction . After following a bit of the ridge, we could even see a bit of Trento in the distance. To give a bit of cultural tone to the trip and in true commemoration spirit of the centenary of the start of WWI, I explained to my guests that those abandoned barracks next to my head were actually built when this corner of Italy was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire .
smaug Posted Feb 2, 2015, 4:19 am	ciao ciao ciao, We are soon heading back to Canada, so today it was time to say goodbye to all my friends here in Italy and to little Pepita who will stay here in Italy with different travel plans . Before we left I gave her a big hug and wished her safe travelling .
smaug Posted Feb 3, 2015, 4:28 am	ciao ciao ciao, On the way back to Canada we had another long stopover in Frankfurt, so Orpheus and Sigfrido came to spend some time with us at the airport . Luckily it was a lovely day, so we could stay outside chatting in the sun . Before going back through security, I gave them both a big a hug and wished them safe travelling .
smaug Posted Feb 8, 2015, 9:53 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today it was World Cup final day and with Germany in the final, and our little Deutsch colony got very excited . I'm not sure how, but they managed to make appear something appropriate for the occasion . As the game was about to start the excitement grew even further... ...and it burst when Germany scored... ...and lifted the cup . Of course, we decided to join in our friends' celebrations .
smaug Posted Feb 8, 2015, 10:40 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today we went out for our first short hike since coming back to Canada . After the usual walking under the cover of the trees, we come out at Baldy Pass where we had a nice view over the foothills . Pressing on, we reached the summit of Midnight Peak, where the view was great in all directions . Interesting enough, I explained to my guests that it appears to be a tradition (a rather unpleasant one ) to get drenched, or nearly so, whenever smaug comes up here . Since those dark clouds seemed to herald the upcoming rain, we hastily moved down the mountain and luckily only got a bit wet .
smaug Posted Feb 15, 2015, 6:50 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today we went over to the Rockies for a nice hike . After the usual time spent in the trees, we started having a nice view over the Bow Valley... ...and some of the peaks surrounding us. We also were able to look for the first time at our destination, which looked a bit more snowy than we expected for this time of the year . A bit later we reached a ridge just over this little lake... ...where the view opened up even more. From here the peak did not seem that far away . So, with a final effort we reached the top, where the view was great in all directions . It was also bitter cold , so we quickly moved down. On the way we noticed, with a bit of disappointment, that the sun had eventually decided to properly come out, warming the air and melting the snow on the top in the process . At least we managed to take a final nice photo before heading back home .
smaug Posted Feb 23, 2015, 1:43 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we went again out to the mountains . After a bit of walking we started having a nice view of Mt Glasgow, and the weather looked great too . Later we headed up the narrow Nihahi Creek Valley... ...that soon became just a large gravel creek bed . Pushing on, we climbed halfway on the ridge heading to Mt Fullerton... ...where we noticed some very concerning clouds speeding toward us . So, instead of trying to reach the summit, we hastily performed an about turn and reached the safety of the valley bottom just before lightning started brightening up the afternoon .
smaug Posted Feb 23, 2015, 2:45 am	ciao ciao ciao, This weekend the weather was again gorgeous, so as usual we headed to the mountains . I explained to my guests that we were going to take a different route to reach a destination where smaug and I go at least once a year . The first part of the day was the usual tedious slog through the forest, but soon we started having a nice view of the Bow Valley. On the way we always had in sight the typical ridge used to reach Mt Allan, with the rock walls of Mt Lougheed behind it ... ...and of the summit of Mt Allan. Still, before getting there we had to tackle the summit of Mt Collembola... ...and the false summit too . On the way we passed just over the Nakiska ski area, that hosted the alpine skiing competitions during the 1988 winter Olympics. Eventually we reached the summit of Mt Allan , from where we could look back at the last bit of the trail that we just followed... ...and where we took a final shot of the Bow Valley before starting to head back home.
smaug Posted Mar 2, 2015, 12:08 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather in town was quite nice , although it turned out that in the mountains it was slightly different, and after walking a bit on the trail things did not look very promising. By the time we reached our destination visibility was kind of limited . We decided to wait a bit hoping for the fog to clear up and helped us with some of the provisions in the backpack . As it happens things got even worse... ...so all we could do was pack up and go home .
smaug Posted Mar 2, 2015, 1:39 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we headed again to the mountains for a short walk. After a bit, we had nice views along the Elbow River valley ... ...and of Powderface Ridge, where we were engulfed by fog a week ago . Later we just spent the morning walking along this lovely ridge... ...all the time having a great view over the Rockies .
smaug Posted Mar 8, 2015, 2:53 am	ciao ciao ciao, guess what, today was another gorgeous day, and of course we went over to the mountains . After a bit we emerged from the trees and started having a nice view. It took a bit longer to eventually see our destination. From the summit of Wind Ridge, which wasn't really that windy , we could see Canmore in the distance... ...and rocky peaks all around us . We could also see the snow covered peak of Mt Allan, where we were just a few weeks ago. Before leaving the summit and heading back home we took a final look at the valley that we followed in the morning .
smaug Posted Mar 8, 2015, 3:09 am	ciao ciao ciao, look at that! You know what it is? Snow ! A full foot of heavy wet snow . How cool is that ?! Well, smaug seemed very much unimpressed to say the least, of course , so we have to keep our enthusiasm in check when he's around .
smaug Posted Mar 16, 2015, 12:24 am	ciao ciao ciao, it has been only a few days since the snow storm, so today we decided to check the conditions of the trails around Calgary. Not surprisingly everything looked very white from the very start of the day . As we approached the summit of Cox Hill smaug decided that he had enough of plodding through waist deep snow and just let us take a few photos of the mountains before turning back. It looked like full winter . Even the prairies in the distance where completely white .
smaug Posted Mar 16, 2015, 1:32 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we went for another hike, and just one week and less that 100 km away from where we went last week, conditions where a bit different . After a bit we passed by this gully, but I explained to my guests that we were not going up there today. Later we found this lovely sofa and decided to rest and enjoy the sun chitchatting for a while . As we kept going we started seeing the southern part of the Rockwall . Further on we reached the gorgeous Floe Lake with its crown of rocky walls . A final effort took us up to Numa Pass.  From there we could see the trail we had just followed,... ..., Floe Lake and Floe Peak,... ...and on the opposite side Numa Creek Valley... ...and the Rockwall heading north . What a day !
smaug Posted Mar 22, 2015, 1:14 am	ciao ciao ciao, although the weather wasn't exactly great, today we headed again to the mountains and spent the day passing by lakes . The first one we found was Vista Lake...where, despite the encouraging name, the view was just OK . Things improved once we reached Arnica Lake... ...and Upper Twin Lake, tucked under Storm Mountain . Finally we reached Lower Twin Lake, possibly the nicest of all the lakes with reached, although the weather did not really help in appreciating that. Later on, we reached our destination, Gibbon Pass. Obviously that plaque is quite old, since Canada has been a metric country for a few decades . We took a quick look around the pass before jumping back in smaug's backpack just in time before the snow started to fall .
smaug Posted Mar 22, 2015, 2:28 am	ciao ciao ciao, There's been some more snow falling on the mountains, so today we checked out how deep it is . It was soon obvious that white was going to be the main colour of the day . At some point we passed by this lovely creek which is not fully frozen yet . Once we reached Healy Pass we had confirmation that winter is indeed here . Time to get the snow shoes out .
smaug Posted Mar 28, 2015, 10:42 pm	ciao ciao ciao, the weather is quite strange lately: most of the snow seems to be gone , so today we went to check how things are in the mountains. It looked like that around both Elbow and Little Elbow Valleys there was snow left only at the higher elevations. On the other side, there was no trace of white whatsoever. Maybe winter is not ready to come after all .
smaug Posted Mar 28, 2015, 10:57 pm	ciao ciao ciao, the snow is back ! Lot of it. Today we decided to go downstairs and play a bit . On second thought, looking at the temperature, we decided that it was probably a good day to stay nice and comfortable at home .
smaug Posted Apr 5, 2015, 9:40 pm	ciao ciao ciao, it' been snowing again this week, but this morning the weather seemed inclined to improve , so we went for a short hike. The atmosphere was great . But by the time we reached the nicest viewpoint the day had turned really dark , so we decided not to linger, took some photos and headed back.
smaug Posted Apr 5, 2015, 10:04 pm	ciao ciao ciao, guess what? We are back in Italy . smaug was so busy and so late in packing up that he even forgot to report our departure from Calgary yesterday . But today our friends here in Trento were as always ready to welcome us .
smaug Posted Apr 5, 2015, 10:46 pm	ciao ciao ciao, after a few days of rest, today we went up to a nice view point on the side of the valley. The sun was warm, the sky was blue and the view was great . There was even a nice bench where we could sit and chat while enjoying the sun .
smaug Posted Apr 6, 2015, 12:48 am	ciao ciao ciao, the weather is quite spectacular, it's almost like summer . So today we took advantage of the sun and went for another short hike near town. The view over the valley was great . And so was the ridge that we followed... ...and the valley on the other side of the mountain . There was even a big metal map showing the direction of all the peaks that you can see from up here .
smaug Posted Apr 11, 2015, 10:24 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today our friends Orpheus, Pepita and Sigfrido came home to celebrate Christmas . Of, course, with so many TVs in one room, lot of chatting followed .
smaug Posted Apr 11, 2015, 10:43 pm	Merry Christmas ! Tonight, as usual we celebrated Christmas eve . Of course, as soon as the big people moved away from the table to deal with presents, we took control of proceedings in the dessert area .
smaug Posted Apr 11, 2015, 11:21 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today we spent the day travelling around the German motorways . It's not exactly exciting to just look out of the windshield for over 10 hours, but I guess it beats sitting at home doing nothing . Of course, food found on the road can not always be carelessly eaten, so, being a proper host, I took upon myself the important task of checking it before my guests ate it. A dirty job, but someone had to do it . And tomorrow it sounds like it's going to be the same on the way back .
smaug Posted Apr 11, 2015, 11:54 pm	ciao ciao ciao, it's time to go back to Canada , so today, before heading to the airport, we said goodbye to our friends who will stay in Italy a bit longer . Of course, since I might not see them for some time, I gave them all a big hug and wished them safe travelling .
smaug Posted Apr 26, 2015, 12:07 am	ciao ciao ciao, today the weather was great . It was so warm that it felt almost like summer...almost , so we decided to pay a visit to the mountains. After the usual long bit of walking under trees we started having a nice view . Going further up, the view opened on the Prairies in the distance,... ...and became great over the Rockies . At that point the wind was picking up and it didn't really feel like summer anymore , so we hastily moved back under the protection of the trees.
smaug Posted Apr 26, 2015, 12:18 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we gathered to say goodbye to Lotta who is travelling back home to Germany . Before she jumped in her travelling quarters I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe journey .
smaug Posted Apr 26, 2015, 12:35 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we welcomed back to Calgary my friends Orpheus and Sigfrido who will spend a few days with us . And they brought some delicious gifts with them .
smaug Posted Apr 26, 2015, 1:34 am	ciao ciao ciao, the weather is not that good these days, so it's been a bit boring recently . So today we decided that we were going spice up things by checking out Calgary's nightlife . For whatever reason smaug was not inclined to let us go out by ourselves , so we ended up organizing a little chess tournament. It was a real battle of minds...and, of course, I was the best . After the tournament, instead of giving out prizes, I used a box to give my guests a little lesson about Canadian wildlife . As it turned out, it was a box full of chocolate, so the day definitely finished on a high .
smaug Posted Apr 26, 2015, 1:55 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we took a short walk in Calgary . Well, we just passed through a nice glass-covered mall ... ...and spent some time relaxing in these lovely indoor gardens . Later this evening it was time to say goodbye to Orpheus and Sigfrido who are moving on to another destination in North America . Before they left for the airport I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe journey .
smaug Posted May 7, 2015, 4:39 am	ciao ciao ciao, after a few quiet days today we headed out again to the mountains . The temperature when we reached the parking lot was far from ideal ... ...but the weather looked great so we marched on anyway. It had snowed recently, so everything looked very white . Moving on we reached a nice view spot where we enjoyed the view of a fairly frozen landscape. As it happens, my guests are not really used to this type of temperatures , so we encouraged smaug to hastily go back to the car .
smaug Posted May 11, 2015, 3:38 am	ciao ciao ciao, today it was another gorgeous day so we headed west to the mountains again . As usual, early in the day we only had the occasional nice view. But, as we gained elevation, things improved . When we reached the highest point of the day the wind started really picking up, so we enjoyed the view which was spectacular in pretty much every direction and then quickly dived for cover .
smaug Posted May 18, 2015, 3:36 am	ciao ciao ciao, today it was really foggy , be we tried our luck and went over to the mountains anyway. When we reached Barrier Lake things did not look great . But, later on, the fog started to clear and we had some lovely view of the lake... ...and Kananaskis Valley . On the other side, the prairies were still covered by a thick fog. Moving further up we reached a fire lookout, which at this time of the year is closed. From there the view opened up over the Rockies to the west .
smaug Posted May 18, 2015, 3:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we said goodbye and wished a safe journey to my friends Krystal and GustavHH that are travelling to Europe together . Before they jumped in their travelling quarters, I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe journey .
smaug Posted May 18, 2015, 4:09 am	ciao ciao ciao, today smaug came home saying that there was a parcel for us , so we quickly set to work to open it . And, guess what, a TV came out: Batyr, a nice mouse from Russia . And he brought some lovely gifts . Of course, a long night of storytelling followed .
smaug Posted May 18, 2015, 4:25 am	Happy Easter! Today we celebrated with some lovely TV-sized chocolate eggs . Not the gigantic chocolate egg  that I have been lobbying for over the whole week , but they were delicious .
smaug Posted May 18, 2015, 4:44 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we said goodbye to my friends Landroval and Stoker that are flying to Europe together . Before they flew out of the window, I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe journey .
smaug Posted May 18, 2015, 11:44 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today smaug came back home with a very interesting envelope . And when we opened it a new TV came out, Aura a nice ladybird from Finland . And she brought some lovely gifts with her . Of course, the chatting that followed went on and on and on....
smaug Posted May 19, 2015, 12:28 am	ciao ciao ciao, it looks like spring is reluctant to show up . Today we went for a short hike, but from the start we had to deal with fresh snow . Nevertheless, after a bit we had nice views of Kananaskis Valley ... ...and of the mountains around us. The ridge we were following seemed to go on a long way,... ...but, after a bit, smaug decided that he had enough of breaking the trail and we headed back .
smaug Posted May 19, 2015, 3:09 am	ciao ciao ciao, today a new TV arrived. My friend Pepita has come home to visit me for a few days .
smaug Posted May 26, 2015, 5:22 am	ciao ciao ciao, today it was my birthday and guess what, my guests had organised a little party with cake for me . They even managed to refrain from wolfing down the cake until they had finished singing happy birthday .
smaug Posted May 30, 2015, 4:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we did a quick visit to Banff , where we were mostly kept wet by a series of showers all day . We don't mind the rain much , but smaug insisted that the camera does not like water at all, so we just managed to get a lonely photo of the mountains during one of the few dry moments of the day .
smaug Posted May 30, 2015, 5:02 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we gathered to say goodbye to my friends Shakespeare and Pepita who are both travelling to Germany . Before they jumped in their travelling quarters I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe and swift journey .
smaug Posted Jun 8, 2015, 2:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, today was a lovely day, so we went for a hike near Banff. Since early in the morning we had a nice view over Lake Minnewanka and Mt Rundle . Further on the view of the lake improved... ...and got even better when we reached Aylmer Lookout . It looked like there was still some snow over the mountains around us. Later we stopped by the lake shore where we planned to lay down in the sun . Too bad it was a bit too windy, so we just took a few pictures before heading home .
smaug Posted Jun 14, 2015, 2:36 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we went over to the mountains where we were welcomed by some nice fresh snow and a thick fog . That made a for lovely mid-winter atmosphere , but visibility was somehow less than ideal . We tried to keep going hoping that things would improve, but we were just treated with more fog and some shadowy tree. So we decided to hide back in the backpack and let smaug wander in the fog at his pleasure and leisure .
smaug Posted Jun 14, 2015, 10:13 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today smaug had to be in Vancouver and we managed to tag along , so early this morning we found ourselves at Calgary airport. Once in Vancouver we spent most time locked indoor , but around lunch time we were allowed to take a walk to Stanely Park . There we had a great view of downtown . As we kept exploring the park we approached Lions Gate Bridge. However the lions were not available to come greeting us . Moving on we reached the other side of the park were we walked along the seawall... ...and enjoyed the view over the bay . Eventually smaug clearly indicated that recess was over, and so we headed back indoor .
smaug Posted Jun 19, 2015, 3:39 am	ciao ciao ciao, today we went for bike a ride to Highwood Pass . During the first part of the day we enjoyed riding along Kananaskis Valley . With a little effort we eventually reached the pass... ...and moved on the opposite side into the Highwood River Valley . For some reason, after we turned around, smaug became less and less amenable to the idea of stopping just to take photos , so we just had to stay in his backpack and scavenge whatever food we could find in there .
smaug Posted Jun 21, 2015, 4:20 am	ciao ciao ciao, this morning the weather was great so we headed to the mountains for a quick hike . Most of the trail was below treeline, but we got the occasional nice view of the Elbow River in the distance. Eventually we reached the top of Powderface Ridge, where the view was great . And we even made it back to the car before the afternoon thunderstorms moved in .
smaug Posted Jul 2, 2015, 3:03 am	ciao ciao ciao, in the afternoon, when we got back to Calgary, we were very busy in one of our favourite activities, helping ourselves with whatever we found in the fridge. In this case it was a lovely ice-cream . As it happens, this was proving to be a tough nut to crack open , and we were arguing about the best approach to use to take the damn cover off when we heard a loud crashing sound coming from the balcony . As we went to the window to investigate, we met a TV who had just hopped inside, Squab a nice chicken from Germany who flew all the way here . We were very impressed, of course, but we were even more impressed with all the lovely presents that he brought over ...and lot of chatting and eating followed .
smaug Posted Jul 12, 2015, 3:54 am	ciao ciao ciao, today the weather was gorgeous again, so, of course, we went for a shot hike in the morning . After the usual plodding in the forest we were treated with a nice view of the prairies... ...and of Moose Mountain. Our destination was not too far... ...so, with a final effort, we swiftly reached the summit of Cox Hill where the view was great in every direction .
smaug Posted Jul 20, 2015, 2:41 am	ciao ciao ciao, it's very hot in Calgary these days , so today we tried to find some cooler weather in the mountains . As it happens, most of our hike was within the trees where the air felt even warmer than in town , so smaug was not really inclined to stop for photos until we reached the summit of Midnight Peak. Over there the wind was very pleasant and we could see the Nakiska ski area,... ...Mount Baldy in the north,... ...the prairies in the east... and more mountains in the south .
smaug Posted Aug 4, 2015, 3:33 am	ciao ciao ciao, July is proving to be a fairly boring month since we are hardly seeing smaug at all . But it does not mean that we are not entertaining ourselves . We spend time reading,... ...playing... ...and planning future trips. However the biggest fun is checking out hailstorms from the window . This was a big one and left a massive white blanket all over town .
smaug Posted Aug 4, 2015, 4:15 am	ciao ciao ciao, today, at last, we headed back to mountains again . The drive was a bit long so we decided not to disturb smaug and took a couple of hours long nap . When we woke up, we found ourselves facing the first challenge of the day, wading across the Bow River at the outlet of Bow Lake . The water seemed way too deep and fast for little TVs so along with Squab and Aura we decided to let smaug get wet up to his knees and just encouraged him flying around his head until somehow he made it to the other side . And the view of the lake was really nice . Later we reached the lovely Crowfoot pass... ...where I explained to my guests that real TVs are not satisfied with just reaching a pass, so we were heading for the summit of Bow Peak up there . With a little effort, we reached the summit safely, and the view was spectacular . We could see Bow Lake,... ...the valley heading up Mosquito Creek,... ...Mt Hector,... ...Hector Lake... ...and the glaciers along the continental divide. On the way down we took a look from above to the lovely meadows of Crowfoot Pass . What a day !
smaug Posted Aug 24, 2015, 2:10 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today the weather was gorgeous again, so we went for a lovely hike near Banff . After a bit of walking in the trees we started having a nice view of the Monarch (that big mountain, not the queen )… …and of the mountains in the south. With a little extra effort we reached Healy Pass where we could see Scarab and Egypt lakes in the north,… …and more mountains to the south . That ridge leading to the Monarch is called the Monarch Ramparts, and I explained to my guests that we were going to walk along it. From the Ramparts we could see Healy Pass behind us,… …the little tarns dotting Healy Meadows … …and the forested valley that we followed this morning. Eventually we got off the Ramparts and reached beautiful Eohippus Lake...Aura liked the name a lot . Later on we passed by another nice small lake ... …before diving back into the forest.
smaug Posted Aug 24, 2015, 2:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye to Batyr, who is travelling back home to Russia . Before he jumped in his travelling quarters I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe and swift journey .
smaug Posted Aug 24, 2015, 2:59 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what, I’m in the States ! This morning I pretended everything was normal when, as usual for a Saturday, smaug tried to wake us up at a fairly ungodly hour and threw us in the backpack where we continued sleeping. I guess my guests assumed that we were going to the mountains and I decided not to spoil the surprise . A few hours later we woke up driving on a highway in the Rockies, but we were in Colorado rather than west of Calgary . smaug was busy driving and was not inclined to stop often for taking photos, so we just snapped a few shots of the lovely surrounding … …before arriving at our accommodation for the week where we found a lovely spot where I had to explain a bit the situation .
smaug Posted Aug 24, 2015, 3:40 am	ciao ciao ciao, I explained to my guests that we will be spending the week here in Colorado road cycling in smaug’s backpack , well, I will be probably flying ahead most times to make sure he does not get lost . Today, to start getting used to the altitude, we went for a ride out of Dillon up to Loveland Pass and we spent most time riding in a very nice valley . Eventually we reached the pass, which sits at 3655 m above sea level on the Continental Divide . This means that on this side, the north side, water drains towards the Atlantic Ocean (by the way, the view was great ),… …while on this side water drains in the Pacific Ocean. Whichever way the water goes, those dark clouds were about to drop a lot of it , with hail and lighting as sides , so we hastily made our way back into the valley.
smaug Posted Aug 26, 2015, 5:09 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were on the road very, very early to ride up Mt Evans. Since it was a tad cold , smaug was reluctant to stop and take photos and when we eventually had a chance to look around we were surrounded by a treeless landscape . From there we could already see the summit . Later we reached Summit Lake, which, as it happens, is still well below the summit . The view there was great … …and the summit was getting closer and closer. Nevertheless, as we gained altitude and entered prime eagle habitat , my guests started to feel a bit short of breath, so I let them comfortable in the backpack while I went outside scouting the route . I also thought that encouraging smaug every now and then to pedal more vigorously by pecking at his head was a great idea , however, after being swatted away in a flurry of unrepeatable words, I decided to keep the encouraging going from out of arm’s reach . And after some time we eventually reached the end of the road which, at an elevation of 4307 m above sea level, is the highest paved road in North America …smaug pointed out this was very likely as high as he will ever ride a bycicle . The view, of course, was great …a bit hazy maybe .
smaug Posted Aug 28, 2015, 3:55 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we hit the road again and after some time we could see the in the distance Hoosier Pass’s saddle. On the way we also had nice views over Quandary Peak . Some km later… …we reached Hoosier Pass, which sits on the Continental Divide , just like Loveland Pass that we visited a couple of days ago. As you might have noticed on the sign, here everything is measured in strange units like feet and miles . Since none of us is very familiar with the imperial system we were a bit confused . Luckily I had anticipated the problem and installed on smaug’s phone a conversion app, so we spent a lot of time checking it out . Anyway, feet or meters, from the pass we had a lovely view over the Mosquito Range and the South Platte River valley .
smaug Posted Aug 30, 2015, 4:48 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we rode a nice loop between Copper Mountain, Leadville and Vail . The first thing we saw in the morning were these big ponds. Apparently they are part of a giant molybdenum mine . Further on we reached Fremont Pass, which sits on the Continental Divide, a feature that we started believing applies to all mountain passes around here . At the pass we saw the actual mine. The photo does not do justice to its size (and the sun in our eyes did not help ), but it looked like half mountain had been already mined out . Later on we skirted Leadville and turned on US Route 24 just before entering town. The road took us through this wide and beautiful valley … ….which eventually lead us to Tenessee Pass. And guess what, this pass is also on the Continental Divide . Going down from the pass we had beautiful views… …and crossed this lovely bridge over the Eagle River . Later we turned again and had our first look at the valley that leads to Vail Pass… …that we reached a bit later…and, believe it or not, this pass is not part of the Continental Divide . We decided to take a break and stopped at this rest area at the pass. Eventually we reached Copper Mountain from where we took a final look at the valley leading back to the pass… …before heading back home for a well deserved hearty supper .
smaug Posted Aug 31, 2015, 2:19 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short ride near Dillon. The first part of the day we were riding in the Blue River valley . FYI, whenever we saw it, the river did not seem to be any bluer than most other rivers . Anyway, after a bit we turned right and got on the road leading to Ute Pass, and the view soon improved . At last, we reached the actual pass which was not really such an exciting place ,… …so we just headed back home .
smaug Posted Aug 31, 2015, 2:45 am	ciao ciao ciao, Since we came back home early, this afternoon we had time to spare . We tried to strike up a conversation with the living room's "resident-eagle", but she did not really pay any attention to us . So we decided to go out for a walk on the lakeside instead . We passed by the marina… …and enjoyed the view over the other side of the lake . Eventually we came back home where we patiently waited for dinner time to come .
smaug Posted Sep 6, 2015, 10:46 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today was our last day of riding, but luckily it was a gorgeous day . Early in the day we were down in the valley in the middle of the trees, but soon we gained elevation and the view improved … …and it improved even further later on . Eventually we reached Independence Pass which (it goes without saying ) sits on the Continental Divide and where we had lovely views of the surrounding mountains . On the way back, we stopped at Twin Lakes to take a look at one of the lakes and at the valley leading to the pass that we had just left.
smaug Posted Sep 13, 2015, 5:55 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was our last day in Colorado. Before leaving we found a nice panoramic spot over Dillon Reservoir . As we moved to another spot a big eagle came down towards us . She seemed a bit aggressive … … so I went ahead to handle communications . Since I was immediately asked if my friends were edible , I quickly shoved them back into the backpack before pointing out that the friends of a mighty bald eagle are not for eating . Then this very ill-mannered eagle had the cheek to ask if I was edible . I was about to put her in line when smaug said that he had enough of this monkey business and shooed her away . We then moved close to the lake shore where I let my friend out of the backpack, though just in case I was still watching out for that eagle. Eventually we really had to leave and a few hours later we found ourselves at Denver airport, where we killed time watching planes… …and enjoying a few snacks .
smaug Posted Oct 18, 2015, 2:07 am	ciao ciao ciao, this week after coming back from the holiday we were stuck at home since wildfires in the US sent a lot of smoke up here and there were air quality warnings in Calgary every single day of the week . Today it seemed the worst was over so we went over to the mountains for a short hike. To the west things looked OK ... ...and there was only a bit of haze in the east. Nevertheless the air smelled still very foul , so we did not linger and quickly headed back home.
smaug Posted Oct 18, 2015, 2:24 am	ciao ciao ciao, September has been frightfully boring since smaug was too busy at work to take us anywhere . At least October seems to be starting with some excitement . Tonight smaug came home very late, but he had parcel with him, a very TV-like parcel . Of course we were very interested and jumped over it trying to open it . And guess what, as soon as we opened it Hansi Hü, a nice horse from Germany, came out . Of course we wanted to hear everything about his previous trips, so a lot of chatting followed late into the night .
smaug Posted Oct 18, 2015, 9:34 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today it was a nice day so we tried to go for a short hike . Early on we had to cross the Elbow River, which at this time of the year flows mostly within the gravel of its large bed ...so there wasn't really much water to cross . As we gained elevation we reached Forgetmenot Ridge, where the wind was blowing at gale force . Nevertheless we managed to take some photos . However, after a couple of near misses, smaug said that he was not risking to spend afternoon searching for us down the slopes of the mountain , so he shoved us back in the bag and said that for today there were not going to be any more photos .
smaug Posted Oct 18, 2015, 9:52 pm	ciao ciao ciao, today we went for lunch in Banff . First we had a lovely and big steak . And for dessert we treated ourselves with delicious ice cream and melted chocolate ...that's what I call a proper lunch . With a full belly we got on our way home, but we decided to stop a bit at Lake Minnewanka, where the reflections in the lake were beautiful .
smaug Posted Nov 9, 2015, 1:43 am	ciao ciao ciao, the weather was not so good this weekend, but today we tried to go for a quick hike in the morning anyway. While we were in the trees we could occasionally see the sun, so we took it as a good sign . Nevertheless, once we reached the summit, the clouds were closing in from all directions . Only in the east and in the south it seemed to be still a bit clearer... ...but since it was starting to snow very lightly we decided not to linger and headed back down the trail.
smaug Posted Nov 9, 2015, 1:56 am	ciao ciao ciao, guess what? Today we had the first proper snowfall of the season . However when smaug came back from work it was too dark to take any photos , so the main reason for this update is that we have a new guest here in Calgary . smaug came back with an interesting envelope... ...and when we cracked it open a new TV came out, Arn Wes Wilde, a nice tiger from China . As it always happens when someone new arrives, story telling went deep into the night .
smaug Posted Nov 15, 2015, 9:45 pm	ciao ciao ciao, After a week of fairly inconsistent weather, today we headed to the mountains keen to find out how much snow , if any, we were going to find. As it happens we found it from the very start and the first hour went by walking on a large snow-covered trail in the trees. Eventually we came out of the tree cover and started enjoying the wind . Once we reached the top of Pigeon Mountain the view was great in most directions . Only in the west the clouds were very dark. Anyway, smaug was having a hard time taking photos while making sure that my guests did not accidentally fly away in the gale force wind . So he eventually shoved us all back securely in the backpack and we did not see the outside world again until we were back in the car later in the day .
smaug Posted Nov 23, 2015, 3:27 am	ciao ciao ciao, We had a new arrival in Calgary today . smaug came home with a new envelope and, as usual, we were tasked with opening it . And a new TV came out, Matcha a nice frog from Japan . And he brought some lovely chocolate with him . As it always happens in this cases, the night went by chatting and eating .
smaug Posted Dec 1, 2015, 2:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, winter is definitely here and today we went checking out the fresh snow outside of Calgary . When we parked the car it was obvious that there was no shortage of it. As we moved up the trail all the forest was clad in white ... ...and occasionally we could see that the it looked pretty much the same all around us. When we reached the highest point of the day the clouds were really nice and opened up to let us enjoy the view . However they were not nice for long , and soon we could not seen 10 m away, so we slowly headed back home.
smaug Posted Dec 20, 2015, 3:38 pm	ciao ciao ciao, We had a bit more snow this week, but today it was quite clear, so we went for a nice walk in the foothills . Well, actually there was a bit more snow than we expected during the first part of the walk, which caused smaug to be a bit grumpy . Anyway, eventually we reached the top of one of my favourite places in Canada, Eagle Hill , where we had a great view of the valley we just followed… …and of the Bow Valley gap into the Rockies . As it happens, the wind was pretty much gale force , so smaug was having some trouble keeping us from taking off and after a couple of near misses, we decided that the inside of the backpack was the place to be in these conditions .
smaug Posted Dec 20, 2015, 3:45 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what, we are going on holiday ! Today we finished packing our suitecase and headed for the airport . See you soon from somewhere else !
smaug Posted Jan 3, 2016, 2:33 am	ciao ciao ciao, I’m back in Italy ! This morning we were all still a bit jet-lagged, so time to have a hearty breakfast and I'll figure out what's new later .
smaug Posted Jan 3, 2016, 3:19 am	ciao ciao ciao, OK, I explained to my guests that we were planning to do some skiing , but not a single flake of snow (or drop of water for what it matters) has appeared around here in almost two months . As a result, skiing, despite a lot of artificial snow been prepared and a good number of runs available, does not sound as great as it normally would , so, to avoid those breakfasts turning us into little barrels , we are doing a bit of hiking instead . Today we went close to town and we soon stumbled in what seemed to be a pit with stone walls. As it happens, it appears that in the past it was an oven used to make lime that could eventually be turned into quicklime . After that it was mostly uphill going without any “cultural” excuse for catching our breath , but at last we reached the summit from where we could enjoy great views west ,… …, north… …and east. South looked great too, but the sun is a bit low this time of the year and it was parked just there. So looking south just ended in my guests getting a few burned retinas , after all only eagles can look directly at the sun ...or so they say .
smaug Posted Jan 5, 2016, 9:38 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went to a nice peak close to town . Early on we found this lovely tiny house . We knocked at the door and peeped through the windows to see if someone was home, but no one answered so eventually we moved on. Much, much later we reached the summit where the view was, of course, great . We could also see this lovely lake… …and Trento in the distance . We found a summit log too! It was kind of hard to get it out of its case … …but we eventually managed to take it out and left a sign of our presence here . On the way down we even found a lovely and quiet spot where we could enjoy a little snack .
smaug Posted Jan 6, 2016, 3:37 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went out for another short walk near town . As we were walking in the forest we came by this boulder. As it happens, it is not just a boulder sitting in the forest . Well technically it is , but it is also an erratic boulder, that has nothing to do with the rocks found in this area and that was probably dropped here by a glacier at the end of the last ice age . Later on we found another interesting item. This was a rain shelter used by shepherds working in this area a long time ago . It looked frightfully uncomfortable, so we decided against waiting for a rain shower to test how waterproof it is . On the way we found a summit log, despite the fact that we were barely over halfway to the summit (this is a strange trail indeed ). Nevertheless we decided that, of course,  we should sign it . At last we reached the actual summit. There was no summit log here, but we found a lovely spot to rest and enjoy the sunshine while eating a little treat . Back home in the afternoon we had a surprise: my friends Landroval and Sigfrido had just arrived home for the holidays . As usual, a long night of chatting followed .
smaug Posted Jan 18, 2016, 2:35 am	ciao ciao ciao, Merry Christmas ! Tonight we are celebrating Christmas Eve . There was quite a lot of food on the table , but our attention focused mostly on dessert .
smaug Posted Jan 18, 2016, 2:55 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we are heading to the airport to fly back to Canada, so this morning we said goodbye to Tatanka and Sigfrido who will stay in Europe . Of course I gave them both a big hug and wished them safe traveling . It was particularly hard, after so much time spent together, to say goodbye to Tatanka, but I know that he’s in safe hands with my friend Sigfrido .
smaug Posted Jan 18, 2016, 3:06 am	ciao ciao ciao, We have quite a long connection in Frankfurt, but luckily we managed to convince smaug to get a few supplies that will help making the wait less boring .
smaug Posted Jan 24, 2016, 1:15 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy New Year ! We are a still bit too tired and jet-lagged to engage in big celebrations, but at least we still have some of the tasty supplies we grabbed yesterday at the airport .
smaug Posted Jan 24, 2016, 1:52 am	ciao ciao ciao, After a few days of "funny" weather, today it was beautifully sunny, so we headed to the mountains . When we arrived at the parking lot we noticed that it was a bit cold. Nothing really impressing for sturdy eagles like myself or Landroval , but my guests were very much concerned . Nevertheless, smaug said that we were all going to be fine. So after a bit walking we found a nice spot to peek at the landscape from between the trees. Later we found an even nicer viewpoint . At that point the cold related distress in my guests reached its limit so we headed back to the car and eventually home where they could thaw out .
smaug Posted Jan 24, 2016, 2:01 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today it was time to say goodbye to  Matcha and Landroval who are both travelling to Japan . Before they left I gave them both a big hug and wished them a safe journey .
smaug Posted Mar 7, 2016, 2:38 am	ciao ciao ciao, We have been a bit stuck at home over the last month , but today, at last, we were able to go back to the mountains . We parked at Barrier Lake, which happened to be frozen solid. A bit later we found ourselves much higher, where we had nice views of the lake ,… …the prairies… …and of the valleys heading in the mountains. Further up we reached a fire lookout, that happens to be shut at this time of the year. Still the view was really nice… …and, most important, we found a lovely spot were to relax and take in a bit of chocolate .
smaug Posted Mar 21, 2016, 1:14 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short walk up the mountains . The weather was far from great , but we managed to snap a few shots. As it happens the clouds were getting darker, so smaug decided not to linger too long and took us back home .
smaug Posted Mar 27, 2016, 4:26 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were again in the mountains . Interesting enough, early in the day we had a lovely blue sky in front of us… …and not such a blue sky behind us . As we reached the halfway point of our walk the view improved , however the window of blue sky reduced a lot (pretty much only what you can see in the photo was not covered in clouds), so smaug the decided to head back. Of course, by the time we reached the car, there was not a single cloud left in the sky .
smaug Posted Mar 27, 2016, 4:37 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye to Hansi Hü who is traveling to his next host . Before he jumped in the mail I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Apr 4, 2016, 12:35 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter! Today we celebrated with plenty of chocolate eggs . Well, they were not exactly the size that we were hoping for , but at least we all got one .
smaug Posted Apr 23, 2016, 10:39 pm	ciao ciao ciao, After almost a month, today we were back into the mountains, and with a very favourable weather too . Of course, the first part of the day was not too exciting, but we reached the point where we stopped a month ago under a lovely blue sky. We therefore decided to go a bit higher, where we found the sun shining, hardly any snow slowing us down and balmy spring temperatures . It was kind of hard to eventually come back home .
smaug Posted May 23, 2016, 3:48 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a walk around Calgary …well, more a food crawl than a walk . As we missed breakfast we first decided to get something to support us . But since the weather was far from great, we spent most of the time looking at the people moving around this huge mall. Eventually it was time to go back home, but just to make sure we had enough fuel to walk all the way, we allowed ourselves another small energy boost .
smaug Posted May 23, 2016, 11:37 pm	ciao ciao ciao, We have been a bit quiet over the last few weeks, but today we convinced smaug to take us out . Since we left the car the weather looked a tad misty ,… …and as soon as we peeked out of the forest we got the suspicion that it was not going to be a good day for sightseeing . Anyway, we still harboured some hope that we might gain enough elevation to eventually, maybe, come out above the clouds. As it happens, that was not the case. At least the humidity did not affect our supplies , so we managed to fill up with some sugars before heading back to the car.
smaug Posted Jun 11, 2016, 9:59 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came home with a parcel, a TV sized parcel, so we got really excited . As we managed to open it, a new guest appeared, Ulani, a nice sheep from Germany . And she brought some lovely things with her . Of course we spent a very long evening muching on those sweets while listening about her travels .
smaug Posted Jun 11, 2016, 11:09 pm	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug took us out for a bike ride after work . Unfortunately he would not let us ride on the handlebar , but we still managed to enjoy some nice views along the way .
smaug Posted Jun 20, 2016, 2:12 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a nice little hike early in the morning . The first bit was mostly in the trees, but soon the view improved. And it got better when we reached the summit . Disappointingly, smaug forgot to pack any chocolate (how embarrassing ), so, instead of having a nice time at the top, we insisted on getting back to the car quickly so that we could drive somewhere to gather some supplies .
smaug Posted Jun 20, 2016, 2:46 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we tried to go back to the trail where we were blinded by the fog a few weeks ago , and right from the parking lot we had a feeling that it was going to be a much better day for taking photos . And it was definitely the case. The wind was pretty much gale force and freezing cold , but the view was great . On the way back down, when we were a bit more sheltered from the wind, we noticed that someone put a great effort in building a huge and stylish cairn , so we stopped taking a photo with it .
smaug Posted Jul 23, 2016, 1:50 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we had a new guest arriving here in Calgary . smaug came home with a TV-sized package and, as usual, he left to us the task of getting it open . As we managed to open the parcel, a TV came out, Rachel, a nice sheep from China . And she brought some lovely gifts with her . Of course we spent the night listening to and telling travelling stories .
smaug Posted Jul 23, 2016, 2:13 am	ciao ciao ciao, After a rather uneventful and long trip (well, also quite surprising for my guests since I didn’t mention anything about this upcoming trip ), this morning we woke up in Italy . And even better, we woke up in front of a lovely breakfast . It is actually very hot here, so I think we will spend a few days just chilling out and recovering from the jet lag.
smaug Posted Aug 1, 2016, 3:16 am	ciao ciao ciao, smaug has been very lazy on this holiday , but at last today he took us out for a little walk . We started the day looking down at the green pastures around Passo Vezzena … …and when we reached the highest point of the day, we had a lovely view over the lakes of Caldonazzo and Levico . As it happens the WWI front used to pass in this area , so we had a chance to do a bit of history tourism when we stumbled into this old Austrian fort . It did not look very comfortable , and the years have clearly taken their toll, so we decided it was not worth exploring the inside and just stayed out an enjoyed the sun till it was time to go back home .
smaug Posted Aug 22, 2016, 1:49 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we were, as usual, looking for food . In this case we were attacking the last few supplies that we brought back with us from Italy when we had a feeling that someone was looking at us . It was my friend Landroval, who just arrived back home after visiting Japan , and he brought some lovely presents too. . Of course, we ended up spending the evening listening to travel stories .
smaug Posted Aug 22, 2016, 3:49 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug decided to take us to a lovely trip to the mountains . What was less lovely is that, to avoid afternoon thunderstorms, he made us start at a very ungodly hour . Nevertheless, after a bit we started having a nice view. For the first part of the morning we aimed for that lovely grassy col … …and when we reached it the view improved further. Sadly, it looked like the trail was not going to be nice and grassy for much longer … …and soon we were in the middle of a fairly lunar landscape . Our destination looked deceiviously close… …but it was quite some time before smaug eventually carried us to the top, where the view was spectacular . Of course, true to the summit name, the weather was far from ideal, so smaug decided to quickly retreat down to an elevation where the odds of being smitten be lightning were a bit less discomforting .
smaug Posted Sep 5, 2016, 1:53 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we had another day of decent weather so smaug took us again up to the mountains . Early in the morning we were still in shadow but we started seeing our destination in the distance. On the other hand, we had a lovely view over Kananaskis Valley … …and we could see the highway getting smaller and smaller beneath us. When we reached the ridge we were aiming for... ...the view over the valley improved … …and we could also see Kananaskis Lakes in the distance… …and Mount Evan-Thomas and Mount Packenham right in front of us . We also found a summit log and we all signed it. Of course you write way more interesting things while getting some sugars in the belly .
smaug Posted Sep 12, 2016, 12:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we took advantage of the fair weather and went for a short and quick hike . It was actually still a bit shadowy early on the trail… …but by the time we reached our destination it was a beautiful sunny morning . Recently smaug has been less forgetful than usual about our sugar needs , and luckily today was no exception to that trend .
smaug Posted Sep 12, 2016, 1:03 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye and to Arn, who is travelling to Norway . Since I lived almost a year in Trondheim, I thought it was a good idea to help him getting a head start and learn some basic Norwegian . I also showed him a map so that he could get familiar with the town layout. He was a bit surprised and asked me how comes I used a paper map rather than uploading one on the phone and I had to explain that back when I was in Norway phones were still used only to make phone calls and they needed to be attached to the wall with a cable to work . Additional explanations were cut off when we heard smaug in the other room talking about a tiger swimming to Norway. Of course, before he jumped in his travelling quarters, I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Oct 13, 2016, 8:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye to Landroval who is flying to a new host . We noticed that the shorter route to his destination seems to pass almost directly through the North Pole, but, of course, he was rather unfazed by the idea of the cold he might encounter . Before he left, I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey .
smaug Posted Dec 12, 2016, 1:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, After a long time, today smaug had again some time for us and took us a for a short hike near Banff . It was sometime before we shortly came out of the trees and had a nice view of Lake Minnewanka. This used to be a mining area and it is still full of hidden holes. To prevent distracted toyvoyagers from wondering into one of the deepest ones ,there are plenty of chainlink fences around. Further up the trail we reached a nice glacial cirque . With a final effort we reached the highest spot of our day where we enjoyed the lovely view … …and spent some time basking in the sun before heading back to the car.
smaug Posted Jan 9, 2017, 12:35 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today was a lovely morning (we didn’t have too many recently ) so we went to the mountains . We were a bit surprised about how little snow was around . Actually our destination looked really barren. Anyway, when we reached it, the view was great . Alas, the wind was great too…damn freezing cold . So we quickly went back into the backpack and let smaug out dealing with it .
smaug Posted Jan 9, 2017, 12:51 am	ciao ciao ciao, We are going to spend some time in Italy for Christmas , so today we went to Calgary airport and visited the new international terminal …which turned out to be as boring as the old one . At least we had some fun joining a family of bears that was busy playing in the departures area .
smaug Posted Jan 9, 2017, 1:31 am	ciao ciao ciao, So far our holiday has been very quiet , but at least today we were joined by my friends Krystal and Sigfrido who will be spending Christmas with us .
smaug Posted Jan 30, 2017, 12:53 am	ciao ciao ciao, Merry Christmas ! Luckily today there was no shortage of sweets to celebrate with .
smaug Posted Jan 30, 2017, 1:39 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we said goodbye to Krystal and Sigfrido who will spend a bit more time here in Italy and got ready to travel back to Canada . Before leaving I gave them both a big hug and wished them safe travelling .
smaug Posted Jan 30, 2017, 1:53 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy New Year ! We arrived back in Calgary last night and found a typical Canadian weather . Probably a good day to stay nice and warm at home .
smaug Posted Feb 26, 2017, 9:31 pm	ciao ciao ciao, This morning, despite the cold , we went for a short hike . Actually smaug was in early-morning mode , so we reached the trailhead and started going when it was still way too dark to try snatching any photo. Luckily, by the time we reached the top, there was at least a reddish glimmer of light that allowed us to appreciate what a nice morning it was .
smaug Posted Apr 10, 2017, 2:31 am	ciao ciao ciao, It’s been a bit boring around here recently . Nevertheless, even if the weather was not really good, today smaug took us for a short trip to the mountains . It’s full winter and it is usually freezing cold, but sometimes it warms up really quickly and the snow disappear as it looked to be the case on the prairies . Still Barrier Lake was still frozen solid. As we moved up along the trail the sky was getting darker and darker,… …so we found a nice sheltered spot where we could relax and top up the sugars before slowly walk back to the car.
smaug Posted Jun 12, 2017, 1:34 am	ciao ciao ciao, After quite a long time, today smaug took us to the mountains again for a short hike . Interesting enough, it looked like the snow was almost gone other than from the highest peaks . We almost started wondering if summer was going to come early this year .
smaug Posted Jun 12, 2017, 1:42 am	ciao ciao ciao, Remember that yesterday we noticed that the snow was almost gone on the mountains? Well, it’s back , lot of it, in town too !
smaug Posted Jun 12, 2017, 1:50 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter ! Today we noticed that last night we had a fresh dump of snow ,… …but luckily there was no reason to go outside since we had plenty of chocolate eggs that we could feast upon to celebrate Easter .
smaug Posted Aug 21, 2017, 1:08 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for a short hike near Calgary . As usual we spent some time under the trees, but eventually the view started to open up … …and we got the first glimpse of our destination. Much later, the view improved… …and it improved even more from the summit . Still those clouds were promising rain, so we didn’t linger and quickly started moving back down the mountain .
smaug Posted Nov 6, 2017, 1:05 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for another nice trip into the mountains. As usual the approach was tree-covered, but once we reached the crest of Mist Ridge the view was great . We had mountains to the south… …Mist Mountain to the west… …more mountains to the east… …and the Sheep River valley with even more mountains to the north. Before heading back down into the forest Landroval told me that he is planning to spend some time in the mountains to catch up with his relatives here, so I waved him goodbye and he flew away .
smaug Posted Nov 27, 2017, 2:15 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went again up to the mountains . Early in the morning we walked along Mosquito Creek, which was quite true to its name, so smaug decided to speed trough as fast as possible without stopping for taking photos and somehow we limited the number of bites we got . Later on, we got out of the trees and the wind sent the mosquitoes packing , so we could take a look at the valley from above. Eventually we reached our destination, Molar pass. The view from the west side of the pass was great … …but the view on the east side if anything was even better . After soaking in as much as we could of the view, we covered ourselves with insect repellent and made our way back to the car trying not to donate too much blood to the mosquitoes .
smaug Posted Jan 22, 2018, 3:15 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we went for another nice hike. It took a long slog through the forest, but eventually we reached Guinn’s Pass, where the view was great . We decided to make a little extra effort and walked up the ridge east of the pass from where we could see lower… …and upper Galatea Lakes. On the other side of the ridge Ribbon Lake was just below us. As we walked up the ridge we meet an unexpected friend . Landroval was flying in the area, spotted us and decided to stop by to say hello . We had lunch with him , (maybe that's one reason he stopped by ) and then started making our way back.
smaug Posted Jan 29, 2018, 2:09 am	ciao ciao ciao, October has been a cold one… …and I guess my friend Squab decided he is not in the mood to deal with another winter here and he is ready to go home, so today we gathered to say him goodbye and wish him safe travel . Before he left I gave him a big hug and wished him a safe journey . And I was glad that Landroval decided to fly with him part of the way to make sure he arrives safely .
smaug Posted Mar 26, 2018, 2:47 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we gathered to say goodbye to Aura who is travelling back home . Before she left I gave her a big hug and wished her a safe trip .
smaug Posted Apr 9, 2018, 12:10 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what, we are back in Italy on holiday . And as we arrived we met Landroval who came here flying and claimed that he was getting bored waiting for us to eventually show up .
smaug Posted Apr 9, 2018, 12:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Our numbers suddenly grew today since my friends Sigfrido, Krystal, Pepita and Orpheus arrived here to spend Christmas with us .
smaug Posted Apr 9, 2018, 12:33 am	ciao ciao ciao, Merry Christmas !
smaug Posted Apr 29, 2018, 2:48 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today we got ready to travel back to Canada and said goodbye to Orpheus and Sigfrido who will stay in Europe . Before leaving I gave them both a big hug and wished them safe traveling .
smaug Posted Apr 29, 2018, 3:01 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy new year! We arrived back in Calgary last night, and it’s a bit cold, almost -30C  . I think we’ll just recover from the trip by staying at home .
smaug Posted May 14, 2018, 2:11 am	ciao ciao ciao, Happy Easter!
smaug Posted May 28, 2018, 2:53 am	ciao ciao ciao, Today smaug came back with an envelope, a very interesting envelope . As we opened it, a new guest came out, Beppe, a nice beaver from Italy .
smaug Posted Jul 9, 2018, 1:25 am	ciao ciao ciao, Guess what? smaug has decided for once not to be lazy and took us out for a little hike . As we came out of the trees we had a nice view of the Little Elbow River valley … …and once we reached the summit the view was great . Of course, such a nice day was also a bit windy, so we had no time to linger and were soon shoved back into the backpack .
smaug Posted Jul 9, 2018, 1:35 am	ciao ciao ciao, We are going on holiday ! All ready and packed .

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