We’ve been given a short, sharp welcome to winter since arriving in Banff, as the temperatures have fallen all week. Our rental car has an outside temperature readout on the dash, so one of the idle amusements of the drive from Vancouver was registering each new ‘all-time’ low. When we arrived in Banff we’d hit -7C… yesterday we awoke to -22C, and on the drive to Lake Louise the thermometer bottomed out at -29C!

Last night we went to the Banff Hot Springs to rest our weary muscles after a couple of days snowboarding. The water temperature was 39C which was a bit weird. The pool is outdoors, so we’re soaking in this toasty water, while icicles are forming in our wet hair. On the 300m walk back to the car park, I realised that my board shorts, which I was carrying in my hand, had frozen solid. The picture above is Nathan’s free-standing shorts. Anna & Nath are worries that the whole winter is like this, but I’ve assured them that these temperatures are infrequent in Fernie