Multi Media Team: Trip Slideshow!

Slideshow of our journeys from beginning to end
CofC Spring Break at Banff, AB Canada 2017

Recapping our Dining Experience

The culinary scene in Banff definitely lived up to our expectations. Our first morning in Banff we chose to have brunch at Melissa’s Missteak based on the great reviews found on Yelp, and they did not disappoint. They offered something for everyone, from decorated crepes and waffles to the classic eggs and bacon; Melissa’s Missteak exceeded everyone’s expectations and we highly recommend dining here when you visit Banff.

That night we chose to eat dinner at Bear Street Tavern, which is known for having “Ridiculously Good Pizza”, and they do! They offer the classic cheese and pepperoni, but they also offer many options for those who enjoy many flavors and want to try new things. Two favorites among our group were pizzas named The Bison and The Godfather, both full of flavor and will have you wishing Bear Street Tavern wasn’t so far from home!

While staying at Sunshine Village we were able to spend a night at Mad Trappers Smokehouse. This little cottage isn’t so little once you’re inside, and offers a great spot to hangout after hitting the slopes all day. They offer a variety of food options that will make you feel at home. Chili, burgers, nachos and Canada’s signature dish, Poutine, are all options available at Trappers.

One very well known local bakery in Banff we had on our “must try” list before the trip was Wildflour Bakery. They open early so it was a perfect location for the days we headed out early and needed a quick trip for breakfast. They have everything a typical bakery offers, including coffee, breakfast sandwiches, toast, baguettes, etc and they make their breads in the back of the shop. The staff was friendly and personable, and they even made it possible for us to pre-order breakfast sandwiches to be picked up, enough to feed our whole group!

During the trip we decided to go “all out” on a few dinners. Two of the more upscale restaurants we attended were The Maple Leaf and The Bison. The Bison offered a Bison Ribeye, a NY striploin and Venison striploin, a Duck Shepherd's pie, and even Braised Bison short ribs. The options were endless and every dish on the table looked delicious! The Maple Leaf offered many dishes, but the most popular among our group was by far the Quebec Brome Lake Duck. Quite a few of our group members chose this dish, which came highly recommended by a few locals throughout the week. If you get the chance, definitely make it a priority to eat at The Maple Leaf and order the duck!

Culinary Tips for Future Trips!

     The overall culinary experience was delicious. Banff, Canada really knows how to do food! 

So many great (expensive, but worth it) places to eat at! 

Our restaurant reviews:

• Park had their own distillery and brewery, so we were able to experience their local selections. 

• Bear Street Tavern was a nice casual dinner which was fun to eat family style. 

• Trappers was your typical dingy bar food, but we did get to try poutine there.  It was our only food option on the Sunshine Village Resort, so there wasn’t much choice! 

• The restaurant in the Fairmont Hotel was exquisite, and the salmon was to die for!

Tips for future trips:

• Eat cheaper earlier in the week, so there money left in the budget to work with. 

• Keep up with the budget throughout the entire trip. 

• Any cash that is going to be used for meals should be handed out at the beginning of the week, or not included in the original price.

• Instead of cash, give every student a prepaid card with their meal amount for the whole trip.

• Definitely get food that is common in the area like poutine!

Lessons learned from planning this trip: 

• Have more meetings with your team to ensure everyone knows what's going on. 

• Know what part of the planning everyone is responsible for. (Having one official meeting with the entire culinary team was not enough time to grasp multiple dining locations.)

Excursion Recap

Here's a quick recap of all the awesome excursions we got to try out during our trip!

Dog Sledding

Need we explain how much fun this was? When we arrived at Snowy Owl’s trails, we were briefed with basic commands and how to steer the sled, then got to meet the dogs that would be pulling our sleds! Each sled had 2 to 3 people on it and about 7 or 8 dogs. Some of us had guides on our sleds and some of us had to drive the sleds totally on our own. Luckily for us, these pups are brilliant and did basically everything without us even having to ask. Halfway through the trails we got to take a quick break/photo-op on a huge frozen lake! Once we arrived back at the beginning of the trail, we got to give our pups lots of love and sit by a campfire with some cider and sweet treats. Snowy Owl was definitely a crowd favorite!

Caving

Caving was such an awesome experience! We went on the Explorer tour with Canmore Cave Tours. Our tour guide, Brent, was informative, funny, and most importantly didn’t care that we had to make a lot of stops on the hike up to the cave (hiking up a mountain in the snow is harder than it sounds!). Once we were at the cave opening, we suited up in super fashionable jumpsuits, helmets, gloves, and harnesses -- safety first! We quickly found out that caving is less walking, more climbing, crawling, and sliding on your butt. Luckily none of us were claustrophobic, we had to get through a couple squeezes -- to give you an idea, we all crawled through a space that a size 9 shoe couldn’t fit through vertically. We saw formations that started forming before humans existed and stood beneath the place where two tectonic plates crashed into each other, finally putting that freshman year geology in perspective! After climbing back out of the cave, we actually saw one of the rarest (and cutest) mammals in Canada, the pygmy shrew. Our hike back down the mountain was much more enjoyable and showed us some stunning views. Overall the trip was an overwhelming success!

Ice Climbing

Have you ever stood beneath a 30-foot tall frozen waterfall? If you haven’t, trust me when I say that is in an awe-inspiring experience, to say the least. Now, imagine standing under that waterfall, strapping spikes to your feet and grabbing ice picks, and climbing straight up that frozen waterfall. That is what six of us got to do one day. Our guide, Darren, picked us up in the morning and drove us out to the spot where we’d be climbing that day, which was actually out in Yoho National Park in British Columbia. Once we parked, we hiked a mile through the trees and a small canyon until we reached the climbing site. The hike and the location were absolutely gorgeous, but that first glimpse of the ice was very intimidating.

*Brandie for scale

Soon, though, we were strapped in and Darren let us loose to climb at will. The forearm strength required for ice climbing is incredible! After just a couple of minutes, arms would cramp up like nothing we’d ever felt before. The experienced ice climbers told us of a phenomenon that is apparently rather common in ice climbing called the “screaming barfies,” in which the cold weather combined with the strain on your hands and arms causes such an intense pain that you want to scream and throw up at the same time. Luckily, we had a beautiful day so none of us got the screaming barfies, and we had a fantastic time. This was such an incredible experience, and getting to be around such natural beauty and also witness the gravity-defying moves of the experienced climbers around us is something we will not soon forget.

Skate Skiing

Skate skiing was quite the experience! When we arrived at the Nordic Center, we saw all of the olympic flags then went to get fitted for our skis. Skate skis are longer and thinner than your typical downhill skis, and your boots are only connected at the toe, leaving your heel free to move. Once we were all ready to go, our instructor took us out to a pretty flat surface and we had a 2 hour lesson, and boy was it hard. To skate ski, you really rely on your legs and push yourself forward. It is a TON of work! After we all took our best shot and after a few (several) falls, we had the opportunity to give the hill our best shot. After those 2 hours, we were all exhausted, but loved that we got to experience a new sport!

Ice Skating

Despite some taxi issues, we spent a lovely evening at the stunning Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. Before hitting the rink, we spent some time exploring the hotel (like any good Hospitality students!). Instead of a standard skating rink, we were treated to a frozen Lake Louise which was  a picture-perfect background. While most of us just tried to stay upright, Jess skated circles around everyone and showed us some awesome tricks. She tried to teach us a few and it went about as well as you can imagine! Located around the rink were beautifully carved ice sculptures, including an ice castle. This was the perfect activity for a fun bonding experience and we all had a great time!

Snowshoeing

We spent a lovely evening snowshoeing at Lake Louise. This was a really cool learning experience, and the first thing that we learned was that snowshoes no longer look like tennis rackets that you tie to your feet, but instead are much more modern looking contraptions made of plastic. Our guide, Kai, was so knowledgeable about the nature around us, and he taught us so much. He showed us different animal tracks, took us through woods and down ski trails. He also took us to a very small igloo, where we all crammed in and he taught us about the Northern Lights until the claustrophobia became too much and we had to get out.

It was just the coolest experience to be out on a ski slope after dark with no one else around. The peace and quiet is simply astounding

Snowmobiling

The longest bus ride, but what an experience! Toby Creek Adventures’ snowmobile tours are a must try. Not only do you get the chance to drive a snowmobile, but you get to experience some of the most breathtaking views. We started our trek up the mountain, stopping every once in awhile to get tips and to learn a few things. Once we got to the top, we had a grill out with hamburgers, hot dogs, and hot chocolate in an old shack that use to home miners! After lunch, we drove to the free play area where we got the chance to run the snowmobiles wide open and play around on them, surviving with no wrecks and just a few flips. Once free play was over it was back down the mountain with a quick stop at a frozen waterfall. Toby Creek Adventures was such a fun company to tour with, and without a doubt will be on our list for next year!

Logistics Lessons Learned and Suggestions for Future

Traveling becomes very difficult if one does not figure out the logistics of it. Our logistics team tried hard to make sure that we were able to make the most out of our trip by finding the best excursion opportunities and making sure that everything ran smoothly. However, as with most things in life, mistakes are made and lessons are learned. Here is a list of those lessons learned and suggestions for future students who are going to be lucky enough to experience this beautiful wilderness.

1. Focus more on transportation. For the most part, getting to and from excursions was not an issue when there was an official bus taking us somewhere. However, we learned the hard way how expensive cabs can be, so I think in the future it would be beneficial to compare the costs of taking a cab to the cost of getting a private shuttle from the organization that we want to go to. We could then include the expense of the shuttle or cab in the budget so there are no surprise expenses. This should be done thoroughly for every excursion.
2. There were some issues with reimbursing people for meals during our week. Perhaps in the future, each student can be assigned a visa card with a specific amount of money on it that would cover all allotted grocery expenses and independent meals. The amount on the card would come from the money that is put aside in the budget for this purpose. This would relieve some pressure from the person who has to get cash to reimburse students. 
3. I believe the public transportation within Banff worked very well. The buses were extremely punctual...even to the point where you had to awkwardly wait inside the bus at a random, empty stop because the bus is ahead of schedule. I think communicating the necessary buses to catch to make certain appointments also helped keep everyone on schedule and spared people the expense of taking a cab.
4. In the future, if there is a day where the group is split up for the entire day doing different excursions in different locations, it might be beneficial to have each individual group be on their own for dinner that night. If groups are that spread out, it would be easier to pre-plan an individual meal so that if one particular excursion runs behind schedule, there is no dilemma. 
5. In the future, it may be beneficial to hold briefings during the trip with each respective team to review the upcoming logistical/food/multimedia challenges facing the trip in the next 24 or 48 hours. This would ensure that the entire team has thoughtfully and thoroughly made appropriate arrangements to ensure the entire trip is on budget and aware of the plan. 
6. In the future, it may benefit morale of the group during ski days if the entire group does not have to eat together/is not waiting on dining plans the morning of. For the individuals who want to maximize their time skiing, offering a cash disbursement so they can eat when/where they want would ensure each student has the opportunity to enjoy the activities as much as possible, and spend less time eating. 
7. I was impressed how punctual everyone was on this trip. No one got left behind on the slopes, even though I know we had some people who would stay all day long if possible. We all understood what time we had to be back at our hotel for the next activity or dinner. But then again, who would dare risk missing out on dinner and all the delicious meals that we got to enjoy? I think that the freedom of, “Okay, here is the bus schedule back to town, make sure you get back in time for…” really worked out.

Multi Media Team: Highlights and Lessons Learned

Here are some of our favorite spring break photos and highlights...
Send this to your great aunt Sue who won't stop bugging you to see photos from your trip.

We have arrived! Our first morning at Hidden Ridge.

Check out that view!

Dog Sledding at Snowy Owl

Hi, team!

"Check Out That View," an ongoing theme...

CofC Ice Climbers

Skate Skiing!

Caving!

Snow-Shoeing with our Fearless Leaders

We miss you, Mike!

"Spread The Moose"

Does anyone else dream about living in this cabin?

Toby Creek and Trigger the Pup

Snowmobiling (left with only minor accidents and no injuries)

How soon can we go back?

Lessons Learned and Suggestions from the Multi Media Team:

1. We recommend assigning social media posts in advance.  Take a look at who has signed up for which excursion, and make a plan for each team member to post at least once a day (at least one in the morning, one around lunch, and one at night)
2. We made sure each Multi Media team member brought a laptop on the trip.  This helps ensure that we have plenty of storage to back up all of our photos and videos.
3. After each excursion, upload your footage.  Every chance you get, back up your material.
4. We found that creating a Shared Album via our iPhones was most convenient to share photos.  We also used a google drive for those who prefer it or those without iPhones.
5. We wished we had brought a CofC flag to take photos with.  We also wished that we had taken more group shots.  We only had a few photos where every person is pictured.
6. We would have loved to have an Adventure Tourism Snapchat that each member has access to post to.  You can constantly update the story and have friends and family members follow along during the week.  We used Instagram stories for this, but Snapchat seems easier and we would have loved to have more group members posting!
7. We tried to tag every business in our photos, but could have done a better job! We also wish we had asked everyone to post TripAdvisor reviews after each excursion! It means a lot to the hard working instructors that really made our trip amazing.
8. While we started the week with a pretty solid GoPro plan, we fell off a few days in.  Be sure to assign in advance who has each GoPro and which excursion that person is participating in.  Then, collect them each night to download the footage.
9. Take pictures of EVERYTHING, but don't let it distract you from enjoying the moment! You will regret it if you spend all your time taking photos of huskies instead of petting them.