Mountains!

Holy crap!

As Daryl said, Calgary was not right up against the mountains.  It was about 30 miles until they started to take shape, and 50 miles until I was "in the mountains"  (it's gradual, hard to define a threshold).

Once I really got there, the clouds started to clear and the sun came out and I could really see all the mountains around me.  A really amazing few minutes when they all started to come into view in the sunshine.

And I've never seen mountains like this.  I've been told that they are lower than the US Rockies but they're TALLER.  They're also really sharp and steep and closely packed together.  I'm clearly no geologist and pictures never do it justice, so I'm stuck with lame descriptions like "they're awesome".