When we got into Banff, it was late at night, and it was during a snowstorm. I knew there were mountains by the way the poor little 
Kia rental chugged, but there was no visual evidence. So, when I woke up the next morning and looked out my window, the mountains were a never-before seen phenomenon. I decided then and there that I would go from where I was to the top of one of those mountains - I honestly didn't care which one, since they were all big and pretty - that day. I looked at the tourist maps, and I saw a trail up Sulphur Mountain, to Samson Peak. There was my destination! I put on my winter boots, and I stomped outside.
And I kept on stomping - true to my intent of doing it all under my own power, I left the car in the garage and wandered down the hill, over the bridge, up the hill, further up the hill, and I kept on going. I thought I was doing well, until I saw a sign that indicated three more kilometers to the gondola - which is also where the trail I was intending to wander up started. By the time I got to the gondola, I was feeling less enthusiastic about "under my own power" - 
there was no false summit illusion, if you looked up the swath cut for the gondola towers, you realized that it's far, and it's steep. And I am lazy. And the gondola was running. There really was nothing stopping me from taking the quick and equally scenic way (I would have more time for other adventures! I rationalized). And next thing you know, I'm sitting in my very own gondola, and discovering that the windows open and there is no barrier to excessive picture-taking, I excessively took pictures.
When you get to the top, there is the upper gondola terminal - it has a souvenier shop and a restaurant and I guess a glassed-in observation deck, but I didn't explore the inside of it very much. I was out on the exposed, frosty outside deck, which leads to a boardwalk (which was labelled caution, slippery, and similar, and which had lovely drifts of snow on it). The boardwalk goes for about 1 km, and then you're at the Samson Peak summit. 
There you will find a "cosmic ray observatory" (I don't know what that is, and it's no longer in use) that was built for International Geophysical Year. Most of all, though, you will find a killer view. And you can take pictures of it until your hands go numb and your face has enough windburn to warrant putting make-up on if you don't want to look like you contracted a horrid disease when you are among people who didn't stick their face in the wind in the Sawbacks the next day (though in Banff, there are lots of those people who *did* hang out in the mountains).
My gondola ticket was good for the trip down too, and I had no pride associated with walking all the way *down* a moutain, so I hopped on in for the ride back. And when I got to the bottom, I checked the Banff Transit schedule, and a bus was due any minute - and it could take me all the way back to downtown Banff for $2. So, congratulating myself on my inadvertently perfect timing, I happily climbed into the warm bus.
Slogging is over-rated, and besides, my winter boots are not ideal for hiking - and it was the first time I'd worn them for any length of time this winter - so my next priority was to find some moleskin.
With my feet be-moleskinned and still some daylight left, I felt the need to wander some more, and took the long way back to the Banff Centre. It was uneventful, save for the elk that watched me wander, and the view of the fancy hotel I *wasn't* staying at. A most satisfying day.