Travels with Gunther and Kara

Tuesday opened up dark and stormy; not the sunny morning that the weather guessers predicted. By about 1000 or so the skies to the west were brightening some so Neil rousted Connie away from her backed up Wall Street Journals and podcasts…and despite her insistence that it was supposed to rain Tuesday afternoon according to the forecast and the fact that they were totally wrong about the morning forecast we headed out but she wasn’t expecting anything good. Forty five minutes later we arrived at the parking lot at Lake Louise where we were going to hike up to the Angel Lake Teahouse for lunch. Nothing like a 2 mile long 1000 foot elevation hike to get your appetite up. Before we headed up we stopped for some pictures of Lake Louise and the Victoria Glaciers. This first shot is the most famous view in Banff National Park; I’m sure most of you have seen a picture of this scene before…and the thing has been photographed a gazillion times…but now it’s a gazilion and one I guess. The two white patches you can see at the far end of the valley (it’s about a mile to the far shore and maybe another mile or two to the white patches…are the lower and upper Victoria Glaciers. Don’t know exactly how thick they are…but the second shot is a closeup and as you can see from the trees near the edges they are way thicker than the trees are tall so it’s gotta be at least 100 feet at the edge you can see of the upper one; it’s much thicker a bit further back from the edge. Compare this with the Athabasca Glacier we posted the photos of the other day; it’s about 30 feet near the edges and has been measured at thicker then the Eiffel Tower is call and that’s 900 something feet. The third photo is looking slightly to the left toward the canoe rental area and the last two one farther to the right toward the area where the teahouse is perched on the shore of Angel Lake. The zoomed in one in the last two  is just a crop of the fourth shot that shows the location of the teahouse; it’s in the center of the red outlined section 1000 feet above Lake Louise. I’ll put in better photos of it as we got closer but wanted to give you a sense of where we were headed. From where all of these were taken we continued around the lake to the right another 300 yards or so then made climbed along the ridge on the right side of the lake until we were about underneath the teahouse and down to the far end of the lake. The trail then switched back on itself and continued to climb the ridge via switchbacks to Mirror Lake which is about 300 feet directly below the teahouse then continued up until we got there. The bare mound immediately to the left of the red highlight at the teahouse is Big Beehive, Little Beehive is on the other side, isn’t visible from this viewpoint, and you have to really use your imagination to call it a beehive anyway. Big Beehive on the other hand is almost perfectly named although you can’t really see that yet from this viewpoint.

After about a mile we got to the first switchback directly below the treehouse (although we didn’t know this at the time) and looked down from the right towards the far end of the Lake Louise, at this point we had done about 600 feet of the 1000 foot climb.

Continuing on another half mile we arrived at Mirror Lake; which was named because of it’s typical lack of any waves and the resulting reflectivity. The Indians said that it was used by Mountain Goats to comb out their beards, hence it was named Mirror Lake. While there we we grabbed a few more shots; first is the entirety of Mirror Lake with Big Behive in the background; for the second Neil walked another 50 feet or so to the left and aimed farther to the right. In the first the teahouse is behind the trees to the far right; in the second you can just see the treehouse. Start at the peak at top center and come straight down until you cross the tee line; then a little more down and to the left you’ll see the brown area…it’s at about 7 o’clock from a small area of what appears to be snow but is actually the glacier at Angel Lake.

While at Mirror Lake we also spotted a group of Clarks Nuthatches and got a nice close up of one for you.

Headed up towards the teahouse which meant around Mirror Lake to the right and then zigzagging up the ridge we got a photo of the teahouse perched at the top of a waterfall;

followed a few minutes later by some closeups of the waterfall itself (see how a part of it comes out from underneath a snow cornice perched over the stream) as well as a picture of Connie perched at the falls right before we headed up the last 40 steps (luckily it was stairs since the cliff was pretty much vertical at that point). The first shot was taken from about where Connie is standing in the last shot and Neil turned 90 degrees to the left for the second one which shows the lower and wider portion of the falls itself.

With that done we climbed up the last 40 feet or so to Angel Lake and the teahouse itself. Since the weather was temporarily pretty good (it had been getting continually better but we weren’t sure if it would continue or turn to clouds and rain again) Neil grabbed some shots of Lake Agnes; which is approximately circular, 400 yards or so in diameter and has a little waterfall coming in on the right side and a bunch of glaciers on the far side where the trail starts up the back side of Big Beehive. The fall is in the center behind the trees in the third photo but it was pretty small and you really can’t make it out in this photo…and the close up one (although it did show the falls but it’s more of a trickle down the ridge face than a proper falls) of the falls didn’t turn out very well. All of the white areas at the back side of the lake are glaciers and not snow and the tree lined slope on the left side is the back of Big Beehive where the trail heads up.

We had lunch on the porch at the teahouse and grabbed some photos looking back towards Lake Louise as well as a picture of the teahouse itself. We were sitting right in the middle of the porch you can see when we had lunch and the two guys standing at the railing on the far right are looking straight out towards Lake Louise. In the second photo the large building you can see at the left end of Lake Louise is the Chateau Lake Louise; a Fairmont hotel that probably costs 500 bucks a night for the cheapest room. All of the Lake Louise photos back at the beginning of the post were taken from right in front of the hotel and the canoe launching area we got the photo of is just to the right of the hotel, you can see the boathouse right over the top of the last large tree that juts up into the lake and immediately below the last white area (the parking lot) on the back side of the lake. The last photo after the teahouse is from the far side of the falls (Neil walked about 50 feet to the right from where the teahouse photo was taken) looking almost straight down. Pretty impressive views from up here, huh?

With lunch done and pix taken we headed back down…and I gotta tell you it was a lot easier on the downward leg. About half a mile down Neil wanted to hike around a side trail and see if we could get a picture of Little Beehive so Connie rested on the side of the trail since she wasn’t climbing anymore. He hiked a kilometer or so around and got a shot of it…but it really doesn’t look much like a beehive at all.

We stopped at Mirror Lake again to grab this picture of a Ground Squirrel (it’s sort of like a chipmunk but larger, brown instead of reddish, and with 2 light stripes on it).

and then continued on down to the parking lot. The hike up took 2 hours and 10 minutes and the hike down 1 hour and 15 minutes so we made much better time with way fewer stops to catch our breath on the way back; the only times we really slowed down were for tricky sections of the trail. After a water and bathroom break we headed off for our second stop of the day…it was 1600 by this time so we decided that since the weather had drastically improved and the forecast for the next 3 days was rain to get in everything we wanted to do over in the Lake Louise area which is about 40 miles from Banff. So off we headed to Moraine Lake. A moraine is leftover from the glacial days and is essentially the line of rubble that the glacier leaves behind on the side edges of it’s path. It’s usually piled up are of rocks and rubble (well, if you can call house sized boulders rubble) and is usually at least several hundred feet tall. The area between the moraines was gouged out by the glacier and when the glacier retreated the depression fills up and becomes a lake. Lakes formed by Moraines are almost always long, thin, and very deep in the middle with steep valley walls surrounding them…these are the harder granite type rocks that the glacier could not grind into rubble. These views are looking southwest; essentially down a curved valley toward the river. The glacier likely came in from behind where the picture was taken and ground it’s way down the valley away and to the right. You can see the moraine rubble piled on the left side of the lake and the steeply sloping valley  walls. The lake is about 300 feet deep in the middle and is maybe 500 or 500 yards wide at it’s widest. The mountains you can see on the far side of the lake continue around to the left past where the picture was taken from and are all about the same height. The mountain peaks are over 5000 feet higher than the surface of the lake and the horizontal distance from lake to peak is barely over a mile which results in about a 45 degree slope between the lake and mountains. There aren’t any huge peaks on the right side of the lake as you look at it…I don’t know why that is although it is on the inside of the curve of the lake. My guess is that the far side mountains are granite and the near side ones were softer material and were hence ground down as the glacier came in from behind the photo spot then was turned by the harder rock mountains to the right towards the river, grinding away the right side peaks as it moved. Connie stayed in the car here…we had seen Moraine Lake before on our last trip, she was tired, and it was almost a 2 kilometer trip up and over a 200 foot tall pile or rocks to get to the photo spot; the view from the parking lot is looking about 40 degrees to the left and you really can’t see much. 

As we headed back down the road towards Lake Louise and Highway 1 we stopped to get this picture of the mountain ridge on the left (south) side of Moraine Lake. Mount Babble is the third peak from the right that you can see and is immediately to the left of where the pictures above were taken from. From this viewpoint the end of Moraine Lake is around the corner past the trees on the far right and another mile or so down the road with this view being almost south as opposed to the west-southwest orientation of the above shots. Looking at this topography you can see how the glacier came in from the left before being turned to it’s right by the mountains. I don’t know why the lake doesn’t continue up into this area; probably because it’s higher and the glacier flowed downwards into a pre-existing valley over a lip of harder rock which was left behind as it retreated to keep the lake in place. At the far end of the lake there is another pile of rubble that was pushed in front of the glacier as it moved; this formed a natural dam to pen the lake into the valley.

Continuing on back to the highway; we turned west and shortly crossed into British Columbia on our way to Yoho National Park to see the Takakkaw Falls on the Yoho River. Unfortunately the road was not opened yet; not sure if it was bears, not finished clearing the roads yet, or just they haven’t finished repairs due to the avalanches farther up and higher into the valley. We could only get as far as the confluence of the Yoho and Kicking Horse Rivers where there were some very nice rapids that one could not get close enough to get a picture of due to the trees. We wondered why the park service put up nice story boards explaining why the rivers are two different colors when there’s not much of a view. The first shot is of the Kicking Horse river which is clearer and bluer since the silt in it has settled out in some lakes and slower sections of the river upstream. The second shot is about 90 degrees to the left of the first and just barely shows the bottom of the Kicking Horse with the Yoho River coming in from the left. The Yoho is much milkier in color since it (like the Kicking Horse) is glacial melt fed and hence full of silt but doesn’t have lakes or slower sections to allow the silt to settle out. Once the rivers come together the Yoho continues on southwest towards it’s eventual destination in the Pacific.

A few miles downstream we crossed back to the south side of the Yoho to rejoin the highway for our trip homewards. Here are a few shots from the bridge and banks of the Yoho…which was flowing at 12-15 knots here. The likelihood of surviving a fall into this river is essentially zero I’m guessing from the current and many rocks to bash your head in. The third picture is of Cathedral Mountain and the bridge where Neil was taking most of the photos; it’s another of those 5000 foot elevation changes in the space of a mile or so that are so frequent here in the Banff area. We continue to be impressed by those things…no matter how many of them we happen upon.

Heading back homeward; we discovered that were climbing up Kicking Horse Pass which has a grade of 4.5 percent in a very narrow valley pass up to the higher valleys where Lake Louise and Banff are located. As you go west from here you’re heading down into a lower elevation area of British Columbia. Back in the day; the railroad followed the modern day roadbed almost exactly and the 4.5 percent grade was the highest railway grade in North America (they usually like 1.5 percent grade maximum). This meant that a  5 car train going down the pass had the front of the locomotive over 15 feet lower than the back of the caboose…which given the relatively inefficient train brakes of the time resulted in lots of train derailments. To solve this; in 1907 a couple of bright railroad engineers discovered that the Swiss had built what are essentially switchbacks for trains but at the corners of the switchbacks instead of making a sharp almost 180 degree turn (which trains can’t do) they tunneled into the mountain and made as tight a loop as possible then coming back out of the mountain 50 or so feet higher then they went in almost overhead the tunnel entrance but headed the other direction. There are two of these spiral tunnels which add about 5 kilometers of length to the track up the valley but reduce the grade to a manageable 2.5 percent maximum. Here are a couple of photos of dioramas to give you a better understanding. The first is an elevation model, the second an overall shot of the valley and the third a closeup of the spiral tunnel section of the track. Uphill is to the left in all 3 cases. Looking t the terrain model the trains came in from the top of the pass at the upper left then entered the tunnel mouth on the right, circling around and coming back out the tunnel mouth a little to the left and down from the entrance. Continuing on across the current day road it entered the second mouth at the far left then came out right where you can see the red train car, paralled the current day road, passing underneath the current day road and then out of the model to the right. A pretty ingenious way to solve a problem I think. The tunnels are still used and have doors at each end to keep as much cold air out as possible…the tunnels leak water some and ice builds up on the inside; the doors minimize the buildup by increasing the average tunnel temperature. The railroad has some specially equipped train cars that essentially have big ice scrapers on them that they drag through the tunnel (actually they probably push them through to clear the ice before it damages the locomotive) to get rid of ice on the walls and roof.

With that our day was done; an uneventful 40 mile trip back to Banff where we had dinner at the Bear Street Tavern. We did spot what we believed was a wolf patrolling the outside of the wildlife fence along the highway but there was no place to pull over for a picture since it’s a feeeway. This is the only highway we’ve ever seen that the transportation folks tried to make wildlife proof. The entire length of it is lined on both sides by a wildlife proof fence about 10 feet high with rocks piled along the bottom. Wherever there is an exit/entrance to the highway the fence comes right up to the edge of the road and there is a 10 foot wide cattle grate (they call them Texas gates up here) which animals won’t venture onto since their feet will fall though the grate. This keeps wildlife from getting onto the highway. About every 5 miles or so there is what looks like an over pass but is actually a wildlife corridor. They are about twice as wide as a four lane overpass would be, have an undulating upper surface that is covered with dirt, grass, and trees…and are fenced on the sides with the fences connecting to the fence along the side of the highway. Thus the wildlife has a way to remain outside the fence and still get to the other side of the highway. Another pretty ingenious idea…but I guess after getting who knows how many cars totaled from hitting bears or elk or whatever in the middle of the night this is a cheaper solution overall. I’ll remember to get a picture of one of the wildlife corridor overpasses the next time we’re out and add it into a post so you can see one.

Wednesday and Thursday it’s supposed to rain so we’re going to the library in a bit for Connie to work and Neil to surf…after that it’s leftover chicken for dinner. We slept really late today as we were both exhausted after yesterday. It was a 4 mile hike for Connie with 1000 feet up and then down; Neil’s total was closer to 6 miles and 1500 feet by the time you add in his side trip to Little Beehive and the hike over the moraine rubble pile at Moraine Lake. 

Cyas.

Today dawned and turned out to be a picture perfect day. After breakfast and coffee we headed off to Mass in town and discovered that people here are really possessive about aisle seats in the church. The church has no side aisles and only a center aisle. We got there right before Mass started and the church appeared to be full with about 30 people standing in the back. We looked up the aisle anyway and found at least 10 pews with a couple sitting on the aisle end and not letting anyone else in. We had to go to 3 pews and tell them to move or let us in before one couple finally moved but even then they glared at us. We would have been happy to cross over and sit on the interior or sit on the aisle…we were amazed how rude the parishioners here are. Oh well, that’s the way it goes I guess. After church we stopped by Starbucks for a couple of hours for internet and a cup of coffee for Connie then came home for lunch.

After a bike ride for Neil…he went about 9 or 10 miles but it was down to the Bow River Falls in town so it was a nice 500 feet or so climb back up the hill to the campground…and he got stuck in the middle of the Banff Classic bike race for a bit; and then some lunch we decided to just take a drive today and see some of the sights without hiking very far. We have planned a 4 mile hike up to the Lake Agnes Tea House tomorrow  but it’s a thousand feet climb up and back down so it will be a pretty decent hike…so we decided to just take it easy today and headed off for a drive of about 20 miles total to visit 3 lakes; Cascade, Johnson, and Minnewanka…the three get progressively larger and Minnewanka is the largest lake in Canada.

Our first stop at Cascade…was a complete bust mostly because there wasn’t any water in the lake. A few small puddles here and there but even if it had been full it was probably only 2 or 3 acres (maybe 8 or 10 typical house lot sized) total. We parked, walked down the path to the lake, turned around and left and headed for Johnson Lake.

Shortly after getting back on the main road toward Johnson Lake we did spot a nice waterfall coming off the side of Mount Norquay on the north side of Canada HIghwayt 1…and snapped this shot. The trees at the base of the mountain are maybe 300 yards from where we were parked and the mountain rises immediately past there about 4500 feet higher than the parking area and it’s maybe 2 miles away to the summit. Here are both a wide and closer view.

Continuing along we arrived at Johnson Lake where we snapped a photo of a couple of guys fly fishing for reader Ron as well as a nice vista view of Lake Johnson looking east toward the peaks. On the way out of the side road to the lake we stopped by a small hydro electric dam and grabbed a photo of what a local told us was a Squawfish which is apparently a member of the shark family. Sorry about the photo quality; Neil was shooting though about 3 feet of water with some sort of pond scum on the surface so it was the best he could do. We also passed by the far end of Johnson Lake and got another shot looking back toward the west as well as a nicely framed one through the trees.

As we headed towards Lake Minnewanka we ran into a sheep jam where we spotted a male Bighorn Sheep’s harem, a close up of what appears to be the alpha female, and then a shot of the male a little up the road. There was a youngster as well but we didn’t get a good shot of it without a car in the photo.

We arrived at Lake Minnewanka and got a lot of really decent shots of the scenery around the lake…including one wide panorama shot and one of Connie resting on a log while Neil was off down at the shore getting the photos…she had street shoes on instead of sneakers and decided the shore was too rocky to walk across in them.

With that we hopped back in the car and headed home. Right before we got back to the campground we spotted a local piece of scenery here in Banff…it’s a couple of hoodoos which are spires of harder rock that were originally surrounded by softer rock which eroded away over the millennia leaving just the funny shaped tower. While he was out there; Neil also grabbed a few shots of the Bow Valley. That’s the Bow River running through the bottom of it and Banff is at the far end of the valley; the hotel you can see in the distance in some of the pictures is the famous Banff Fairmont Hotel…it’ quite nice. We might have to run over and have afternoon tea before we leave. We also spotted our last wildlife of the day; a Canadian Ground Squirrel.

And finally; a shot of our view from site 841 in Tunnel Mountain Campground…beautiful isn’t it??

We’ve decided that overall we think the views here in Banff are better than those up in Jasper…but mostly they’re a different type of view. Up in Jasper the absolute magnitude of the valley to peak rise is larger than it is in Banff; but in Banff the rises occur over much less horizontal distance making the ridges steeper. In addition; the peaks are a lot closer than they are up in Jasper…up there there might be a rise of 5000 feet to a ridge 6 or 8 miles away where as down here the rise might only be 3500 feet but the peak is within 2 miles of you so the apparent steepness and rise is greater. This leads to what we believe are more impressive views; a lot of the peaks look like near vertical rises. The peaks down here also don’t have (generally) as much tree cover as farther north; with the steeper slopes and solid rock vice rock covered with dirt landscape there are a lot more sheer, bare ridges than farther north. There’s also a lot less snow on the sides of the peak…due primarily to them being steeper so the snow doesn’t stick. You really can’t go wrong with either though…the people up in Jasper were more friendly and the town is much smaller with more of a ski bum small town feel than you get here. Banff certainly isn’t metropolitan of course; but it’s about twice as large as Jasper and just has a lot greater selection of everything…pubs, groceries, coffee cafes, and pretty much everything else. Banff also has a lot more hills and grades in town where as Jasper is small enough that the whole town sits on the valley floor…Banff is larger and the valley is narrower so the town has spread a lot onto the lower slopes of the various peaks around the valley.

Dinner was chicken with some yummy garlic, basil cream sauce and mashed taters. Today’s planned hike at Lake Louise for some photos (you’ll recognize a lot of the photos we take there as several lakes in the area are particularly famous views) and a hike up to the Lake Agnes Tea House for lunch…was postponed until Tuesday since Connie didn’t feel well today. It rained pretty hard during the time we woulda been hiking anyway so it’s probably for the best.

Cyas.

Well, another travel day…another rainy day. Friday dawned as it has on several travel days the last month or so with rain off and on, some wind, and generally poor to no visibility. Nonetheless; we finished up getting ready to travel (we had dumped tanks and stowed the sewer hose Thursday evening so we didn’t have that much to do except stow inside and hitch up. We headed out and our first planned stop was at the Icefields Center about 70 miles south to see the glaciers. On the way we (well, Connie) stopped and grabbed a couple of photos of some waterfalls that we saw coming off the side of the mountains…unfortunately we had to pass on the best one as there was no place to pull over. The neat one was probably a 1500 foot drop in 2 steps almost straight down off the mountains on the east side of the river valley we were driving down…but with no place to stop safely a photo just wasn’t in the cards.

We also stopped as planned at the Icefields Center; here are a couple of photos of the glaciers in the area…which is the largest concentration of glaciers in southwest Canada. The glaciers are up to 800 or so feet thick in places…we passed on the opportunity to drive out onto the glacier surface as it is 30 bucks apiece or so and we still had another 100 miles to go before parking. This is a shot of the largest of the bunch…Athabasca Glacier; notice just below the center of the photo the parking lot full of cars and buses…this gives you a nice perspective of the scale of this sheet of ice. From the cars up to the edge of the glacier is about 1/4 of a mile and the ice right at the front edge (we walked up to it the last time we were here) is about 30 feet thick or so.

For comparison; here’s a shot of the same glacier from our visit back in October 2010. Notice how the glacier has actually grown in size from side to side and also extends a little farther down the slope than it did back then…granted it’s spring instead of late summer when the glacier is at it’s smallest size of the year but it doesn’t look like Global Warming is melting to us at this point. I’ve also included a shot from back in 2010 of Connie up at the edge of the glacier. Notice how all her warm clothes are on and her hat is firmly tied down. While we didn’t walk up there this time; on our last visit the temperature down in Banff was in the 60s and at the Icefields Center it was about 45. Walking up to the edge of the glacier the temp there dropped to probably the high 20s and also the wind picked up to 30 miles an hour at least. The glacier itself is sloped at about 15 degrees or so and since it’s frozen the air sits on top of and cools to freezing which makes it more dense and then it just rolls down the glacier until it falls off…the result is it’s really windy right near the glacier but by the time you get down to the cars you can see the wind has pretty much died off and the temp is probably 20 degrees warmer than right by the ice edge.

We arrived in Banff and made our way to the Tunnel Mountain RV Park where we’re parked nicely in site 841; a full hookup pull through site. You can just see one of the mountains over the top of the rig and I’ve also included a second shot down the road looking east with another nice mountain view…these shots were taken Saturday when it wasn’t raining vice Friday when we arrived.

We ran downtown and had a couple brews at the Bear Street Tavern. It’s claim to fame according to the Banff Dining Guide was “ridiculously good pizza” and we can attest to that. We had two; both thin crust…the first was Forest Mushrooms, Basil, Pine Nuts, and Truffle Oil…and the second was Salami and Cheese. They also serve pizza here with a side of honey and pepper oil…what you do is put some honey on the plate in a circle like a dam and then fill in the middle with pepper oil and then dip the pizza in it. Neil thought it was really good…Connie not so much. The Nut Brown Ale was outstanding though. Saturday dawned as the forecast beautiful day so after breakfast and coffee we headed off for a six mile hike starting almost in downtown Banff at the Hot Springs parking lot. It was and out and back on a 3 kilometer paved trail (we saw a lot of people biking out to the end of the paved section) followed by a 2 kilometer loop through Sundance Canyon then back on the paved section. With a 500 foot vertical rise we thought it would be a lot more challenging than it turned out to be.

Right after leaving the parking lot we spotted this huge bull elk right off of the path. We eased in a bit hoping he would leave so we could get by and eventually he did…Neil forgot to get a photo of the front of him but only remembered to get this one after we passed him.He was easily 5 feet high to the shoulder and the rack was almost 4 feet wide. Quite an impressive specimen.

Heading on up the path we followed the Bow River and stopped a half mile up or so for lunch and some photos of the spectacular views. The first one is across the river, the second downstream to the right and the third upstream to the left. The last one is an HDR shot of almost the same perspective as the third one.

After lunch we continued on up the path and after another half mile or so the trail turned to the left away from the river and up towards the canyon area. From there the paved path sloped continually upwards until it ended at a bike parking area/picnic area at the entrance of the canyon. We stopped at the picnic area for a few minutes and Neil was intrigued by the bright sunshine passing through the tree canopy so he leaned back and snapped a series of HDR bracketed photos he used to construct this shot. Let’s call it your art appreciation moment for the day.

After a brief rest we headed into Sundance Canyon itself…the hike through the canyon is about 1 kilometer up right alongside the river with most of the 500 foot elevation change in the canyon. At the south end of the canyon the trail loops back to the right and along the top of the ridge before descending back to the picnic area. Right after entering the canyon we spotted this huge rock slab that sticks out over the river at about a 45 degree angle; this chunk that hangs out over the river is probably 70 or 80 feet long and is only supported at the base on the right side of the river.

Here’s an HDR shot of the small waterfall you can see to the far left of the shot above.

Continuing on up through the canyon we stopped for photos at a variety of small waterfalls and rapids. Good thing we stopped for photos as this part was really steep. Lots of nice short falls, lichens and really brilliant green pine evergreen trees.

After that last one we crossed the river on the bridge you can’t see immediately out of the photo bottom and climbed up to the top of the ridge; then turned north back towards the picnic area. Along the way we spotted some views of the mountains across the other side of Highway 1 that were definitely worth the walk.

Shortly after these two were taken we got back into the woods and then onto a series of switchbacks down the ridge ending at the picnic area where we rested awhile as Connie’s hip was hurting a bit and it sprinkled a bit so we waited in a dry shelter, had a snack and a drink then headed downhill once the rain stopped. As we headed down the paved path we noticed a notch in the mountain opposite that we didn’t see on the way up (that old no eyes in the backs of our heads thing I guess). You can’t really tell it form the photo but this notch is almost like somebody gouged out a square channel down the mountain side that is 2000 feet high, probably a hundred yards wide and a hundred yards deep.

Shortly after this we got back down the hill and rejoined the river for the relatively easy stroll back to the parking area…although we did spot some finds on the way back. First up was a Common Goldeneye Duck

followed shortly by a beaver dragging some dinner back to it’s lodge. He went right by the duck who took off in a panic.

and then a bee on some nice yellow flowers.

Then we finally found an example of what we thought would be a very common photo…some sort of wildlife down by the water. We were about to decide that none of the animals up here ever needed a drink.

Shortly after that shot we got back to the visitor center where we had another rest for Connie’s hips then wandered down the hill to the car and headed home. We were originally going to drop the cameras off at home and grab our computers for a beer and internet downtown…but as we drove through town we noticed that the street festival we saw setting up this morning had gotten into full swing and there were huge traffic jams and no parking downtown along with several detours. We decided that beer and internet wasn’t worth the effort tonight so decided to eat at home instead…then get some internet at Starbucks after Mass in the morning.

Dinner was a couple of frozen burgers from Walmart, some sautéed onions, and some Taco Rice that we had in the cabinet along with a wine cooler and then a Dark and Stormy along with some TV.

Tomorrow is Mass and internet and then we’ll probably go on some sort of drive instead of another long hike…that way we can have a sort of rest day before another hike on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday it’s supposed to be rainy so Connie will probably work depending on how the weather turns out. We’re kinda tired though…been hiking almost every day since we arrived in Jasper almost two weeks ago and we need a rest day but don’t want to totally waste a decent weather day.

Our last find though; was another Golden Marmot…we got this one right outside the house maybe 4 feet from our power pedestal and closer than that to the rig itself. Cute little guy (or gal), ain’t it.

Cyas.

We hemmed and hawed a bit this morning before finally deciding that the weather was going to cooperate enough to get in our planned hike…which was a 3 mile round trip hike from downtown Jasper up to Marjorie Lake and back. The sun kept coming out and in but we finally decided that since this is our last day here to head out anyway. While Connie was hemming and hawing Neil went out and filled BAT with fuel for tomorrow’s travel day.

It took us a bit to find the parking lot as they’re building some new townhouses along the back street in town and the parking lot road was hidden beyond the construction equipment. Once we figured out where to go we parked, donned our hiking shoes, and headed off.

We were hiking along, plodding uphill when about halfway out we came to a complete stop and Connie saying “Uh, oh.”. Neil looked ahead and sure enough; about 20 or so yards up the trail coming our way was a mostly full grown bear. We had been talking enough so it was surely aware of our presence but had it’s head down walking along eating berries. We stopped and talked louder hoping it would leave but it kept coming…at that point we decided that bears had the right of way and headed perpendicular to the trail to the right (uphill) about 20 yards or so. The bear pretty much completely ignored us…walked past us and then exited the trail and headed downhill. We paralleled the trail another 20 or 30 yards then climbed back down…and continued our hike with Neil keeping a careful eye behind us just in case. Sorry, he didn’t get any pictures…he wanted to but Connie was sort of agitated about this encounter so he decided to just calm her down instead. 

We hiked the remainder of the way to Marjorie Lake and sat down for a few minutes to have a snack; then grabbed a few photos of the lake and views…it was OK but not as spectacular as others we have seen here and with the overcast, cloudy day was only an OK photo (well, actually 3 photos starting at the left side of the view and traversing to the right).

With that we decided to head back down…it was a bit cool today and we left our long sleeved shirts in the car although we did have our rain gear in the backpack so could have donned that if we really needed to.

Connie was paranoid all the way back and was sure that the bear was lying in wait for her…despite Neil’s assurances that the bear had left the trail and headed downhill and that people are not a normal part of a bear’s diet.

Once back to the car we stopped and got some groceries…the selection in the stores is really lousy compared to what we’re used to in the US and the prices are 20 to 25 percent more expensive.

We’ll head off for a beer and some internet in a bit and then home for leftovers for dinner…then we’ll pack up some stuff and get ready to travel tomorrow. We’ve got about 175 miles to go straight down Highway 93, the Icefields Parkway to Banff; our RV parks is actually right next to the hoodoo overlook (hoodoos are stone column shaped things, I’ll grab some pictures while we’re there for you) that we visited on our previous trip to Banff a couple of years back.

Since we had pretty much lousy pictures today Neil went ahead and decided to play with some of them a bitty to enhance the colors and try to make them look more like they did in the wild. First up is a more real looking version of the third Marjorie Lake photo above. This one looks a lot closer to what we actually saw with our eyes than the one above.

That worked so well that he went ahead and messed around with a couple of the other ones we got earlier in the week. First up; Annette Lake and then Mt Edith Cavell from yesterday.

The Athabasca River just upstream of Athabasca Falls from our drive last Tuesday.

A couple of Medicine Lake from two of our visits there.

A really nice reflected view of the mountains in Jasper Lake, it was really calm that day and the reflections were like a mirror.

And finally two of the 5 lakes from the Valley of Five Lakes Hike that we took the other day on the rainy day.

All of those were touched up a bit with some post processing techniques…the net effect is that the colors of the water and the light in the trees looks a lot closer to reality than the original shots we posted. None of them are new; all are the same shots and crops that I put up earlier in the week but he tried to give a better feel for how beautiful the colors actually are since the originals look a little flat compared to reality. These are the neatest green or aqua or blue colors you can imagine. As I previously talked about when I first introduced you to the concept of HDR or High Dymanic Range photography; the eye can see a range of about 11 stops of light (a stop is a quantitive measure of how much light there is)…whereas the camera can only see about 3 stops. Since the eye can see so much more it’s really difficult to get a finished photo to look realistically like the original scene was…it’s easy to make a photo look decent but there’s a difference between decent and realistic. Anyhow; he was bored this evening and wanted to see if he could make some of our shots look better so let us know in the comments how you like them.

Cyas.

Today started out pretty overcast and rainy; but that’s OK because Connie needed to work anyway. So after breakfast and coffee we headed off to the Snowcone Cafe where Connie bought 2 hours of internet access and got to work catching up on her email and student scheduling. Neil walked up to the visitor center and used the internet there since he didn’t need as much room to spread out and the wifi is free there. We worked, web browsed and read email until about 1130 and then went home for lunch. During the morning it mostly cleared up and was decent by lunch so we headed off for our planned activities. Good thing we did as the afternoon got better and better the longer we were out.

We originally scheduled a hike along the Athabasca River through the Old Fort Loop but it turned out that road was closed due to the elk calving area so we decided to go to the nearby Annette Lake instead. On the way to the Maligne Lake Road turnoff to head to the lake we ran into another jam so stopped and got some pictures. What was nice about this grouping was that there was both a buck (with antlers in velvet) and a calf in the group. We don’t if this is a family group or if they just happened to be in the same vicinity.

We continued on to Annette Lake and hiked completely around the shore of the lake (about 1.5 miles or so)…the lake is roughly triangular in shape. Here is a series of shots from various viewpoints as we walked around…we were really impressed by the colors and reflections of the mountains as well as the really nice shots with the mountains in the background as the afternoon got better and better…this series of shots covers just about 360 degrees around the lake.

Along the way we spotted an abandoned nest; due to the size we are pretty sure it belonged to an eagle.

and then at about the same location as the 3rd lake shot (the one taken between the trees above) we spotted a bald eagle soaring over the lake. Don’t know what it was doing…it was likely too high to be hunting for something to eat…so it was just likely just soaring over it’s domain.

With that our hike around Annette Lake was done so we headed off to our second destination for the day…Pyramid Lake. Along the way we spotted a couple of pictures that I’m putting in here for our reader Neil’s older brother Ron. He commented on the blog a day or two ago and wondered why all these really picturesque lakes must be chock full of trout and there must be really good fishin’ in them. We haven’t spotted many fishermen on the lakes and rivers but we did see these two so Neil grabbed pictures of them. No word on whether either of them had any luck or went home empty handed…and the first one looks an awful lot like novelist Tom Clancy.

Once we arrived at the far end of Pyramid Lake we walked across the short bridge to the island and hiked around the perimeter trail on the 5 or 6 acre island. Along the way we got a really great view of Pyramid Mountain. This mountain peak is maybe 2 miles from where the photo was taken…starting the climb almost immediately after the shoreline and rises 5,000 feet higher than the level of the lake. It’s pretty much a solid chunk of rock and looking at it we were pretty sure that you ain’t climbing it without equipment as it looks way too steep to hike up. Here are a series of 3 pictures zooming in a bit for each one so you can see the inhospitability of the climb.

This is one of the two most impressive mountains we’ve seen on our trip west. It isn’t the tallest at only about 8500 feet or so but in terms of the abruptness of the rise and the elevation change over small distances is really almost at the top of the list. As you can see in the first shot it starts rising almost from the edge of the lake for about a mile then essentially goes straight up.

After that we crossed back to the car and went to the Jasper Brewing Company for dinner again; decided to save our leftovers from last night until tomorrow when we’ll be getting ready for a travel day on Friday. Based on a tip we got from a couple of locals who were birdwatching around Annette Lake we decided after dinner to have an evening wildlife safari out towards Maligne Lake again in hopes that more wildlife would be out as the sun started to go down. Our plans were partially successful but since it was only 1800 or so and it doesn’t get fully dark until 2300 it wasn’t quite as nice as we expected. Nonetheless; we did happen across another bull elk with what will truly be a magnificent rack once it gets out of velvet in the fall. This guy would be a trophy bull most places but is protected in the park.

and Connie’s favorite

As we headed back from our turnaround shortly after encountering this specimen we got a nice shot of the Maligne RIver as it cascades down the mountainside toward the Athabasca River

and then noticed this spectacular slot canyon right off the road…it’s about 15 feet wide and probably 200 feet deep.

Shortly after we got back onto Highway 16 for the drive back home we spotted the best view of Mount Edith Cavell that we’ve seen…it’s named after a World War I canadian hero (don’t know what she did) and Neil thinks it’s the best looking mountain here. It’s the snow covered one just left of center…all the snow you can see just below the shadow line is actually a glacier that is probably 200 or 300 feet thick ice. I’ll try to get a better picture when we’re a little farther south tomorrow or Friday as we drive to Banff but this is one of the few clear and sunny views we’ve had of this mountain although you can see it from just about anywhere we’ve been in the park.

After that we went home and watched some TV until bedtime. Don’t know what’s planned for tomorrow yet…we need to fuel up BAT, get some groceries, and get ready to travel on Friday and Connie also wants to work some more (she’s a bit behind due to lack of convenient internet in Canada)…but if the weather is clear like it’s supposed to be we’ll most likely do something fun as well.

Cyas.

Today was finally the kind of day we’ve been wanting to have here on our trip to the Canadian Rockies. Brilliant sunshine, temps in the upper 60s so it was warm enough for short sleeves and cool enough so that we really didn’t get sweaty while on the hike…and we saw lots of wildlife and cool views as well.

Our destination was Maligne Lake that we visited the other day in the rain…we talked about the possible hikes on the way out and decided on the Lorraine and Mona Lakes hike of about 3.5 miles. It’s an out and back on part of the Summit Trail…you’ll likely see caribou on the Summit Trail and the views are supposed to be great…but it’s 12 miles plus round trip and 1800 feet of elevation change up to the summit…so we passed on that one.

It’s about a 30 mile trip out to Maligne Lake from the campground so we headed out about 0930 or so. Our first stop was Medicine Lake where we stopped the other day on a cloudy, gloomy day…that’s the lake with the leads in the bottom that was the subject of Kara’s geology/science lesson the other day. Here’s a pano Neil grabbed so that you can see the beautiful reflections on the lake surface

and here’s one just taken with a normal wide angle lens so it lacks the distortion close to the bottom center that the pano introduces.

We continued on up the road; which runs just through the bright green trees you can see on the left side of the photo along the lake to the far end, then cuts right in front of the mountain at the far end of the lake and heads right out of this photo towards Maligne Lake. We stopped by the eagle nest which is in the trees on the left as well and could see the eaglets in the nest…they’re still in the gray downy feathers like you previously saw the eagles of Ozzie and Harriet down in Fort Myers…but the pictures were not that great so I am not going to post them. We did spot this little guy alongside the road though; he was chowing down on some berries about 10 feet off the road. Neil stopped for the jam, jumped out of the car and stood behind one of the other cars that was stopped and grabbed this shot.

A few more kilometers up the road Connie the Wildlife Spotter yelled “Stop, Moose!” So we did and spotted another moose with antlers in velvet so we grabbed a few photos.

then, right around the corner from the moose a couple of young mule deer trotted across the road so we shot them as well.

Arriving at Maligne Lake; we found the parking lot for the Lorraine/Mona Lake hike and headed up. Within the first 100 yards or so of the trail we spotted another mule deer.

and Neil got a shot of Connie heading up the pretty well maintained trail.

Our hike was about 3.5 miles total on an out and back with about 80 meters of elevation gain on the way out. We felt the gain although not as bad as yesterday as the elevation was spread out over the entire out section of the hike rather than all being crammed in a single kilometer or half mile like it was yesterday. A nice gentle grade that was not too bad in most places.

Arriving at the lakes that were our destination for lunch; we grabbed some shots of this little pond about 40 yards wide but probably 10 feet deep; then of Lorraine Lake, then of Mona Lake which was the most striking of the three.

We sat there for maybe 30 or 40 minutes resting and having lunch; then retraced our steps back to the parking lot. Luckily…it was mostly downhill on the return trip.

After grabbing a soda from the little store there we wandered down and got some pictures of Maligne Lake; first a few from right where the lake tour boats leave from and then one from the bridge over the Maligne River where the outlet of the lake heads down toward Medicine Lake and finally one looking downstream over the Maligne River toward Medicine Lake.

With that we headed home with a planned stop in Jasper to upload yesterday’s blog post and check email. On the way however; we ran into another jam and were able to get a few photos of this cute little guy.

We headed on down the road and arrived uneventfully at home.

After showers Neil made some Pork Picata with white cheese mashed ‘taters for dinner along with a wine cooler. Tomorrow it’s going to rain in the AM so we’re off to the coffee shop so Connie can work and then we have a couple short hikes for after lunch.

Cyas.

We were so happy when today dawned with pretty decent weather. There were some scattered clouds but mostly blue skies, the temps were forecast to be in the mid to upper 60s and no rain was predicted. So; after coffee and breakfast we headed out for our trip over to Meitte Valley. This is a valley on the far east side of the park back towards Edmonton and was about a 60 or 70 mile round trip…but things are just spread out up here so we headed out after filling the car with gas and finding a place to get diesel for BAT later in the week.

Our first stop was at the Snaring River about 6 miles east of the city of Jasper…where got some nice shots of the mountains and rushing waters.

Continuing on east on Highway 16 we encountered the first mountain goats we’ve seen on our trip…these are female Big Horn Sheep and were right by the side of the road. As you can see they’re shedding their winter wool so they look sort of scruffy…it took us awhile to figure out what they were doing but eventually it dawned on us that they were licking up leftover salt from the road treatment during the past winter.

After getting some pretty close up photos we continued on towards Meitte…coming around a bend a mile or two up the road we saw this beautiful vista of Jasper Lake which is on the north/west side of highway 16. The water in the lake was almost dead calm and the sun had come out pretty strongly so we got some really dramatic shots of the lake, mountains, and the reflections of mountains and clouds in the calm lake surface.

Wow was about all we could say here. When Neil hiked a hundred yards or so from the road down to the beach you see in these pictures he saw tracks of bear, elk, and some sort of cat…they resembled the bobcat tracks we had seen previously but were a bit larger so they were likely catamount or mountain lion tracks instead. No way to tell for sure since he’s not that good of a biologist and the owners of the feet making the tracks were not around any longer.

Arriving at the entrance to Meitte Valley our first stop was the abandoned Pocahontas Mine…we were unable to figure out from the signs what kind of mine this was but it was a company town mine so was either a large corporate gold mine or perhaps coal since we did see some coal lying around. We headed out on our 3 and 1/2 mile hike and almost immediately started climbing…the hike was essentially an out and back and we climbed over a ridge about 120 meters or so high almost right from the get go. Pretty steep; we had to stop and rest a couple of times but at least the elevation here is lower so we didn’t have quite as hard a time breathing as we did back in Colorado Springs. We grabbed a shot of the mountains across the other side of the valley as well as some pretty purple/pink flowers we saw.

and finally after about 2 miles or so came to what we thought would be a highlight of the hike…Punchbowl Falls. The fall is about 60 or 80 feet high and is on a stream very originally named as Mountain Creek. The lip is about 4 feet wide where the stream passes between two stone outcroppings then falls in 2 cascades down to the base. Unfortunately we could not get any decent pictures; the clearest view was from a bridge directly over the lip of the falls looking straight down…the best side shot Neil could get to without falling off the cliff (and he had to climb slightly outside of the “approved viewing area” to even get these) didn’t really give a very good view of the falls either. Nonetheless…any waterfall is a good waterfall is what we always say so here are the photos even though they aren’t the best views we’ve ever gotten. First is the vertical looking almost straight down shot and then the side shot from out on the left side as seen in the vertical shot.

It was actually a pretty decent fall…we just couldn’t get anywhere we could get a decent view of it for a photo. C’est la vie. To actually reach the falls we had to come down about 1/3 of the way off the ridge we climbed before…so we debated whether to hike back up the ridge and then return to the parking lot via the trail in the woods or whether to just hike straight down the road to the parking area. The shorter, all down hill trek down the road won out…the clincher was that we were getting hungry and wanted to get down to the Meitte Hot Springs area before we ate lunch and that was another 17 kilometers down a road with a speed limit of 50. So we hiked down the road grabbing a picture of some Lady Slipper flowers on the way,

hopped in the car and headed out to Meitte Hot Springs. Unfortunately; the hot springs pretty much were a bust; the springs themselves are hidden and the water is piped into a swimming pool arrangement so there were no good pictures to be had. We stopped and had lunch while watching a red tailed squirrel keep picking up pieces of bread that had been left at another picnic table, running up a tree, eating half of the piece and then hiding the remainder up in the tree, then running back down to get another piece. Here’s the best shot we got of the squirrel and also a shot of the Aligarth Ridge which is an almost vertical 4000 or so feet tall cliff bordering the left side of the road as it heads toward the hot springs. We looked up there for some mountain goats since Neil wanted to find some but no luck.

After lunch we headed back towards home and shortly after getting back off of Meitte Hot Springs Road and turning south onto Highway 16 again we figured out where the mountain goats were…they were hanging out right next to the road on Highway 16! These are Rock Mountain Goats…we couldn’t figure out whether they are male or female as both have identical horns. Notice how they walk around seemingly unconcerned on rock slopes that a person would have a hard time standing on, much less walking or running across. This group of about 12 or 15 were about 25 yards away and maybe 20 feet off the level of the road but are on a pretty sleep slope feeding.

Continuing on down the road we came across another spot where 2 cars were pulled over…we’ve learned that out here this means there’s something worthwhile to see so we (amazingly enough) joined the pulled over crowd where we spotted this moose lying down about 30 yards from the road. The antlers are still growing and are covered with velvet still; in another couple of months they will reach full size and then the blood vessels will dry up and the antlers will harden to the bone like consistency one normally thinks of antlers as…when they’re in velvet they’re soft like a finger would be.

Neil stood around for a few minutes talking to this couple from India hoping the moose would get up; all you can see in the photo above is the antlers and ear, the nose pointing to the right, and a little bit of the shoulders. No luck there…but by hanging around for a few he did spot this Bald Eagle flying by and was able to get a couple of frames although it was pretty far away; he cropped these so it’s not just a brown dot but no so much as to completely blow out the resolution.

We finally gave up and headed home…but again spotted the pulled over group of cars so stopped and looked to our left and saw this male Big Horn Sheep and his harem. This was about the same location as the first set of female Big Horn photos so it’s possible that this is the same group that was joined by the male.

Neil climbed up behind them and got 1 decent shot…then naturally they climbed down to the road to eat some salt and walked about 4 feet from Connie sitting in the car. Neil scampered down the cliff and got a few more before we headed for home.

And with that our day of hiking and Mountain Goats was done. We dropped off the cameras at home and went down to the Brewery for dinner…our original plan was to make panko crusted pork pounded thin with some noodles…but that’s not a very quick dinner so we saved it for tomorrow and had a couple of brews, fish and chips, and steak frites.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another nice day…so we’ll do something but haven’t figured it out yet.

Cyas.