Banff and Johnston Canyon

After the epic lap around the Southern half of Utah we had a rest day in Calgary yesterday. This morning we set off for the mountains early. Our plan is to make the most of four days to show Julie our favourite spots in the mountain parks. Today we concentrated our efforts around Banff. It was a serious contrast to the red rocks and bone dry dessert of Utah. Utah was a fantastic experience but it was kind of comforting to be back in the green forest & snow capped mountains.

The Three Sisters

As always, the road to Banff includes passing through Canmore, the gateway to the Mountains. With clear skies, we made a small detour so we could get a nice view of The Three Sisters. Notice that there's absolutely no snow on the peaks in this shot. More on that later.

Johnston Canyon

Initially we bypassed Banff and continued along the Bow Valley Parkway as far as Castle Junction. In the shadow of Castle Mountain is one of our favourite short waterfall walks, Johnston Canyon.

We arrived at Johnston Canyon early which is always a good idea because it gets overrun most days. I had been back there with the DSLR camera a couple of times with mixed results, but usually the ice and snow combined with poor weather made it impossible to get the postcard shots I was after. Today, the conditions were perfect. We were even able to capture rainbows in a few of them, including Lower Falls (above).

This is one of my favourite waterfalls in Johnston Canyon. I like the hole in the rock that the left rapid runs through.

The photos I took this time around with the DSLR were so much clearer and the colours much more vibrant than previous efforts. The conditions helped but I think the better camera and a better understanding of photography definitely had as much impact.

Got it! The Upper Falls, on a clear day with a rainbow! 4th time lucky...

And the last of the falls. This one is just above the Upper Falls.

Vermilion Lakes

From Johnston Canyon we went back to Banff for lunch but not before a divert to nearby Vermilion Lakes (with Rundle mountain in the background). It was still quite a clear enough day and the breeze stayed away as well.

Banff

Of course we had to do the main street of Banff and the merchandising shops. Not my favourite past time, but I do these things to humour women when I have to.Below is Julie doing the inevitable tourist thing and having her photo taken with a stuffed moose.

Castle Mountain

We've booked a couple of nights at Lake Louise, so we set off from the Banff area and headed out along the Trans-Canada. We managed to catch a clear view of Castle Mountain in the process.

Osprey at Castle Junction

At Castle Junction, we crossed over to the Bow Valley Parkway. The short road crosses the Bow River with the bridge pictured. I've become pretty accustomed to spotting animals and this was no exception. If you look at the top of the bridge close enough, you'll see a big bird's nest.

In the nest was a pair of Osprey. Osprey are a bit scarce the world over, so this was a real treat.

Osprey are almost exclusive fish eaters. This pair had a trout up in the nest and you may see one of them with the tail in its mouth (above).

Bow Valley Wildlife Spotting

After our Osprey sighting we headed along the Bow Valley Parkway to look for more animals. We weren't disappointed. This black bear was grazing on a clearing just off the side of the road. It may not look like it, but this one is definitely a black bear. Its coat looks a lot like a grizzly, but the black bears have a significant range of colour variants. It was good that our visitor was able to see a bear regardless of what type.
It was getting late so it was off to the hotel to check in and have dinner. It was a decent start to our trip.

We're staying at one of the hotels up near Lake Louise itself so we took some time to check out the lake before to light finally disappeared. The evening has become overcast and cold. I hope these aren't ominous signs.

Bryce Canyon

We stayed in Cedar City over night (not too much of note there), and with another long day on the road, we set off early. This morning the main focus was Bryce Canyon.

Red Rock Canyon.

After an hour and a half of driving we came upon this sight. It was the first inkling of what Bryce Canyon was going to be like. This is Red Rock Canyon just outside Bryce Canyon National Park. The bright blue skies, dark green trees & red-orange rock formations make for a nice setting. I even managed to get a shot with a bright red Mustang.

Bryce Canyon

The photo above shows what Bryce Canyon is about. Multiple amphitheaters with 1000s of limestone spires. The limestone in the area is very soft and the elements are working very hard to tear them apart leaving an amazing array of strange shapes. This photo was taken from Bryce Point, which is one of many lookout points in the park. It looks back to Sunrise Point, Sunset Point and Inspiration Point. Bryce Canyon is the top tier of the Grand Staircase at 2900m above sea level, and the all lookout points look out over the lower plateau.

Thor's Hammer

It may be a little hard to pick out in the photo above but there's a rock spire called Thor's Hammer.

Sunrise Point

Sunrise point was one of the first lookout points we went to. From there you get to see some of the strange formations at close range.

I took the photo above from Sunrise Point with the long lens. The typical colour strata in the rocks were particularly evident here. I like the almost Mars like look to this part of the canyon. The only thing that gives it away is the trees clinging to life in the crevices.

Inspiration Point

Inspiration point definitely follows the amphitheater mold.

Check out the castle like formations in this photo. They are about as big as a castle as well.

The girls didn't look that inspired. I think they were a bit over orange/red rocks after four days of it. Besides, there was no crazy overhang to dangle off.

Bryce Point

Bryce Point is probably the biggest of the spiky amphitheaters. It is also the high point of the park at 8300 ft. At this elevation the trees do it tough. The weather is more brutal than even the Grand Canyon North Rim.

Paria Point

Nothing too much to say about Paria Point other than it's a nice view as are most of the lookout points.

Swamp Canyon

Swamp Canyon was much more heavily vegetated.

Natural Bridge

Natural Bridge is yet another arch in Utah. Apparently it's been mis-named and should actually be called an arch, not a bridge.

Agua Canyon

Agua Canyon is one of the prettier outlooks. We all liked the pink panther.

Ponderosa Canyon

Rainbow Point

At the far southern extent of the National Park road is Rainbow Point. It has the widest view of all the lookouts.

Black Birch Canyon

By the time we reached Black Birch Canyon, they were all starting to look the same.

Another Long Drive

We had to leave Bryce Canyon fairly early because we had to drive some five hours north back to Salt Lake City. We stopped for lunch just outside the park gate and pigged out on a smorgasbord (thinking we may not have too many options for dinner, and we turned out to be right).

I had borrowed a GPS off Shane which had proven pretty handy up until that point. I'd studied a local road map pretty carefully and saw a nice direct route back to Salt Lake City. The girl on the GPS didn't agree. She kept telling me to back track and take the long way. It was making me nervous, but I stuck to my guns. I figured that the GPS tries to take you along well maintained roads, not secondary farm access roads. This one was sealed, but we did come across a road block (above). It was a minor inconvenience considering the half hour it saved us on the drive.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful to the point of being dead boring. The land is very flat away from the southern part of Utah. The only point of note was that we were back in the city just in time for peak hour. For god fearing Mormons, they drive more like morons.

We handed back the keys to our trusty 4Runner and caught the evening flight back home. We're only in Calgary tonight and tomorrow night before we are off to the mountains.

Zion National Park

This morning we said good-bye to Page as we crossed the Glen Canyon bridge. We set out West along the UT/AZ border and a couple of hours later arrived at Zion National Park. Zion is one of the real gems of the multitude of national parks in the area. It forms a water catchment for the surrounding area and consequently plant life thrives.

The road accessible part of Zion is quite small yet it's very popular with tourists. Some years ago the National Parks people decided to close the roads to private vehicles and started a free bus service to cut down the traffic in the park. It works really well, because the buses stop at every point of interest or hiking trail head in the southern section of the park. All you do is park your car in the car park and hop on the buses for the day. Apparently the animals have since returned to the park and the CO2 levels have dropped as well. The Americans aren't renowned for their environmental conservation, but in this case it's a master stroke. In my case, I was already starting to get sick of driving so taking the day off and sitting on a bus here and there was a welcome change.

The Court of the Patriarchs

Our first lookout point was the Court of the Patriarchs. You'll notice from the photo above in particular that the top of the peaks are white and the lower rock layers are a deep red. It's pretty typical pattern for southern Utah and is as a result of the differing history of the area. Originally most of North America was a shallow ocean then as the tectonic plates moved around and collided with each other. It ended up being a huge plateau well over a 1000m above sea level.

The small river that cut this beautiful valley has created some incredible scenery. Above is the relatively (when compared with the Colorado River) small stream that has cut the Zion Valley. As a comparison, the Grand Canyon is roughly 1 mile (1.6kms) deep. The peaks above this little stream tower over a kilometre above us! It's quite the place.

Saddle Back

The red rock in the middle foreground is called Saddle Back. It's popular with hikers that like a bit of adventure. Directly behind it is the Great White Throne.

Emerald Pools

Our first short hike for the day was to the Emerald Pools. There are three pools in all. Lower, Middle and Upper Emerald pools. They're very imaginative with their names in America. The Middle Pools (below) run off a 10m cliff forming the waterfall above dropping into the Lower pool.

 

The pools themselves aren't that interesting, but the settings are pretty nice, particularly the Upper Pool (above) that has an incredible cliff face that towers above it (below).

The Weeping Rock

The Weeping Rock is another of the garden water features of the park. The water filters through the rock layers and falls off this ledge 100s of years later.

The River Walk

We messed up at Zion. Despite some good advice, I had thought that Emerald Pools was a "Must Do" but in fact it was the River Walk. By the time we got to it, the temperature was nudging 40C, we were all a bit dehydrated and some a bit sun burnt. Time was also our enemy as we had to see the northern section of the park on the way to Cedar City. We did go part the way along the path to the point where the path stops and the stream becomes the path. Considering how hot the ambient temperature was, the water was incredibly cold.

Virgin, UT

This oddity is something of a tourist attraction just outside the entrance of the main part of Zion Nation Park. It's odd to the point of being creepy.

Toquerville, UT

Yet another SW Utah anomaly. This is the rare North American Shoe Tree. This particular specimen is just near the town of Toquerville Utah. You've got to wonder who starts these things.

Kolob Canyon

The north western part of Zion has a road that the public can drive all the way along, but rarely do. We reached Kolob Canyon late in the day and found it to be just as good as the main (southern) part of the park with less people.

Above and below makes up part of the view from the far end of the Kolob Canyon Road. We stayed for quiet some time to take in the view. It topped off a fantastic, if hot, day. I'd love to come back some day in the cooler months, do a few hikes and explore some more. What a great place!