Banff

The times we have stayed in Banff for the weekend, we've chosen to stay at The Inns Of Banff Hotel. No big deal. The freaky thing is that my cousin Lauren spent 6 months in Banff on a working holiday a couple of years back. Of the many hotels in Banff (and there are stacks of them) she used to work at the very hotel we've been staying at.
Like I said. It's a small world.

We had a nice view from the balcony of the (upgraded) room this time around.

The hotel above is one that I've seen in plenty of travel books and advertisements, the Fairmount Banff Springs. The funny thing is, of all the times I've been to Banff, I've never seen it. On our way home to Calgary we took a slightly different road to normal and stumbled on this famous hotel. The photo below is taken across Bow Falls at Surprise Bend.

You may remember a photo of Piss Weak World (The Hoodoos) near Drumhellar. The Hoodoos near Banff (left of picture) are bigger and much better preserved. I'm still not that impressed by the whole concept.
The photo was taken more for the island in the middle of the bow river than the hoodoos.

Emerald Lake

On Sunday we headed off early to try to beat the tourist crowds. It worked! When we arrived at Emerald lake, there were less than ten cars in the car park. Awesome! Last time we were there, the place was packed.

Being quite early, it was still quite cold and the morning sun reflecting of the lake with the mist rising, was an unexpected bonus.

This shot is the one on all the postcards of Emerald lake. Mine didn't quite turn out quite as well. I think the commercial shots are taken in the colder months when there's snow on the peaks and in the afternoon when the sun doesn't wash out the peaks. Also, the beautiful green colour of the lake is masked in this shot by the perfect reflection of the mountains.

You'll also notice that the reflection is actually clearer than the true landscape. Odd yes? I clearly have much to learn about photography. I guess that's why you pay the big bucks for the flash camera with the ability to deal with difficult lighting conditions.

The 5.8 km circuit of Emerald lake is fairly flat making the walk quite enjoyable and relaxing. We walked the circuit in the opposite direction to the guide books to avoid being caught behind other hikers. The first half took us through a forest that was very different to the stands of fir trees that cover most of the national parks we have been to so far. It was more jungle like, and a bit like the rain-forests back home.

Pictured behind me is a fallen tree. I am guessing the ground under it became too soft and the wind got the better of it. Many of the trees in the Rockies are hundreds of years old, and this one would be one of them. It's a bit sad when you think about it, but that's nature for you.

As we were walking through the forest we kept seeing and hearing animals and birds around us. The squirrels we the noisiest, but the chipmunks were the boldest. This little guy wasn't at all worried by our presence and actually ran up to us for a sticky beak. He bolted after he worked out that we weren't going to give him a snack and went about his business again.
This chipmunk is the same species that we saw near Drumhellar a few weeks ago. We found out why they're listed as common. They were everywhere!

The wander around the lake has many spots to stop, enjoy the scenery and ponder.

This is another shot from Emerald Lake. I was trying to capture the green colour of the lake, but it was very hard that early in the morning with the lack of light.

Emerald Lake has some very nice accommodation in the form of a series of 2 level villas right on the lake (below). I imagine it would be quite a sight to wake up to. The only snag is the price. They start at $379 per night. Ouch!!

Pictured below is a gap in the forest where frequent avalanches roll down the hill and knock down anything that even looks like a tree. The result is a meadow where animals such as moose and deer can graze on the grasses.

Emerald lake is one of those places in the mountains that you just want to keep coming back to. Unfortunately the tourist operators know it so getting there early is a must if you want to enjoy it at its beautiful best.

Sundance Canyon

We stayed at The Inns of Banff Hotel in Banff. It was the same place we stayed last time we visited. This time they gave us a better room with great views (below).

Last time we stayed there, we were out driving so late that we didn't get a chance to appreciate the place. This time around we decided to relax a bit and not try to cram so much into every day. We basically did a hike in the mornings and kicked back in the afternoons. The hotel has two pools and a spa. The outdoor pool is hot and is going to be great in winter after a hard day's snowboarding. It turned out to be pretty handy on sore hiker's legs as well.

Saturday's morning hike was Sundance Canyon, only a couple of kms from the centre of Banff. It is an asphalt bike path for most of the way and relatively flat compared to the previous day's adventure. Along the way the path runs alongside the Bow River and a marsh area. I couldn't help but take yet another reflection shot.

The weather forecast was for rain. I guess they got it wrong again! It turned out to be the best weather for the trip.

At the end of the 3.5 km walk along the bike path from Banff, we reached the Sundance Canyon circuit. The first kilometre of the circuit is the pick of the scenery climbing sharply through the main canyon, then along beside the creek. Eventually it turns on itself and leads to a lookout point (and I use "lookout" very loosely). It's a fairly average view of the Bow Valley.

Below is a bridge above the main canyon/falls. It was made more interesting with the morning sun coming through the trees reflecting off the mist.

Lake Louise & Lake Agnes

This weekend Kerri and I hired a car, booked some accommodation in Banff and disappeared into the mountains for four days. This morning we left Calgary and drove straight to Lake Louise. The usual hoards of snap happy tourists in front of the Fairmount we there as usual for this time of year, but that was to be expected.
Immediately we left the tourists behind and headed up the Lake Agnes Tea house Trail. It is quite a tough hike gaining 400m vertically along the 3.5 km trail. When you get close to the top you come out of the forest at Mirror Lake (which is very uninteresting). From there you can see the Big Beehive (below) and the top of the escarpment that the tea house sits.

As you head a bit further up the trail you see the Lake Agnes Falls (pictured slightly right of centre in the photo above) and just to the right of that, the tea house. The Falls run off the escarpment at the tea house down to Mirror lake below. Truth be told, they aren't the most spectacular falls we've seen over the last couple of months, but at least they distract you from the last steep section of climb.

Finally the top of the trail. The Tea House sits at the outlet stream of Lake Agnes above the Falls. Our legs were burning and we were quite glad to rest for a little while. Unfortunately for Kerri (my little tea addict), the tea we had come for was horrendously expensive and it was decided to drink some water instead.
The outlook across Lake Agnes (below) was really quite nice. There are a couple of trail options from this point, one of which is to skirt the right side of the lake and up and over the ridge to the left of shot. You can branch off this trail and climb to the top of the beehive. Not really an option by that stage. Maybe another day. We instead headed down the steeper of two paths back to Mirror Lake. Fortunately we had followed the easier one coming up.

After descending back to Mirror Lake we hiked along the high-line trail toward the valley at the far end of Lake Louise. About a kilometre along the trees gave way to this view. We were about 400m above the lake at this point and could see quite far down the Bow Valley toward Banff.

The photo below shows the incredible turquoise colour that is typical for most of the lakes in Banff National Park. You'll notice the Fairmount at the far end of the lake. Fortunately the tourists are very hard to see when you are this far away (about 2.5 kms.)

If you look at the big hill behind the hotel, you will notice it is scathed by a bunch of tracks through the trees. That is actually the Lake Louise Ski area. Expect some pictures from there in winter. It's likely to be one of my favoured ski resorts around these parts.

After a the relatively flat high-line trail, we descended down a rugged and steep trail back to the head of Lake Louise. Unfortunately we met up with another trail about half way down and mistakenly gave way to a tour group on horses. The horses were a bit unsteady on the steep track and they slowed us down quite a bit. To make matters, they kept leaving little land mines along the way that stunk something rotten.

Fortunately, at the bottom of the descent, the tour guide stopped the horses for a drink in the glacial stream that feeds the lake.

Winter's Coming

Today's weather has been average to say the least. Top temp today has been 11 deg C and raining. It reminded me of a typical winter's day in Perth. Cold, wet and windy. Basically miserable. The snag is that we are still a week out from the end of summer! It's similar weather to when we arrived in Canada back in the first week of June. No wonder the locals get so excited by summer!
Some of the trees have already started to turn yellow. Maybe a sign that nature knows exactly what's just around the corner.
I'm told we still have at least a month before things start to really serious and I hope they're right.

S.W.A.T.

Yesterday I headed down to the Ski shop again with the intent of setting myself up a bit better for Snowboarding in a little over two months. I was hoping to get gloves, goggles, a balaclava and a helmet. I didn't get the first couple, but I did get the last two.
I seem to have a habit of buying black clothing at the moment. Consequently I will look like a S.W.A.T. officer when I go snowboarding. So be it. Maybe the kids will stay out of my road when I'm boarding.

House Plants

While we were doing a big shop (we have a car for the weekend), Kerri decided that we should have some house plants. She picked out the three pictured. Not the fanciest of plant types, but they should be pretty hardy. (I'm a little concerned about them getting enough light in winter.) We potted them up and set them up around the house. It should break up the endless white that's going to become second nature to us during winter.

Drumheller

Today Shane and I headed out to Drumheller Valley.
Drumheller is the heart of Alberta Dinosaur country. The area is a bonanza for fossils. The Alberta prairies were at one time the bottom of the ocean and a lush rain-forest at another. The area is prime country for fossil deposits and, not coincidentally, petroleum and gas deposits.
The hour and a half trip out there is quite boring and the roads dead straight. The endless wheat fields and cattle paddocks were broken up by the odd farm house, wheat silo and "Donkeys". A Donkey is an oil well and they are scattered all over the place on the Alberta Prairies. Notice in the photo below, the flare stack in the background between the telegraph poles.

Drumheller Valley

The Drumheller Valley was created by a glacier during the last ice age. All that remains of the glacier is the valley and the Red Deer River that runs through Drumheller. It's quite odd really, because you drive for an hour and half across the featureless prairie and then out of nowhere a great ravine appears.

Horseshoe Canyon (above), Horsethief Canyon (below), and most of the valley is very similar looking. The bonus for the bone hunters is that the bulk excavation has been done by nature exposing the rich fossil fields.
Unfortunately the weather was getting a bit wintery and the photos all came out hazy like these ones.

The first point of interest we came to was Horseshoe Canyon. I walked down to the floor of the canyon to have a bit of a nosy.
While I was there Shane spotted some movement near me. I managed to get pretty close and snapped a couple of shots. This little creature is about the size of my hand including its tail, but it was fast! It looked much like the ground squirrel from the previous day, but with a much longer tail and pointy nose. I had no idea what it was at the time. Fortunately, Wikipedia had some answers. As it turns out, this busy little creature is a Least Chipmunk.

Royal Tyrrell Museum

The whole point of going out to Drumheller is to visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
The Royal Tyrrell houses most of the fossil finds from Alberta's Badlands (Drumheller and Dinosaur Provincial Park 150km to the south east). It is reportedly the world's best Fossil Museum in the world. I'll caution that in North America, "The World" could mean just North America. I will say it's pretty impressive and they use the actual fossils, not replicas like most museums use.
This photo is a T-Rex. Pretty intimidating when you stand next to it.

It should be noted that The Royal Tyrrell isn't a dinosaur museum as much as a fossil museum. They have laid it out so that you start with the most ancient fossils (such as the one pictured) and as you work your way around you trace the steps of evolution right through to present day.
The shell pictured is a brilliant example of the animal fossil being replaced by minerals to produce a beautiful gem.

The early exhibits include the first amphibians like the one pictured. These were some of the first vertebrates to walk the earth.
I didn't do too much reading of the information on the exhibits due to the hoards of people. Luckily I had Discovery Channel back in Oz and used to watch Paleoworld. These days I have a fairly sound knowledge of prehistoric evolution.

Dimetrodon is a member of the pseudo-mammals that are descended from reptiles. They're a separate branch to Dinosaurs and eventually gave rise to mammals. These ones are very cool and have the big sail on their back. A theory is that they used the sail to control blood temperature (a mammalian trait).

Here's one of the classics. Stegosaurus!
Anyone who hasn't heard of a Stegosaurus has got to be kidding me.

Another classic. There are four dinosaurs that everyone remembers. T-Rex, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus and this one, Triceratops. Brontosaurus was notable by its absence, but the others were all there.

I couldn't help but post this one. Notice my snap happy mate, Shane in the right of shot. Usually Kerri's pocket digital camera is a match for Shane's DSLR with the postcard shots, but when you are in low light and need a wider angle, the expensive gear wins all the time.

The exhibits go right up to near present day. The mammoth is one of a number of animals from the Pixar movie "Ice Age" that were on display. Notice the sabre tooth tiger toward the back of shot.
I think I'll have to go back when there aren't so many people/kids at the museum and spend some time soaking it all in properly.

The Hoodoos are supposedly a major geographic wonder. Really?? I immediately saw it and said to Shane, "If that's it, I'm going to feel ripped off". Sure enough, that was it and I did feel ripped off. I said to Shane, "It reminds me of Piss Weak World".
The most disappointing thing is that these structures are so fragile and the parks people let people walk all over them (well mostly). There's even graffiti on them.

In all, a worthwhile day out in the prairies.

Kananaskis Country

I hired a car for the weekend again. I am onto the cheap weekend deals now. You can hire a car for about $26 per day plus insurance. It makes it pretty affordable but I still need to get myself a car.
So today we set off early (too early for Kerri) and headed out toward Banff. Instead of doing our usual trek to Banff & Lake Louise, we turned off just before the mountains & headed south into Kananaskis country. It is a provincial park, not a national Park. The difference is that you don't need to pay for a parks pass & the government seem to have a dam on every lake.
There are a bunch of camping spots along the road (Route 40).

The one that was most noteworthy was near the Nakiska ski resort, called "Beaver Ponds". It isn't too hard to work out where the name came from. There are a number of these beaver dams (I assume they are real beaver dams) in the area. We didn't see any of the local residents, but they only come out at night or dawn & dusk.

The Kananaskis Trail (Route 40) has nowhere near the spectacular scenery of the Icefield Parkway, but it is worth a sticky beak anyway. The road runs north-south along the first valley into the Rockies. It's flanked on both sides by sharp mountain ranges like the one pictured (Kananaskis Range). They all look grey & dirty like the one pictured and, as for the Icefield Parkway, are not particularly nice looking at this time of year. I'm very keen to have a drive through here when there is some snow on the peaks. Another month or so should do it.

We were about to turn off to the road that runs along beside the Kananaskis lakes when Kerri spotted some wildlife beside the road, right at the turn off. This mob of Big Horn Sheep were just going about their business beside the road. They aren't the prettiest animals, but they are native & protected in the parks. I didn't see any of the males with the rally big horns amongst this lot.

The Upper & Lower Kananaskis lakes are probably the highlight of the drive through Kananaskis Country. They have the turquoise tint to them that the lakes in Banff National Park epitomise. The lower lake (below) is the longer of the two and appears to be quite a popular fishing spot. The upper lake feeds into it via a Hydro-electric generation plant located just to the left of picture
It's not bad, but when you compare it to the Glacial Lakes in Banff National Park, it just isn't in the hunt.
Note the ranges left and right as far as the eye can see.

The Upper Lake is the prettier of the two with some rugged peaks behind it & a some more interesting vegetation & shoreline. The peaks in picture still have some traces of ice left as they don't get much sun even at this time of year. Again this lake is pretty popular with the fisher folk.

Kerri and I were walking along the dam wall of the Upper Kananaskis lake admiring the view. I had dropped behind a little when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye.

I had seen one of these Golden-mantle Ground Squirrels at Moraine Lake a few weeks back. This one was ultra-cheeky. I stopped to have a look and grabbed the camera. While I was fumbling around with the camera, he came up really close to me. I snapped off a couple of picks & crouched down. He came right up and I held my hand out. He actually put his front feet up on my fingers. I suspect he had been fed by tourists before because he scuttled off all disappointed when there was nothing to offer. He came back a couple of times after that. I guess he either had a short memory, or was just hoping he'd get a different result.
I have always been an animal lover and a close encounter with any kind of wild creature, big or small, has always been a thrill. It made my day.

Today's trip started and ended in Calgary. We headed West on the Trans-Canada to the mountains, then South along Kananaskis Trail. We had to get back to Calgary through farmland to the SW of the city for about 75 kms. Along the way we saw the typical farms that you see anywhere on the prairies.
About 3/4 of the way back we saw a bunch of people parked & out of their cars looking at a little pond. I didn't know what it was all about, but eventually saw movement at the edge of the pond. By the ears & the head, I instantly knew what it was.

If you hadn't guessed already, you will know now. This young moose added another tick box to the Canadian animals we've seen so far. I'm guessing he/she is a bit over a year old. I'm not a moose expert, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was its first season away from its mother.
It was the last place I expected to see one of these animals & was under the impression that they only lived north of the North Saskatchewan River. How wrong I was. I'm guessing we were about 40kms south of Calgary.

This picture reminded me of the TV show set in the north of Alaska called "Northern Exposure". The start of the show had footage of a moose walking down the main street.
I'm sure we'll get to see more Canadian wildlife in a couple of weeks when we spend four days in and around Banff. (I have another four day weekend coming up.).