Resurection Bay

Early this morning we set of on a cruise around Resurrection bay. We were on a small boat (run by our lodge) that only carried about 12 people. It seemed like a good idea when I booked it but the weather wasn't kind to us and prevented us heading out to the exposed coastline of Kenai Fjords National Park. The cruise is advertised to run from 7am to 6pm. We were back on dry land by 1pm. What was worse, they gouged us big time for the privilege.
On the positive side, the time we were on the cruise, we saw a heap of cool wildlife and scenery. The weather just made it difficult to head out to the exposed coastline or take nice photos.

Our first animals were otters. we'd probably been under way for 5 minutes before we saw out first one. These two in picture were huddling together to keep warm and I guess being mammals, for comfort. I'm guessing that these two are a mother and an offspring.

During the first part of the cruise, we saw lots of otters. This one was very co-operative. Otters don't have any fur on they're paws or nose and do actually get cold despite living in the icy water all their lives. It explains why you tend to see them laying on their backs with their paws in the air and why this one had his front paws in his mouth.

There's some really beautiful scenery in Resurrection Bay including some steep cliffs and a bunch of waterfalls. The pair above is called Twin Falls. Imagine how pretty this would be without the horrible weather.

ome of the cool scenery even had wildlife on it. This pinnacle was home to a pair of bald eagles. Look for the two white heads on the top peak.

These three mountain goats were cowering on the cliff under a ledge trying to keep out of the rain. This photo isn't that great thanks to the long range, the crappy weather and the rocking boat.

These Harbour Seals were in a cove about as far out of the bay that we could go. They were quite skittish and it meant that we couldn't get that close to them.
You may have noticed by now the brilliant green colour of the water in the photos. The ocean is so rich up there with the cold water welling up from the deep just off the coast. The algae and everything up the food chain thrives and give the water the vibrant colour.

They're technically not Seagulls but they are of the gull family. They're called Kittywakes. This was a rookery at the south east entrance to Resurrection Bay. The white rock in picture is covered in the nesting birds and the air was thick with them like swarm of midges. There were 1000s of the little blighters. Oh and they stink like rotting fish! As do most seabirds.

 Among the 1000s of stinky gulls but higher up on the rocks were nesting tufted puffins. These guys are kind of odd. They fly kind of awkward, but they can dive & swim nearly as well as penguins. By the way, there aren't any penguins this side of the equator. We also saw the larger horned Puffins.

Right next door to the stinky fish beaks were a family of Steller Sea Lions. These guys are pretty big for Sea Lions, particularly the bulls. There's only one bull in each rookery and you don't have to look to hard to find him in this photo. They can weigh up to 1.1 tonnes. Steller Sea Lions are endangered and this particular family has a live video feed back to the Alaska Sea Life Centre so the biologists (and visitors) can study them 24-7.

In case you were wondering, the difference between a Sea Lion and a Seal is one can walk on land (Sea Lion) and one has to flop (Seal). It's all about the Sea Lion being able to use its legs for more than swimming. Simple hey? I only found out for sure when I was in Alaska.

The weather became progressively worse until getting out of the heated cabin of the boat to see wildlife far away through driving rain and icy wind simply wasn't worth the hassle. So it was back to shore and a hot shower.

Alaska Sea Life Centre

Seward is home to the Alaska Sea Life Centre. The main purpose is to rehabilitate injured wildlife, but the general public can visit with the entry fees going toward funding the work. Just about every local marine animal that can be kept in captivity was represented with the exception of the Sea Otter. They had Harbour Seals, Steller Sea Lion bull (above), Tufted Puffins, Horned Puffins, Common Murres, King Eider Ducks, and a bunch of fish, sharks and rays in a series of tanks. It was pretty well done considering how small the facility was. Incidentally, the common Murre is about as close to a penguin as you can find this side of the equator. They can swim and dive nearly as well, but they can still fly.... just. They're even more hopeless in the air than the puffins.

Harbour Seal

Eider Duck

Common Murre

Horned Puffin

Tufted Puffin.

It was nice to see some of the animals up close without being battered by the wind and rain.

Wildlife spotting on the way to Seward

After a weird night that only had a couple hours of dark, we got going early and picked up a hire car. Today we headed for Seward where we are to spend the next two nights. We took advantage of the yummy free muffins at the hotel in Anchorage & stashed them in the car for 'ron (later on). It started overcast like when we'd arrived the previous day, but I thought nothing of it at the time.

Not long into our journey we spotted our first Moose for the day. It was messing around in some swampy ground between the highway and the railway tracks.

Our first moose was a bull and being early in the season, his antlers hadn't grown much. It was still a moose. Tick.

On the way down to Seward we took a short divert along Kenai Lake (above) and the Kenai River. My hope was that the salmon run had started and we would catch sight of a bear or two fishing. Unfortunately, no go. We did, however, see more moose. At Cooper Landing, twice we saw a moose cow with twin calves next to the river. It wasn't bears, but it was still pretty cool. The calves in the shot below are no more than a couple of days old.

After Cooper Landing we back tracked back to the Seward Highway, then headed roughly south through a number of interesting mountain passes. Unfortunately, the further south we went, the heavier the rain fell.

About the last point of interest before arriving in Seward is the Exit Glacier (above). It's a bit of a divert from the main road, but worth the drive (there's not much else to do in Seaward). It's one of many glaciers that run off the Harding Ice Field on the Kenai Peninsular.

Seward

Seward is an odd place. It has a strange mix of industry and tourism that makes for a somewhat strange looking seaside town/port.

The day cruise boat above is one of probably 8 that are lined up side by side behind this one and it soon became obvious why there were so many in such a seemingly isolated part of the planet. The cruise liners are in and out of Seward non stop in summer (lucky we are here a couple of weeks before it gets really busy).

It's apparent that the Cruise ship arrives early in the morning, disgorges it's passengers onto the day boats, loads up a new load of passengers and takes off in the afternoon. Totally not my scene. I can't imagine anything worse than being herded around with 4,000 other sheep.
Seward is also a major port for Alaska because it's the only port in the state that doesn't freeze over in winter. Consequently it's a fairly substantial commercial and military shipping port as well. There's even a coal loader.
There's also a maximum security prison a couple of kms from the main township on the other side of the bay (behind the cruise ship).

We were booked into the Alaska Saltwater Lodge on Point Loma, which is a couple of kilometres south of the main town of Seward. The road/muddy track to Point Loma (above) skirts along Resurrection bay. It was along the track that we saw our first sea otter. It was going about its business not 10m from the shore (& road).

We were so excited! We'd figured we'd maybe see one during one of the boat cruises we'd booked. It wouldn't be the last sighting either. There were a pair of them that seemed to like to hunt right in front of our lodge. [Edit:] We saw them every afternoon about the same time (high tide).

The less said about the Alaska Saltwater Lodge the better. Suffice to say that for $180 per night it was nothing but a very average B&B. The only advantage was the wildlife that seemed attracted to the area. First it was the otters, then it was a bald eagle (below). This one liked the high perch in the tree just outside our room.

Anchorage

Today, after much planning & months of anticipation, we finally arrived in Alaska.
We are only going to scratch the surface while we were here & unfortunately it is the well beaten tourist path. Most of the state is so inaccessible that you don't really have a choice. Looking at the map below, we will follow the blue path from Seward to Fairbanks for the most part.
Our main stops in order are; Anchorage, Seward (Resurrection Bay), Whittier (Prince William Sound), Anchorage, Denali National Park, Fairbanks.

So this morning we jumped on one of Air Canada's awesome little Brazilian built Embraer ERJ-190  jets (above) to Vancouver & then an Airbus A319 to Anchorage.
We arrived a little after midday giving us enough time to grab something to eat & have a bit of a look around the city. It's nothing special & is a bit of a tourist trap (like Banff) in that there are a couple of streets full of gift shops. The restaurants were set up to gouge tourist as well, but we caught a hot tip to go to a place called Humpy's which is basically a uni pub. The food was really nice & the service good. As usual it's a good plan to get off the tourist trail.

Forgetmenot Ponds

Today we returned to the Forgetmenot Ponds hoping that the ice sheet that was there had melted off. We were in luck with the pond nice and still as well.

Time to pull out the camera and tripod for some photography practice. There's still a lot of snow on the ranges which is much nicer than the dusty grey that we saw in the middle of summer last year.

It wasn't the most spectacular day trip but it got us out of the house for the day. That's very important after a very long winter trapped inside.

Northern Lights Wolf Centre & Wapta Falls

The cloud was still hanging around with a bit of drizzle today but it didn't stop us setting off for Yoho.
Right at the border we made a wildlife stop. For the second week in a row, I've seen a Black Bear feeding on the railway tracks. I figured it had something to do with green chutes between the tracks, but I found out today that they are actually eating the spilled grain from the rail cars. With the amount of rail traffic, there must be quite the trail of food on the tracks for the bears. The sad thing is that it lures the bears to the rail only to line them up in front of a train. The bears don't see the trains as a threat and quite often don't move off the track until too late.

Northern Lights Wolf Centre

Today we took the trip out to Golden B.C. (we stayed overnight at Lake Louise). The Northern Lights Wolf Centre is about 10kms to the West of Golden. They have 6 captive wolves at the centre. They were all born in captivity & get exercised/walked without a leash every day. You can even pay $159+tax to go on the walks with them (we may do that later in the year).
Wylie (above & below) is the largest of the males & is very used to people and tends not to hide like some of the others. He seemed very relaxed even with a bunch of people gorking at him.

All the wolves seem to lay around like lazy labradors when there isn't food or a walk in the offering.

Wapta Falls

On the way back from Golden we stopped just inside the western Yoho park boundary at Wapta Falls. It's about a 3km walk to the base of the falls. Unfortunately the weather was against us (as it was all weekend) so the photos didn't come out that well. Its quite the impressive volume of water flowing over the falls, particularly at the moment with the snow melting & a fair amount of rain.
It's just a shame there wasn't a bit more sun. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.

Yoho National Park

This weekend we didn't have much on so booked a hotel room for the night in Lake Louise and set off from Calgary to explore Yoho National Park a bit more thoroughly.

Just on the West side of the Alberta/B.C. border there is a steep hill that runs up from Field to the Alberta border. The incline was way too steep for trains so CP Rail decided to build the  spiral tunnels. I've only ever pulled over at the viewpoint once before & it is very uninteresting without a train in the tunnel. This time we had just gone past a train as we were heading down the hill from the Alberta border. Above & below show the train entering the tunnel at the top of the tunnel.

The photos still aren't that great, but they're kind of interesting none the less. Note that there is only one train in these photos. In the photo below you can see the locos exiting the tunnel while its tail is still entering at the top. This is lower of the two spiral tunnels.

Next on the agenda wasn't new to use but Emerald Lake is one of those places that we like so much that we keep going back. We walked the lake circuit which was pleasant enough but the lake wasn't being particularly photogenic thanks to the cloud cover and an icy breeze.

Signs of summer were appearing everywhere with the plants budding and flowering.

After our walk that was pretty much it for the day so we headed to Banff for dinner before turning in for the night.

Banff National Park Photography

Johnstone Canyon

On Saturday, Kerri was working (well sleeping after night shift) so I took it upon myself to disappear out of the house for the day. The weather had forecast +31 for the day, so I figured a trip into the mountains was on. I needed to have a look around the national parks to check the condition of the trails and lakes. I covered quite a lot of territory in both Banff and Yoho national parks.

Stop 1 was Johnston Canyon along the Bow Valley parkway. We'd been there toward the end of last summer, but I thought it would be a good indicator for the lower parts of the valley. I was hoping there would be some ice on the falls and wasn't disappointed.

There was ice all the way along the stream and around the waterfalls, but none so spectacular as the Upper Falls (below).

Bow Valley Parkway

My next planned stop was Lake Louise. Enroute an extra stop presented itself. This crazy black bear was obviously in need of a snack after winter hibernation. Why he would risk a busy railway line to eat some green chutes is beyond me. 

[Edit] As it turns out they eat the spilled grain from the rail cars and many perish thanks to the busy Rail traffic. I thought I'd be cleaver and show off my "Bear Photo" to the guys at work. My smile was wiped when I got beaten to the punch by Don, who is another keen wildlife photographer. He had been down to Waterton on Friday and took some great pics of a grizzly with her 2 cubs from close range. We were there a week early! Rats! Hopefully Alaska will bring the answers.

The Valley of Ten Peaks

My next stop, Lake Louise, was quite disappointing as the tourist volume was back up to summer numbers, but everything, including the lake, was covered in ice and snow. I took a couple of photos, but they were rubbish like the others I took over winter.

After heading down the hill toward the highway, I took the turnoff to Moraine Lake expecting it to be closed. The signs said closed, but the gate was open and the road ploughed, so off I went, curious as ever. The view as I rounded the last big bend was breath taking (above). The peaks were daunting (the best word I can think of) covered in snow in bright sunshine. I've stopped to look at this same view before, but it never had that effect on me.

The Moraine Lake car park was empty and with the depth of snow on everything, it wasn't surprising. Down at lake level the peaks were even more intimidating.

Yoho National Park.

I ventured over to Yoho National Park to get a feel for where winter was at without much success. Most of the access roads and trails were closed. Natural Bridge was about the only tourist spot open.

Sheep River Falls

 Sheep River Falls

This weekend is unofficially the first weekend of the Canadian summer madness. With winter dragging on for nearly 8 months, the sun came out yesterday and we are in for +25 days until Tuesday. Tomorrow's meant to be 31! It's also the first weekend that many of the winter gates open giving access to the myriad of camping sites in the mountains.
Two provincial parks that I've been interested in exploring for the last few months are Sheep River and The Elbow Valley. Parks Canada keep them closed in winter so that the animals have somewhere in the lower valleys to feed without being harassed.

Kerri and I went out exploring today and went right into both parks. Above is Sheep River Falls. It isn't the most spectacular water fall that I've ever seen, but the setting is nice. The front ranges of the Rockies are fantastic at the moment after all the spring snow in the last few weeks.

Elbow Valley

The second park we explored today was the Elbow Valley.
At the very end of the sealed road is Forgetmenot Ponds. I was quite surprised to see how much they were still iced up, but I'm guessing it won't be long before they're defrosted. The water under the ice was the most incredible emerald colour and very clear.
Both Valleys are still looking a bit brown but all the deciduous trees are now budding and I would think that by next weekend, they will all be nice and green again.