Banff National Park is our most favorite place of all time, and we got to visit there for a few days last week. It’s been at least six years since we were last there, and we were curious if the scenery would still blow us away as much as it had in the past. Yep, it still is fantastic. So much so, in fact, that we are already planning to visit the parks again next year.
We entered the parks at the Radium Hot Springs entrance, and immediately began climbing into the mountains. On the main highway three adult female Bighorn Sheep, with two babies in tow, were walking down the middle of the road. A bit further past them, a good size Black Bear was munching grass on the side of the road. When we reached the first overlook, I took a series of pictures showing the mountains. These aren’t the big magnificent mountains in the Bow River Valley that runs through the middle of Banff National Park, but they were a sign of good things to come.
Panoramic view from the first overlook in the provincial park that borders the national parks to the west. This looks north, and the following pictures go from north to south.
The sides of the mountains show their glacier-influenced past.
These lower mountains have trees that go all the way to the top. The bright green streaks are avalanche chutes, a common sight on all the Rocky Mountains ranges.
The clouds in the sky were starting to build, heading towards thunderstorms predicted for late afternoon and early evening.
Snowy peaks are peeking up over the ridges to the south.
One of many cirques in these mountain ranges, but most of the glaciers have melted.
Above tree line, sheer granite cliffs and remnants of snow from last winter. Waterfalls cascade off of virtually every peak in the parks.
Mountain goats love this country.
Our first glimpse into Banff National Park.
Castle Mountain is aptly named, and we were staying at a rustic cabin fairly close to this mountain.
The sheer cliffs are many hundreds of feet tall. One of the most interesting geologic features for many cliffs in the park is how the strata is bent and folded, or even standing vertical in places. For this particular mountain, most of the strata is horizontal.
Just another closer look at some of the mountain details.
View of the mountain from our cabin window.
Again, these vertical cliffs are each over 100 feet tall.
Heading into the canyon, vibrant green plants enjoy the moisture from the blue water.
The path built into the canyon remains relatively level. There are seven waterfalls along the trail. The first one is only half a mile, and the remaining six are in the next mile.
In places the force of water striking the rocks can be felt in the metal railings.
The sheer canyon walls rise far above the water and far above the trail. The air is cool and moist.
Dan was looking down.
The water cools the air in the canyon. The stone walls are at least 100 feet straight up over the water.
A hard rock in the middle of the waterway may become a new waterfall of it's own someday.
The old trail, replaced by steel. This old path would have been extremely treacherous during any sort of thunderstorm, slick and steep with no guardrails.
The water color is created by dissolved rock from the glacial history of the region.
The water undercutting hard granite, eventually the wall will collapse and a new chapter in the creek will begin.
Dan pointed this out to me and asked me why I was writing on stone walls. I'm innocent, I tell ya'!
A Gold Mantle Squirrel, watching the tourist go by.
The next day we took a drive from Banff to Drumheller to visit another favorite place, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. Driving through Calgary that morning was an adventure. There was a torrential downpour, so much water that seeing a half a block ahead was almost impossible. So much water was on the roadway, halfway submerging tires on vehicles in some stretches. When they drove past us, they would throw up a wall of water, and zero visibility resulted. It made for a very long drive. Coming back again in the afternoon, the skies were only partly cloudy, and the drive was much less stressful. That museum is absolutely fantastic, 100,000 square feet of dinosaurs. It is a World Heritage site. They always have something new going on. The Triceratops is my favorite, it’s beautiful and amazing.
After we got home from our little trip, we went for a walk by our own river and located a woodpecker nest. The babies pretty much yelled constantly for food, and their parents were constantly coming back to the nest with a fat juicy bug to stuff into whoever was yelling the loudest. The noise was pretty amazing.
A Lewis Woodpecker nest, full of baby birds at the time this picture was taken. They are all out now raising hell around the river corridor. They are absolutely beautiful birds and complete lunatics.
A few weeks ago, we were heading out to the garage to go somewhere, and I caught a movement in the fence near the garage. It was the baby fawn we had seen hiding in the bushes in front of the sunroom. He had tried to go through the fence and had gotten his back legs well and truly tangled. Just a week before he had fit through with no problems, but this week, no go.
We walked up to see if we could untangle him, and he was positive we were going to eat him. He was screaming loudly (poor little thing), and trying to jump around, so we restrained him, and I managed to get his legs back out of the fence but he was still stuck. Dan left me holding the fawn and went to the garage to get wire cutters. His mother was snorting with alarm on the driveway above the fence, also sure I was planning to eat her baby. That was when I discovered that a baby fawn’s head was harder than my lip, when he jumped up and smacked me in my mouth.
Dan returned with wire cutters, and moments later the fawn was free! He scampered off to rejoin his mother, and we didn’t see either one of them again for over a week. No doubt she wanted to stay away from the scary monsters. Evidently they’ve both forgotten the trauma, because they are back, and he’s growing like a weed. He was bouncing in the yard a couple of days ago, taking time out between bounces to munch on lilac leaves next to our bedroom windows, then more bouncing, and then marveling at the sidewalk. He’s very cute.