Travels of Nannie & Bubba: Alberta

Showing posts with label Alberta. Show all posts

August 9, 2015 Johnston Canyon hike

At the southern end of the Bow Valley Parkway, we stopped here to hike up into Johnston Canyon to see waterfalls. What a trail! Most of it was catwalks attached to canyon walls. And what a crowd! There were a LOT of folks hiking this trail today! (seemed like half of 'em had dogs, and none of 'em spoke American english) It was a breathtaking hike above a lively stream, and we loved it. The parts of the trail that were on the ground were well attended by ground squirrels hoping for handouts.

I think this sign was wrong, it must have been at least five miles UP to the Upper Falls.

We didn't make it up to see the ink pots.....

Lower falls.

There is a cave overlook at the lower falls, but we didn't feel like standing in line....

Unnamed falls in the middle.

Hard to see, but this entire wall of rock was flowing with water.

The approach to view the Upper Falls. A bit scary to walk on this structure....

Upper Falls.

And this is what we saw on the Trans Canada Highway 1 on our way home:
an 18 mile long traffic jam headed south to Banff, caused by a car fire.
We were steadily thanking God that we were on the northbound side!

August 9, 2015 Bow Valley Parkway

For today's adventures, we drove back up into the heart of the Canadian Rockies, where we planned another visit to Lake Louise. Alas, it being Sunday, there were a million people up there trying to do the same thing, so after seeing the parking situation, we turned tail and ran. Instead, we decided to drive the Bow Valley Parkway from Lake Louise down towards Banff. It's a little two-lane road that had almost NO traffic on it, with scenic overlooks. It follows the same path as the Bow River, which ends up flowing down into Calgary. The main mountain peak it passes is Castle Mountain, which actually does look a bit like a castle!

Castle Mountain.

Storm Mountain in the background.

Castle Mountain.

August 5, 2015 Mountain Drive

Today we had a real treat: a mountain drive! We were again picked up by our friends Gwynn and Fero, and with a picnic lunch we set out for the rocky mountains southwest of Calgary. Oh my, what a great day! We stopped in a little town called Longview, then headed into the mountains on Hwy. 40. The main area we visited was the Kananaskis area. It has a big provincial park and a big ski area. We spotted wildlife, and we saw SUCH mountains! These are some very dynamic peaks, with visible fault lines and lots of uplifts. Breathtaking! Here are the pictures.....

A slow-moving river of stones, where there are Pika. Alas, we didn't see any.

We DID see a small herd of bighorn sheep; this was about half the group.

Aw, look at this cute lil feller!

The guys were keeping watch up on the hill.

We had a delicious picnic lunch!

Here we are at the Kananaskis Lodge area.

Fero and Gwynn.

Aaaaand, here is our moose sighting!

Having a bite on the side of the road; this one is about 2 yrs. old.

Look at the twisting and folding....

Clouds rolled in just as we headed home.

And here is the sight we had as we approached our campground....

August 4, 2015 Sundre, Alberta, Canada

Whenever we get this close to the Calgary area, we always stop to see our old friends Gwynn and Fero Adam. The four of us get along famously and there is lots of laughing. On this day, they drove us up north of Calgary to Sundre, where some of Gwynn's family lives. It was a beautiful day, and the home of Trina and Larry was in a wonderful place with a view of the mountains. This is the country and of course they have kids and horses and dogs and - well, you get the idea.