Breathtaking Banff! (13th)

Every afternoon when we stop from our day’s travels, I go through all the pictures I have taken that day. Our phones today makes it too easy to take too many pictures; but makes it harder to sort through and save only the better ones. Today, traveling through the Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park, and Lake Louise would make this task harder.   Most of the pictures I took, I couldn’t bear to delete.  My Cloud must be getting pretty heavy with all the pictures I think are beautiful or worth keeping forever. 

Here are just a few.

This is an animal bridge, also called an ecoduct. These structures in Banff allow animals to safely cross human-made barriers like highways. The past 30 years the United States and Canada have increasingly used these bridges to protect wildlife and people.

These big horn sheep need a bridge and that guy needs some common sense!     

The Colombian Icefield is the largest icefield in the Rocky Mountains.  This Colombia feeds 6 major glaciers. Some of them have receded and have left its evidence by the scrape marks on the gigantic boulders.  During the summer months, visitors can ride in a snowcoach onto one of the glaciers.

No filters used to adjust the color of this this picture.  This is the actual color of the water in some of the ponds along the highway in Banff.  It’s beautiful turquoise blue or green color, I am told, comes from the rocks underneath the surface of the ice.  The grinding movement of the glaciers create a silt called rock flour.  It’s very light and stays suspended in the water for a long time.  When the sun reflects off of this rock flour, it gives the water its spectacular color.

We can still see evidence of avalanches at higher altitudes. There are areas where big sections of pine trees are laying down in the same direction.  Also, where there is still snow… you can see where the snow has slid down. When the warmer sun rays of spring arrive, avalanches happen more frequently.   Three professional mountain climbers are still missing, presumed dead,  from an avalanche on April 18th in Banff.  

One man was from the United States.  The other two were from Australia.

Don’t mean to get a macabre theme going here in the mountains; but we came across this accident involving a semi. Not sure what the cause was… hope the driver is alright.

We love traveling in the mountains when the roads and weather conditions are good. I like the Canadian Rockies because there are less times I see straight down when I look out my side window!  The highest elevation is almost 13,000 feet; but the changes in elevation and curves seem to be more gradual than the US Rockies.  Just a little more relaxing than being on some of the switchbacks 

we were on last week.

No information on this sky walk or lookout…or whatever it’s called.  Came upon this in Banff; but couldn’t find a place to park. It looked very interesting and I’m sure 

the view was breathtaking! 

Hinton is outside the park. We were going to stay at a campground inside the park; but not much opens up until Memorial Day. Besides…Highway 40 is here and we will be taking that north towards Dawson Creek, where the Alaskan Highway begins.  

Maybe we'll be in Alaska by the weekend. 

The view out our motor home window tonight...is a little tight!  You would think... with all the land up here... all campsites would be spacious!  This was the only campground in town with three sites left.  We couldn’t find the other two sites….they must have been really tiny!  The people that are camping here are not tourist from what I can see.  They all have trucks filled with tools or equipment for jobs connected with the railroad or construction work.  They all must have had a hard day at work because it very quiet tonight.  Who knows what it may have been if we came on the weekend!