Yoho National Park and Lake Louise

 We had Dennis stand under this sign.  I think the picture below is Mt. Dennis.  Of course all the distances were in meters or kilometers and most everything was in English and French.

 This beautiful little river ends up in the Columbia and the Pacific Ocean.  It narrows through the opening in the next picture and is called Natural Bridge.  It's really incredible the way it cuts through the rock and forms a natural bridge.

 We were content to walk across a man-made bridge to get a good look, but this guy wanted a close up of the natural bridge.

 We took a little drive up the mountain to these waterfalls.  The road was good except for one incredible hairpin turn, which I wish I had taken a picture of.  We saw a tour bus at the falls and couldn't imagine how it got up the road.

 It was magnificent and pictures don't do it justice.  This was late in August and this is fed by glaciers.  I can only imagine the roar it must make early in the summer.

 More gorgeous scenery heading back down from the falls.

 We had both heard so much about Lake Louise and we finally saw it.  I think we had seen so much beautiful scenery by this time that we weren't as impressed as we might have been, but it was never-the-less awesome!  This is probably one of the most famous spots in the parks.

 Dennis got this beautiful shot in front of the lake.  The flowers are always so beautiful and flourishing in these alpine places....I think they must like the cooler temperatures and long days.

 This is the famous Chateau Lake Louise built by the Canadian Pacific Railroad.  They also built the one in Banff.  They built them and then advertised the great beauty to bring rail passengers to the area beginning in about the 1920's.  This was grand, but didn't impress me as much as the one in Banff.

 Looking like this in August, we can imagine that the climate must be pretty austere when January rolls around.  In fact, in many places they had things to plug your cars into in the wintertime, so you could keep them running.

 In front of the chateau.  Covet, covet!!

 I loved this picture Dennis took.

 Thursday night we had heavy thundershowers.  The next morning we drove up the road behind our hotel just for fun and found these elk grazing near a golf course.....not even in the park.  Guess they knew where to get a good meal without working too hard.

 This was the view out our hotel window Friday morning. The mountains were covered with low-hanging clouds and when the clouds cleared you could see a skiff of snow on the peaks.

A little of the white stuff is the fresh snow.  It was an awesome place to visit and we would highly recommend it!!

Banff

 We took the gondola in the town of Banff to the top of a mountain called Sulfur Mountain.  We had a glorious 360 degree view of the surrounding area.

 This is the Bow River flowing through Banff.  It is the same river that flows through the city of Calgary about an hour's drive to the east, and eventually ends up in Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.  Yes, that is a golf course winding along the river.  It's part of the Banff Fairmont Hotel Resort.

 Another view from the top. Unlike our National Parks, there are ski resorts in these mountains and the town of Banff is in the park.  I'm not sure how they regulate all that.

 This is the little hut on the top of the peak where Norman Bethune Sanson climbed to observe and record weather data for many years.  He did it summer and winter, sometimes on snowshoes and sometimes taking nine hours to make the climb.  I want to read more about him and his adventures.  We were glad it was a beautiful clear day in the summertime.

 This is the Banff Fairmont Hotel and was very impressive.  It looks a little like a grand old castle and is beautifully landscaped and cared for.  Rooms were a little pricey for our budget, however.

 Two RCMP's riding down the street in Banff---a great photo op.

 Chris, Linda's son-in-law, told us not to miss this beautiful site.  It is called Moraine Lake and The Valley of the Ten Peaks and is every bit as beautiful as the picture.  The water was this gorgeous blue/green color and the mountains were breathtaking.  It is much photographed and much painted.

 The man who offered to take this picture for us handed back the camera and said "There's your Christmas card picture."

These little rock monuments were found here and there and momentos of them were in the gift shops.  They have some Native American meaning, or First People, as they seem to call them in Canada.

Jasper National Park

 Jasper National Park, Banff and Yoho National Park are really all one big national park.  We drove from Edmonton west to Hinton, Alberta and began at the north end.  The scenery was unbelievably beautiful.  We ran out of adjectives.  Maybe our only disappointment was in not seeing more wildlife, but the parks are so vast that you probably just need to know where to look.  Linda's son-in-law had been a tour guide in the parks for several years and gave us a wonderful little write-up of some highlights to see.  We were able to see and do most of the things he suggested.

 If you click on this to enlarge it and then look closely, you will see a bunch of mountain goats.  We saw them just after entering Jasper.

 These guys along the roadside were pretty tame.

 Our first stop in Jasper was at Maligne Lake.  Everything was so vast, majestic, and blue and green.

 Dennis in front of Maligne Lake with the majestic Canadian Rockies behind him.  The little dots in the back of the lakes are canoers.  The weather was mostly perfect.

 Every bend in the road was a photo op!

 This area was called Maligne Canyon, where the river flows down to the Athabasca River from Maligne Lake.  It was thunderous and fascinating.  You can see how the water has carved away (and is still carving away) the rock.

 Another view of the canyon and waterfalls cascading down.

 These waterfalls were another scenic stop and are called the Athabasca Falls.  The river is a very milky color because of the glaciers that feed it.  As the glaciers grind on the rocks, they pulverize them into almost a dust they called rock flour.  It makes the water a strange milky color.

 Another view of the beautiful Athabasca Falls.

 One of the many, many glaciers.

 These huge glaciers are part of what they call the Columbia Icefields, a vast expense of snow and ice high in the Rockies which melts all summer and feeds the rivers and waterfalls and gets added upon all winter with the snow.

We took a tour of the glacier in the bus below.  It drives right up on the snow and you get out (with all the hundreds of other tourists) and walk around carefully and take pictures before they take you back down the hill.  Our guide told us that the ice where we were standing was about 1000 feet deep.

 

 One of the many glaciers and waterfalls flowing down to where we were standing.  The ice is always melting when its warm, so there were little streams flowing through and under the glaciers.

 Just to give you some idea of the thickness of the snow.

 Mostly we didn't need jackets on the trip, but it was a little cool up there.  I can't remember how many miles our guide told us that the ice field stretched behind us.

A view of the scenery as we drove through the mountains south toward Banff.  I don't know how many miles it was, but it took us all day to drive from the little town of Jasper on the north end to Banff on the south end, with scenic stops along the way.  The road was a terrific four-lane highway in excellent condition and wasn't a bit scary---unlike Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Glacier National Park.

An old friend & Edmonton

 One of the choice parts of our trip was a chance to see my long-time friend, Linda, who lives on an 80 acre farm about 30 minutes west of Edmonton.  I've always wanted to see where she has lived and raised her family.  It was lovely and a far cry from my memories of farms growing up....I couldn't find the mud or the manure or the outhouse or the pump for the water. 

 Dennis and Duke, Davidson's faithful collie, hit it off.  Their 5 or 6 cattle and their "bull for hire" are behind the fence.

 Linda was our gracious hostess and tour guide for the day on Saturday.  She took us to see the world-famous West Edmonton Mall.  Besides the more than 800 stores, there is a miniature golf course, a full-size skating rink, an amusement park, a waterpark with a wave pool....just to mention a few of the features.

 The largest shed houses about 350 baby turkeys which Linda cares for until they meet their fate on December 18th.

 Some of the out-buildings on the farm.  I wanted you to see the cute little VW Beetle that was our rental car.  We liked it!

 The waterpark and waterslides inside the mall.  Linda says some people come to the mall and stay in one of the hotels and make it their family vacation....not hard to imagine!

                                                                   The wave pool.

                                                                 Looking down the mall.

 

                                                  The roller coaster in the amusement park.

                                             Barbara and Linda at the Edmonton Temple.

 The gateway to Edmonton's Chinatown.  I never imagined Edmonton would have a Chinatown.  The population was very diverse.  Edmonton was a beautiful clean city.

I remember lots of grain elevators like this from my childhood.  Linda says they are not so common anymore, but this one was in the town of Stoney Plain where Linda works as the head secretary at a school.