Holiday Road

We recently hosted a large contingent of family members, visiting us in celebration of my wife Rolande’s birthday. Decorum and survival dictate that I do not reveal which birthday. Let’s say it was a “meaningful milestone” and leave it at that. Visitors came from far afield including Florida, Louisiana, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. It was a wonderful opportunity to share the beauty of our province, particularly with many first time visitors.

For today’s post, I’ve selected a number of photos I took in the course of  our sightseeing excursions in and around Canmore. I begin with this photograph of Elbow Lake, taken in the course of a hike we took in the Kananaskis Country area, about an hour southeast of Canmore.

Not far from Elbow Lake, we stopped to see the Rock Glacier a unique geological feature. Rock glaciers are distinctive landforms, consisting of angular rock debris frozen in interstitial ice. Alternatively they can be  former “true” glaciers overlain by a layer of talus, or something in between. They flow like any other glacier, moving downslope at a glacial pace!

Of course we visited the ever popular Lake Louise which did not disappoint. This photograph was taken in the early morning, with sunlight peeking over the surrounding mountains to illuminate the slopes surrounding the lake.

We also ventured into British Columbia to visit the impressive Takakkaw Falls, a waterfall located in Yoho National Park. Its highest point is 380 metres (1,247 ft.) from its base, making it the 2nd tallest waterfall in Canada. However its true “free-fall” is about 254 metres (833 ft.).”Takakkaw”, loosely translated from Cree, means something like “it is magnificent”. Indeed it is. You can see a few adventuresome family members in the lower left hand corner of the picture, enjoying the experience.

Another scenic spot we visited was King Canyon, with Mount Blane in the background. Another Kananaskis Country gem. By the time we visited this location, our contingent had diminished to just three of us, my brother Bruce and his wife, Joan and of course the photographer, “what’s his name”.

This photograph was taken from the peak of Sulphur Mountain in Banff, accessible via a newly upgraded gondola. This scene features the Spray River Valley, which joins the Bow River just downstream from this location. I chose to present the black and white version of this image to get around the effects of the smokey atmosphere on the colour photo. We’ve been enduring a smokey atmosphere from the many forest fires burning in British Columbia and other parts of the West Coast for the past 2 weeks.

My last picture for today was taken on the evening before the Perkins family left to go home. We went on a wildlife safari , hoping to find some animals for the boys to enjoy. Regrettably, there wasn’t much to see but we did find some white-tailed deer, something you don’t see in a Toronto neighbourhood. This young buck was very cooperative, posing for several minutes before moving on.