Banff Scenes

Rolande and I went for one of our favourite drives last evening, a trip along Highway 1A in Banff National Park. This road parallels the Trans Canada Highway from Banff to Lake Louise. A much slower road but the scenery is great and it’s a good place to see wildlife. Not much success with wildlife last evening, no photographs but we did see a young black bear , grazing along the side of the road. We drove out to Lake Louise and re-traced our path back to Banff where I took a few photographs in the area of the Banff Springs Hotel.

This first picture was taken just below the Banff Springs Hotel on the bank of the Bow River. Not a spectacular waterfall, but a nice scene, popular with tourists. There were quite a few tourists at the time I was there but I excluded them from the shot. Looks more like natural wilderness that way. Not really wilderness though, this location is right in the Town of Banff.

For this picture, I moved further down the river bank and turned my attention northward along the river. In the distance, you can see the Fairholme Range. On the right side is the west end of Mount Rundle which stretches all the way from Canmore. The Banff Springs Golf Course, although not visible in this picture follows the river to the left of the mountain.

For my last picture, we drove back into Banff and returned to a location called Surprise Corner on Buffalo Street, on the opposite side of the river. My subject this time was the hotel itself.

Below the hotel you can see the Bow Falls. This is a good time of day to take this photograph. The sun has set, the hotel’s lights are on but there is still ample light to see the surrounding scenery. Photographers refer to this time of day as the “blue hour”, that time after sunset before it gets dark. The sky turns a beautiful shade of blue, hence the term “blue hour”.

I plan to return to this last location next winter. This same scene dusted with snow makes a very nice photograph.