Yoho National Park, British Columbia

As the result of talking to someone in the hot tub, we were advised to "not miss" the opportunity to see Takakkaw Falls in Yoho Natl Park (which shares a border with Banff as it goes into British Columbia). It had rained earlier in the morning and the scenery was spectacular.

We loved this waterfall, wanted to stay there all day.

The river coming out of the falls was the "glacial" milky color. A different meaning to the term, "white water."

The bottom of the falls...misty, very cool...

After the falls, we drove to another destination in Yoho---Emerald Lake. We hiked part way around the lake. The color was incredible. Not always emerald, but sometimes turquoise, gray...

After a munchy lunch in the car, we hiked to Hamilton Falls. We caught some amazing photos...including raindrop spattered ferns...

Mossy gorges...

And eventually the falls...

On the way out, we spotted the sunlight peeking out on this "Jurassic Park" type scene...

As usual, photos do not do it justice. The "forest after rain" smells, colors and textures were fabulous.

Slot Canyon of the Canadian Rockies

Grotto Canyon was mentioned in one of the travel guides I consulted before our trip. It mentioned a pleasant, short hike up a canyon and pictographs. I thought that sounded cool--and the spot was only about a 20 minute drive from our condo. The place was Bow Valley Provincial Park just outside of Canmore. The Canadian government hits visitors with hefty fees to visit their National Parks (it cost $17 for a day pass for the two of us, even with the Senior discount). But, their Provincial Parks are free. We began early, found the trailhead, which was basically empty. The first part of the trail was open, dry, dusty and passed a Magnesium Oxide plant. It did have some wildflowers. I was taking photos and then my camera said "Memory Full". I had "forgotten" the memory chip and left it in the laptop back at the condo. Luckily, I always carried a back up camera with another chip....hike 1/2 mile back to the car to retrieve it. By this time, we wondered whether this hike was really worth it. Then, we reached the place where the trail crossed the "creek". We followed a trail up the other side of the mountain. It quickly became beautiful forest. But, a very steep hike up.

We did enjoy views like this.

The trail eventually came down off the mountain and re-joined the creek into a narrow canyon.

Beautiful moss features.

At this time, we were nearly the only ones in the canyon. We saw footprints of someone else ahead of us, but never saw them.

We arrived at the only cairn on the trip and it "pointed" the way to the pictographs.

We spotted this book left on the trail. Don't know who left it. Maybe they climbed up the rock face.

About half way up, we noticed a gray bird hopping and flitting ahead of us. She would perch on a rock, wait for us, then fly or hop ahead of us. It became very uncanny. It had to be an Angel bird. She guided us to the "grotto" and up a side canyon to a four tiered waterfall.

While we were at the waterfall, a guided tour group came up. The bird disappeared.

After the group went ahead and we started down, little gray bird appeared again and hopped ahead of us going down the canyon. When we began seeing people constantly coming in, she disappeared altogether.

Varnish on a seep near the waterfall.

The lowest tier of the waterfall. Bob walked up the slick rock to see the other tiers, but I stayed below. The rock was too "slick" for me. It was virtually polished like agate. Not sandstone or slate.

We went a little ways up the "dry fork" side.

On the way down, we came across these climbers and watched for a while. They even invited Bob to take a climb.

It was a fun, fun hike. And we were smart enough to follow the stream all the way down instead of taking the side trail up the mountain, which shortened the down climb significantly. We were ready for lunch and a nap after that one. We both noticed that we are much better at the "uphill" than at the beginning of the trip.

Glacier National Park Adventures

We checked out of our condo in Canmore on Sunday morning, July 12. Took the scenic drive through Kananaskis country---3 provincial parks. As we left, this sunrise greeted us.
Typical scenery of the provincial parks...

We arrived back in the U.S. and it felt good to see mileage signs and lower gas prices. The border patrol asked us to declare what we bought in Canada. They seemed surprised that all we bought was a book and a few groceries....We carried no firearms, nor alcohol, nor tobacco. Looking at the map, we saw a road going into Glacier from Babb, Montana. We chose to stay away from the GTTS (Going to the Sun) road that is a traffic nightmare. We had driven it about 12 years ago. The road we chose had some lakes and looked kind of "out of the way". We asked the park attendant on our way in for a suggestion on a hike. She gave us maps and highlighted a trail around a lake. We drove further and ran into some washed out road areas that were gravel covered and dusty. We didn't feel like driving a long time on dusty roads...almost considered turning back. The road got better and imagine our total surprise when we arrived at Swiftcurrent Lake and saw this HUGE 200 + room hotel and lodge that was totally unexpected.

There was a threat of rain, so we chose to eat lunch inside the lodge. This was our view. The food was good and fairly inexpensive compared to Canada and...goblets, cloth napkins.

Many Glaciers Lodge....very famous...built in 1915.

We chatted a while with the owner of the Trail riding outfit, finding out that his horses were all Percheron crosses. I liked this shot of the horses patiently waiting.

It was beginning to sprinkle, so we thought we'd do a very short hike partway around the lake. We planned on being gone about 2o mins. so we didn't take water or snacks. We didn't miss the snacks, but by the end of the 3 hour hike, it was hot and we were thirsty. I pretended it was a pioneer trek and sang "for some must push and some must pull."

We didn't realize that the trail AROUND the lake would be so long. We hiked ALL the way around Swiftcurrent Lake and partially along Lake Josephine...shown below. As you can see, it was beautiful.

It stopped sprinkling and the sun came out.
Lake Josephine was not very cold and had somewhat of a beach, so I played in the water and looked for stones. It felt good to squish my toes in the sand and walk on the pebbles. See Cowboy Bob's blog for pictures.
We got back to the lodge, then the car and left to find a place to spend the night. There was no National Forest that we could just pull out into. It was either Indian Reservation or National Park. Again, we looked at the map and had our choice of a primitive campground, Cut Bank Creek or a civilized campground at Two Medicine Lake. We chose the one at the Lake and snagged one of the last campsites. We relaxed, ate peanut butter sandwiches, then went to a campfire presentation on the legends of the area. Apparently, "Two Medicine" refers to the river being between two Medicine Lodges, so it was sacred and powerful medicine.

We spotted the image below on the mountain called "Rising Wolf". It looked to us exactly like a climber.

This lovely shot was of "Old Man" Lake with mountains in background. We camped by this one.

After the campfire stories, it was almost dark. We decided to just walk down to the lake. I left the camera in the car. As we stood looking at the lake, a beaver swam toward us, got out on the shore, snagged some shrubbery and munched for about 15 minutes before sliding back into the water and swimming underwater for what seemed like 5 minutes. It was a great moment, my first view of a beaver in the wild....but no camera to capture that moment.

The next morning, I took a photo of the place where the beaver got out of the water.

After packing up (which involved moving the coolers and bags from the front seats to the back), we went for a hike to Running Eagle Falls. It is also called "trick falls". I assume because it appears to be coming out of the rock.

Of course, I looked for rocks in the river and it struck me how there were so many green and red ones. It occured to me that this was "Two Medicine" river and the red and green were "Two Medicine". We could see the different colors on the mountain above. (note the red and green in the plant, too)

Wonderful time in Glacier....then we drove to Three Forks. On our way out, we came across some spectacular clouds and eventually rain.

Kira "steals" the show

Yes, Kira follows in her siblings footsteps. Maybe, not the lead actress with the solos, but definitely the "best" actress on stage.
"I guess I've always just been in my big sisters' shadows."

The play is extremely good, especially for a "ward" production.

True story, romance, ship crossing, handcart saga. The scenery, costumes, original script and original music all written by a ward member--totally top notch! Way to go Kira! Zach and Zander have parts, too. It was so fun to see Zach "greeting" the audience as they left, introducing himself. He was a riot on stage too with different "hats" for each scene.