Our first several nights in Canada were spent in the Waterton Lakes National Park, where bears and moose run wild and the vistas are long and amazing.
Well, the long-awaited trip of a lifetime is upon us, or rather we’re upon it. We left Pennsylvania on June 23, spent three nights with our daughter Mariel and her family in Hudson, Ohio, and shoved off for the 49th state via the Canadian Rockies. Our trip across the plains and up to our Canadian point of entry at Waterton Lakes in Alberta was predictably wind-blown, hot, and mosquito-plagued, but we did manage to find quite nice campsites along the way, including one on the southeast shore of Lake Michigan our first night out from Hudson. This place had enormous sand dunes (200 feet high!) and lovely beaches. The next few nights were spent in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana, as we made the mad dash for our beloved mountains and cooler temperatures.
Our stay in Waterton was a fitting prelude to what surely will be a neverending smorgasbord of mountain vistas and stunning outdoor adventures. Candy and Jasper are doing just fine, we’re eating well, the weather has been perfect (though a little hotter than we’d like) and our camping accommodations have been nearly perfect. This first blog post of our trip is being typed at a picnic table on a terrace in Lake Louise Village, Banff National Park. We’ve been staying for the past three nights at a dream campsite in Yoho National Park, just across the border from Lake Louise, and today, we visited Moraine Lake, in our opinion one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We canoed here last year and couldn’t wait for a return visit.
Here are a few shots of some of the territory we’ve covered so far, not necessarily in order.
Prairie dogs are everywhere in Waterton and elsewhere up here.
Wildflowers along the trail to Rowe Lake, outside Waterton.
We hiked the Rowe Lake trail in Waterton with our frieends Daniel Sommerfeld and his lovely wife Laurie.
Her upstairs sips fresh organic coffee and peruses her latest art book early one morning.
Cameron Lake, Waterton Park.
Good old site D11, in Crandell Campground in Waterton Park, where we first stayed a year ago.
Our intrepid water dog averaged one dunk every 500 feet along the hiking trails.
We ventured out into the Alberta prairie to get from Waterton to Lougheed Park. The windy hillsides were studded with hundreds of enormous windmills.
Grizzly bear near our campsite in Lower Kananaskis Lake, munching peacefully on dandelions.
These two-year-old Grizzly cubs roam freely about Peter Lougheed Park. Rangers fear their mother has been killed, as cubs rarely leave mom until their third or fourth year.
Another lakeside campsite in Peter Lougheed Park.
Jasper and a newfound pal at the most decadently beautiful dog park anywhere, in Canmore, Alberta.
Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park, with layers of smoke and haze from the forest fire burning about 50 miles north of here along the Icefields Parkway. We’ll be travveling through the wildfire site tomorrow.
Upper Kananaskis Lake is down about 15 feet from its normal seasonal level because of an ill-planned release of water from a downstream dam.
This fen lies in a low valley at the entrance to Lougheed Park.
Mountain vistas like this are everywhere along the roads and byways of the Kananaskis region.
The Prince of Wales Hotel, where we enjoyed a ceremonial Grey Goose martini overlooking Upper Waterton Lake.
View toward Waterton Lake from the Bertha Lake trail.
A wildflower in the alluvial plain feeding into Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park.
Takakkaw Falls, near our campground in Yoho National Park, is one of the highest in Canada, at over 750 feet.
Indian paintbrush is a saprophytic plant that grows in great profusion along all the roads, trails and open prairies.
Pickin’ and grinnin’ at Kicking Horse Campground, the nicest campsite we’ve ever had the good fortune to inhabit. It is almost totally private and overlooks a roaring tributary of icy gray-green glacier melt water. We stayed two extra days to celebrate our good fortune.
A morning view of a nearby mountaintop in the first rays of light from one of our campsites.
This switchback on the way to Takakkaw Falls was so tight that we needed to make a K-turn to navigate it.
Jasper enjoys a brief dip in the Kicking Horse River.
True to the song lyrics, the golden poppies are indeed in bloom on the banks of Lake Louise this time of year.
The view from the Grassi Lakes trail outside Canmore includes a powerline that connects a hydro plant with the local grid.
Grassi Lakes, named for the guy who blazed the first trails here, is a group of tiny lakes near the top of the nearby waterfall. The water is an unbelievably complex palette of blues, greens, reds and yellows.
Another view of Grassi Lakes.
Panoramic view of Lower Kananakis Lake, in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park.
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