Whew. I clearly should have posted more than once for the Banff-Jasper section of the journey, as this batch of pictures is out-of-control long! But here goes...
I stand corrected: Banff is not Canada's answer to Vail. The town itself might be, but it is part of a national park that is more like Canada's answer to Vail, Breckenridge, Durango, AND Rocky Mountain National Park. And maybe then some. And add adjacent Jasper National Park to the mix, with the amazing scenic parkway (passing the massive Colombia Icefield), and you've got something to rival nearly the entire state of Colorado.
Five days in the area was not nearly enough, but I did keep pretty busy during that time, climbing Tunnel Mountain for its view of Banff town...
...visiting nearby Lake Minnewanka...
...and then, motivated by the $40 price tag for taking the gondola up, climbed to the top of Sulphur Mountain for its stunning vistas over not only Banff town but the entire area in 360 degree rotation.
Though my hopeless stinginess was a good motivator for the hike up, I have to admit I'd be willing to kiss whoever at the gondola operating company is responsible for offering free rides back down after 6:30 p.m. Amazing to cruise down in less than five minutes what it took me more than two hours to climb!
Luckily, I had been inspired in my own private gondola car to shout "I LOVE MY LIFE" at the top of my lungs to the mountain vista, or else I might have had to more publicly, embarrassingly shouted it while going straight from the mountain to a completely blissful soak in gorgeous surroundings at Banff Upper Hot Springs.
I didn't realize until I was in the thick of it that I'd unfortunately managed to time my visit to Banff and Jasper with a three-day holiday weekend in Canada (Civic/Provincial Day celebrated on August 5, 2013, Google tells me retroactively), which meant that I was relegated to sleeping in my car whether I wanted to or not (luckily I wanted to) as all the campgrounds were full. It also meant that the parks were super-crowded, with badly behaved tourists out in force. My favorite was a nine-year-old girl with an iPad who would dart down the waterfalls path at Johnston Canyon, pausing for two seconds every couple yards to indiscriminately take a picture of whatever was in front of her at that moment and then, as the people behind her tried to walk around her, cutting them off by darting forward, only to stop dead in front of them moments later for the next picture. Unfortunately, her mother (pictured here) was doing the exact same thing, so there didn't seem to be much hope for parental intervention.
Luckily, as these things go, 95% of the people enjoying the parks for the holiday weekend were willing to drive to the remotest of places but unwilling to walk more than about 15 minutes away from their vehicles. So while the first waterfall at Johnston Canyon, a 20-minute walk, was mobbed, the upper falls, just another 15 minutes away, were peaceful and unpopulated.
From Banff town, I went on to Lake Louise. Or first, actually, to an adjacent glacial lake named Moraine.
I had my eye on a hike from Lake Moraine to Consolation Lakes, but upon finding the trailhead discovered that my solo hiker status was not okay due to bear activity in the area. (And apparently all the mosquitoes I'd been hiking with didn't count toward the required three companions.) So I sat at the trailhead until a very nice family of four from Minnesota came along and invited myself to walk with them. The mom warned me at the outset they weren't going to hike the whole way to the lakes, but her two teenage sons really wanted to see grizzlies and so had other plans.
Luckily the younger set prevailed and we got to see the beautiful valley at Consolation Lakes. Didn't see any bears, but did hear the thunder of minor glacial avalanches echoing against the mountainsides. Incredible.
Then, finally, on to Lake Louise itself...
...from where I escaped the crowds on a day hike up to Agnes Lake and its adorable, historical tea house...
...and then on to the Plain of Six Glaciers, where there was a second tea house, at which I may or may not have eaten a slice of chocolate cake so large that I nearly skipped the 3 miles back to my starting point at Lake Louise.
Then it was up to Jasper along the Icefield Parkway, with stops at Peyto Lake, the Athabasca Glacier (a tongue of the massive Colombia Icefield), and Athabasca Falls.
Jasper town was so overrun with tourists I didn't feel like lingering, but I did spend a great day exploring the Maligne area, where (in reverse chronology, here) the Maligne Canyon...
...has been cut with waters...
...that have drained in underground rivers from strange Medicine Lake, which is not actually a lake at all but a holding pen of water from the Maligne river, which fills the lake even as it is draining, so that depending on the rates of each, the "lake" level varies by many meters per day, and the lake disappears completely in the fall and winter.
All of this fun starts at Maligne Lake itself, supposedly one of the most scenic spots in Canada...but really, who could even begin to choose a place in this country on which to bestow such a superlative?
Along the way, I saw a grizzly and her cub who were being chased from their too-comfortable roadside attractions by an unhappy park ranger wielding flares, as well as a mama black bear and her three insanely adorable, rough-and-tumble cubs.
There were also deer, goats, and elk galore, including these two, who were apparently wanting to be featured in as many nature calendars as possible in the coming year and posed accordingly.
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