Canada/Banff National Park       (July 03)

Our first trip of the summer brought us to Canada to visit Sam's Parents before leaving for Europe and also to visit Banff National Park.  We drove from Vancouver to Kelowna which is in Canada's wine country (Okanagan Valley).  Sam's Parents house has a view of a beautiful lake with vineyards surrounding it.  We had a great day of wine tasting, seeing the area, and talking with Sam's parents.  After driving another 6 hours (through 3 other national parks) from Kelowna we arrived in Banff.  I was ecstatic and filled with such wonder of this place.

This picture here is in the heart of the park at Lake Louise, we were camped just down the road from here.  As you can see in the picture the weather was a little bit sketchy the day we arrived and rain was in the air.

On day one we decided to hiked a loop from Lake Louise to a teahouse.  This teahouse is at Lake Agnes.  It was a cozy spot nestled high in the mountains.  I saw a man fill his water bottle straight from this lake.  The teahouse employee told him it was fine to drink.  I was a little worried from here that if we continued the loop if we would make it before sunset.  The teahouse employee then told us that it would not be dark till 11pm.  We headed on.

On the trail we talked with a man  that told us we had to check out the "beehive."  After climbing up one of the steepest trails of my life, straight up from Lake Agnes we finally arrived at this ridgeline.   This is the spot that the sign points to the beehive.

This is the beehive lookout.  It was a beautiful point that overlooked the whole valley.  From here we backtracked to the trail junction and continued our loop back to Lake Louise. 

 The shores of Lake Louise.  Its probably about 9 pm.

Back at camp I was glad their was something between our tent and the Grizzly.

On day 2 we got up early and headed to Moraine Lake.  Our first time to this lake the weather was bleak and we took a hike. This place is surreal in it's mountain setting.  It's one of those places where I can close my eyes and imagine it perfectly, the 7 peaks stabbing into the sky, the water color that is too vivid to be true, and the green trees like frosting on the cake.  If you ever go to Banff -make sure you see Morraine Lake.  The day of our hike was a cold and cloudy morning.  One of those days you are eager to hit the trail warm up and get the body moving. We started hiking at the Moraine lake trailhead with Eifel Lake as our destination.  The trail was steep switchbacks for the first mile.  It went up through the forest on the right side of this picture.  Then we were greeted with numerous warnings of Grizzly bears in the area and advised us to go no further without a party of 6 and to wait for others.  Our party of 2 continued on. 

We then were walking along the valley of the 10 peaks.  Eiffel lake then stood in a valley above tree line.  Walking through dense brush areas.... waiting to run into a griz any moment.  Sam even wanted to turn back.  It was an awesome day hike, the 10 peaks in this valley were so jagged and steep.  Sheer walls of granite spiking straight up from the green tree lined valley floor.  I was loving it.

From Moraine lake we drove south towards the city of Banff.  There were a few cars pulled over and I hopped out and got close to this elk.  It's antlers were huge.   "Hey buddy, dont go any closer," someone yelled at some other guy like 10ft away..  Wildlife was everywhere.

On the way to town we took a short hike up 

Johnson Valley.  The trail was constructed with

catwalks that clung to the side of the rocks. 

Lots of people on this section.

We had lunch in downtown Banff and headed back to camp.

  The next morning we woke up to blue skies for the first time.  There I am enjoying the the day, enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the simple things in life. We got in the car and headed north into new territory.    We had to get back to Kelowna this day so we could not spend too much more time on the road, oh well I think, I will be back.

These pictures were all shot off the Banff/Jasper highway.  It is spectacular.  This picture is of Lake Petyo looking North from a lookout that was a short hike from the road.  Look at the color of that water!  A 360 degree view of snow capped mountains. Yes this is it.  This country has mountains that I only dreamed of before and we only saw a glimpse of it.  I definitely wanted to keep driving north up to Jasper.

We had a long drive back to Sam's parents house in Kelowna. This is the view from Sam's parents house looking down into the Okanagan valley.  A wonderful time spent will them as we prepared to leave for Europe soon.  Banff was also a remarkable place to try out our new digital cameras.