We first noticed the yellowing of the aspen and poplar trees on higher elevation passes on August 27th.  The days, while still warm, are becoming shorter with cooler nights.  Making it hard for some of us to arise before sunrise in the morning (we won’t mention any names but her name starts with a “K”).  “I’ll bet sunrise will be boring this morning anyway, we can try tomorrow”, she says hopefully as she pulls the covers higher. 

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Leafin' the beach

The weather has really tried to keep us from getting any good sunrise/sunset photos – many days of rain or just gray skies, and rarely much color or light billowy clouds to set off the sky.  But we (mostly) had a good time trying to capture a tiny bit of what we could see anyway.  Although we realized with some frustration, that these majestic mountains are really too grand to put on film.  Which is really a good thing – it will mean we have to come back to look at them again in person.

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Maybe the word should be spelled "bearies" as these critters sure do vacume them up.

That statement by Lloyd Bridges on the old “Sea Hunt” TV series as he was being stalked by any number of aquatic bad guys seemed applicable when we finally started seeing bears.  Still only black bears, and not grizzlies, but that’s ok with us.  Both Waterton National Park in Canada and now Glacier NP in Montana have provided sightings. 

Things have changed from the old time Yellowstone sightings when human-habituated bears begged for food along the highway as people, lined up in traffic jams, obliged the creatures to get that “close up” face shot, just before the bad-mannered bears mauled someone whose offering was too meager.  Now the Parks take feeding the creatures as a very serious violation (as they should), and when any potentially dangerous creatures frequent a human area too often, they close it down and let the animals have it to themselves.  Thus, we have found trails, campgrounds, even road systems closed down to our entry.  I guess it works – the bears we have seen are all quite a distance away up on the hillsides or along the river, with the people appropriately stationed along the roads. 

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Bearly visible

This shot of a sow and her two cubs was taken from nearly ¼ mile away, where she was careful to maintain adequate distance from the human circus along the road.  We (and about 30 other vehicles) watched them, then two other lone bears on that same hillside for nearly an hour, stripping buffalo berries from the bushes, gaining weight for winter.  It was much more satisfying to see real bear behavior a long ways away, than a close-up of performing bears along a roadside line of cars.  Who says humans can’t be trained?

p.s. Kathy V correctly guessed that the partial head/eye of the animal on a recent posting was a big-horn sheep.  We will upload other animal photos when we get home.

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Night falls over Waterton Lake

Our original intention was to write/post a web story with photos nearly every day during our “Great Canadian/Montana Glacier” trip, or the “mountains and waterfalls” trip, as we’ve come to call it.  But we inadequately considered logistics.  Without electricity at most of our campgrounds we have no ability to download our camera CF cards, except during campground “generator hours”.  And our slow and antiquated card reader only downloads 1 card in the 2-hour electricity window.  With two cameras, we just can’t keep up.  Turns out we push the shutter button a lot!  Wifi/internet connections to upload to the web are even less common, usually dependent upon local community outlets, typically for a fee.

Because the whole point is to be out in the forests and mountains hiking, birding, or capturing photos rather than in camp downloading photos during the day-time generator hours we have settled for occasional web-story updates, with new intentions of loading our best photos to the “recent” category when we return home.  We apologize to those we told we would post more often! 

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Another cascade

Do you know the most evil thing in the woods? It is not the poor rattlesnake. Mostly they get a bum rap. They try and warn people to go away, they even try (generally) to get out of our way. And bears (especially grizzly) have a formidable reputation for being foul tempered. But bears basically are just eating machines that want to be left alone. Stay away from where they are feeding, or away from their young, and Boo-Boo, Yogi, and Smokey are relatively shy and amiable. How about mountain lions? Yes they will on occasion eat smaller humans. This is an undesirable trait but hardly evil. When I say evil I mean a critter that will seek you out, hammer you and then call others of its kind to join in the fun. One drop of spilled soda, a speck of uncovered meat, a dewy forehead or neck exposed to these creatures and you will be forced to retreat as first one, then another, and another join the assault. They will try and hurt you just for fun. They will try and attack you even after suffering mortal injuries. They will throw themselves at windows attempting to gain access to your humble abode. They will even gang up on you if you seek retribution and injure one of their kind. I’ve seen even the hardiest of firefighters (hotshots or jumpers or air attack officers – you choose) run away screaming like small children when confronted with an activity center of these ferocious creatures. Yes the lowly yellowjacket may be the most feared of all. So far we have been very, very lucky. No stings. We won’t talk about how much running and arm-waving though. (scroll down if you can't see the photo)

The Devil's spawn

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The boathouse at Lake Louise

This is the land of the canoe. I don’t know why but kayaks are apparently second class boats here. Every resort appears to have canoes. Nobody rents kayaks. And people rent canoes. People rent canoes at 0600. Not unusual except they aren’t fishing and the sun didn’t rise until 0645. Weird.

You would think on a camping trip you would get away from trains. Most National Parks in the US are not exactly on the mainline. Canada is different, and its not just hockey, weird football, and the whole French vs English thing. Some of their biggest, most beautiful national parks lie astride main east/west rail lines. We camped near Wells Gray park – heard trains. We camped near Revelstoke - heard trains. Camped at Jasper – heard trains. Camped at Kootnay - heard trains. But the ultimate experience is camping at Lake Louise. The campground is so close to the mainline Canadian Pacific track a Canadian Football quarterback could hit a locomotive with a pass from inside the campground. Our site was less than 150 metres (that’s about 164 yards for you Yankees) off the track. The first night we had 6 trains go by between dark and the time we finally collapsed into oblivion. They were so frequent and so long (average freight train over 110 cars) that I found myself becoming almost lulled by them like the ancient Greeks and the Sirens. Thrumm-Thrumm-Thrumm-Whoo-whoo-screee-thrumm-scree-thrum-thrumm-screeee-thrum-screee-whoo-woo-whoooooo-thruumm-screech-thrum-thrum. Yep. Best Canadian idea ever – put your campground full of foreign tourists right next to the loudest engineering accomplishment in the country so they can fully appreciate the accomplishment. But I have to admit (along with a whole bunch of German tourists) the 280-degree tunnels are really cool. And they aren’t next to the campground, although it would have been quieter.

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Train crosses the Big Hill through one of two 280 degree tunnels on the Canadian Pacific railroad

So we have made some new Canadian friends along the way. You might know them. Be sure to scroll down to see all three. 

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Gray Jay  

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Pika

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Can you guess?

Have you ever seen a blue osprey?  I know the bird field guides do not show them – but I saw one the other evening as we watched the sun fade behind Mt. Victoria on the backside of Lake Louise.  The turquoise water of the lake reflected up onto the white under-parts of the soaring osprey, turning him the bluest aquamarine hue imaginable.  I wish I could have gotten a photograph, but instead, knowing there was insufficient time to put on a telephoto lens and set up the tripod in the diminishing light, I simply watched as he soared by.  So, instead of a photo of the bird, we have attached a photo of one of the many blue lakes at Banff National Park, Moraine Lake.  Who knows, maybe next time I‘ll get the elusive blue osprey as well…

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Moraine Lake on a cloudy morning. 

You may have heard about our frequent evening “planning” meetings as we travel.  Since we rarely have a set itinerary we need to make decisions so we know which way to turn out of the campground in the morning. 

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A planning team meeting.

Yesterday, our carefully laid plans were torn asunder, not once, not twice, not three times, but many times over.  Our first and second trail hikes to a mountain lake and waterfall were both abruptly terminated by an annual biking event between Banff and Lake Louise that blocked our access to the trailheads.  Being “flexible”, we proceeded to stop #3 where we were turned back by a closure due to the road being washed out from all of the flooding this past spring.  Undaunted, we decided on a new hike, which turned out to be behind a “grizzly bear closure”.  This closure “for the protection of both people and the bears”, extended to almost all of our potential hiking trails originating from Lake Minnewanka, leaving us with only a shortened 3-kilometer hike (our knowledge of the metric system is improving) along the shoreline, along with the other 3,463,981.6 people (.6 for a pregnant woman you looked to be in her second trimester) who had also re-routed their hikes to the remaining few options.  No bear would have stood a chance against that hoard of humanity!  Not the wilderness hikes we had envisioned when we set out.  But what can you do?

We ended up eating lunch on a sunny rooftop pub in Banff.  Beer and local cuisine - a far cry from the beef jerky and gorp we usually eat while hiking.  No complaints from this quarter.

Border guards have a reputation; sometimes it’s deserved.

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Apparently very minor border crossings in Canada are where that reputation is built and enhanced. There’s no need to go into the details, lets just say two middle–aged, obviously good looking, and harmless Californians do not need to be reamed for getting out of their vehicle when the border personnel don’t show up after a couple of minutes. Maybe we interrupted the morning donut break, I don’t know, but it was the second time (out of two) where crossing into our neighbor to the north was not particularly neighborly. So I had a bad impression of Canadian bureaucrats. That changed this afternoon. We had gone to Glacier National Park (Canada – not Waterton Lakes or the US Glacier – whole different place) and it turned out most of the hiking trails were closed. All of the trails were closed because a sow grizzly and her two cubs had been hanging out with the humans. So we went to the northern part of the park along Highway 1 to look for a place to take a short walk among the magnificent peaks. Got to the trailhead and what do you know? It’s a helispot , eh? Ended up having a nice chat with a very friendly young firefighter named Angus M. We did what firefighters do: we talked about some fires we had seen locally, talked about the weather and if lightning might come soon.  After a while Angus’ boss drove up and he had to go back to work. As we were walking back to our truck Angus stopped us and handed me a Parks Canada fire patch. Made my day and rescued my opinion of Canadian bureaucracy. Angus- wherever you be, may you have fun fires, safe flights, and a long healthy career.