From the Mountains, to the Prairies…

Today we left the mountains of Jasper National Park and headed into the prairies of northern Alberta and into Eastern British Columbia. The roads were good most of the way, with an occasional stretch of bumpiness or construction. Most of it was two lane but we did have some sections with built-in passing lanes. The traffic was light, however, so there was not a lot of demand for passing. We got stuck once behind a logging truck and had to wait until we topped a hill to be able to pass. But the trip went well and we got into Dawson’s Creek, the mile zero location of the Alaskan Highway, by 4:00 PM.

One of the nice things about being this far north is that, we still had 6 hours of daylight left after we arrived here. We went out for dinner, explored a tiny bit around Mile Zero, and then came back to do some planning for the next week with Ken and Martha. It looks like we will now be going from Skagway to Haines by ferry instead of doubling back to Whitehorse before going up to Fairbanks. We will still have a week to kill between Haines and Fairbanks to get there for the solstice.

Today Ellyn found out there will be a rare transit of Venus across the face of the sun visible from Alaska while we are up here. Now I have to figure out how to get enough filter on my camera lens to be able to get a photo or two. Hmmm…

I’m also still working out the method of recording the amount of daylight in Fairbanks on the solstice. I have an app which seems to work pretty well and I hope to capture one day into one minute. Here is a test video I made in Banff leaving the app running for most of a day (probably closer to 15 hours).

Back to the Ice Fields

Today was a much better day up at 6,000 ft in the Canadian Rockies. We returned to the Columbia Ice Fields and went on the tour we had tickets for but had missed yesterday because of the snow storm. The weather was a lot better, although still not perfect, but we had a good time anyway.

On the way up, and mostly on the way back, we stopped for some photo ops. The Athabasca River and the Sunwapta River both have pretty nice waterfalls on them and we took a lot of pictures. We also saw some wild life; a black bear and a grey jay. Plus, when we got back to the camp grounds, we saw a female elk there with a calf.

Banff to Jasper

It is a relatively short drive from Banff National Park into Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies, but we were planning on pulling off at a lot of scenic areas. We pulled out of the Banff campground at 9:00 and headed up Canada 1, past some of the sights we had already visited while in Banff and soon were stopping for photo ops. There were some low clouds hanging over the peaks of the mountains, but, as we stopped and waited for a while, they began breaking up and we started getting the shots we really wanted.

There were tour buses filled with European tourists going along the same route and, when we stopped along side one, there were nearly as many pictures taken of our two rigs as there were of the mountains. We were getting questions about how they were to drive and how we were able to tow the cars “4 wheels down”, something I guess they had not seen before.

After a while, the clouds were more reluctant to part for us, and eventually, we started getting rain and wet roads. One of our goals was to stop at the Columbia Ice Fields and take the tour. We had already purchased the tickets in Banff and it was perfect for us to stop there on the way to Jasper. However, when we got there, it was snowing. Big, wet flakes of snow. We decided to take our chances on coming back down from Jasper the next day and hoping the weather would have cleared, at least a little. We were also hoping the road would stay clear enough for us for us to get to Jasper without further problems. It did.

The campground we are staying at has a lot of trees but Geoff was able to get the manual TV dish set up and connected to the satellite well enough to be able to see the Daily Show, which had been off the air for 2 weeks. Woo-hoo! A good end to the day.

Banff National Park–Last Day

Today was our last day in Banff. Tomorrow morning we head north up Canada 1 to Jasper National Park. It is not a long distance away but we suspect we will be pulling off at a lot of waypoints to enjoy the scenery.

Today, we took Jordy on a hike along the Bow River. It was a really nice day for a hike but we had to keep an eye on Jordy, as he was very curious about the horse droppings along the trail. He also wanted to drink from the standing water along the sides of the marshes. Toward the end of the hike it got cloudy and sprinkled a little on us.

This evening we went to dinner theater with Ken and Martha. It was pretty cheesy and Canadian themed but the singers were really good, the food was great, and we met a nice couple from Medicine Hat, Alberta. They were in town for a conference and decided to stay on for a couple of days.

The scenery here is fabulous and we’ve been told it is only a sample of what is still ahead of us. We can’t wait. On the road tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM.

Banff National Park–Day 2

Our second full day in the park and this was our most relaxing so far this trip. We took our time all morning, got to sleep in a little, did not leave the RV until almost noon. Geoff saw a ground squirrel outside the RV and took a few pictures.

Then we drove into downtown Banff and did a little souvenir shopping and had lunch. Then we drove to Sulfur Mountain, named for the hot spring at its base, and took the gondola ride to the top. The views were amazing! You look right down on the Bow River Valley where the town of Banff is located, and the 360 degree view is of the many peaks of the Canadian Rockies. The top is above the snow line and cold but the sun was shining and it was not windy, so it was a very enjoyable time. We took about 150 photos.

In the evening, we lit up a campfire and had Ken and Martha over for smores. It was a chore keeping Jordy away from the fire. The campground here has a big pile of firewood for the campsites with fire rings to use and it was nice and dry, so the fire started very easily. We do not do campfires very often and are still using the fire starters we made from dryer lint and old candles nearly 4 years ago when we were cleaning out the house.

Exploring the Canadian Rockies

Today was our first full day not driving the RVs anywhere, but doing some scenic touring. We are in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada and just about everywhere you look there is a spectacular view. We started out the day in downtown Banff getting tickets to a couple of attractions we want to go to later and getting an idea of what to go see today.

Next we headed towards Lake Louise, watching for wildlife and scenic areas to photograph. It did not take long until we found a car stopped on the side of the road, which usually means wildlife in the area. Sure enough, Mule Deer. Only one, but it was something. Of course, every turn we made brought more spectacular views into our windshield, so the going was slow, but we got some great pictures.

Finally, we arrived at Lake Louise and searched for somewhere to have lunch. We found a restaurant in the lodge and, although the service was a bit slow, even though there were not a lot of people eating there, the food was good, and we were soon out taking photos.

Ken had told me about a photo correction technique he uses called HDR (High Dynamic Range) which gives better detail in both the light and dark portions of a photograph. You must take 3 pictures in bracketed exposure mode. He uses +/- 2.0 stops for his, so I checked the programming modes on my camera and set it up to do this. Later, I would see if I could find software which would let me process the pictures I took.

Spring comes on slowly in this part of the world. Lake Louise still has a lot of ice on it. With the peaks around the lake also still being mostly snow covered, and the glaciers at the far side of the lake, it makes for some pretty nice pictures, even without any post-processing.

Next, we headed over to another icon lake here, Moraine Lake. There are spectacular moraines of debris of the sides of the peaks which surround the lake. This lake is up around 6,000 feet so it is also still frozen over and there is also still a few feet of snow around it too. The road to the lake had just been cleared before we went there. Again, you can’t take any bad pictures.

After trying a few things with the pictures I took for HDR processing, I talked with Ken again, and saw what he had been able to do with his. Now, you can make them look pretty good this way, but you can also make them look pretty “creative” as well. He seemed to like to make then look a little “other-world-y”, but I got the idea and found out what to look for. Then I found Luminance HDR, a free, open source program and, after some work figuring out the program, was able to get my own HDR processed photos to come out like I wanted them.

Border Crossing

So now we have crossed over into Canada from Montana and begin our trek to the Alaskan border. We stopped in Lethbridge, Alberta to pick up a few things at Wal-Mart, then go for a burger at Five Guys. The drive was pretty windy, cool, rainy, not too pretty. We drove on to Fort Macleod to the Buffalo Plains RV Park. This was just a few miles from the “Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump”, which we visited after getting the RVs set up. This was our second buffalo jump. It had a very nice visitor’s center and we got a discount on the admission thanks to maps we bought at the visitor’s center when we entered Alberta.

After we had toured the center and were about to leave, we got ushered into a room by one of the workers and he showed us a group of tools and weapons similar to those created over 6,000 years ago by the First People who used the buffalo jump. All were created using skin and sinew from buffalo combined with wood and rock. He explained the use of many of them.

This morning we left the campground and headed for Banff National Park. The weather was pretty variable, driving in and out of rain. As we approached the park, some sunlight came through the clouds. We arrived at our campsites with some pretty nice looking surroundings. We took a scenic drive around some of the nearby lakes. We hope that the clouds clear out and give us a chance to get some better pictures, but these are pretty good by themselves.