Reunion, the second Tale of the Unearthly Northwest, is now available as an ebook from Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo.
Other e-vendors and paperback coming soon.
Lost in Time
The year is 1910, and unemployed teacher Claudia Ogden is at the end of her rope. With nowhere to go and no one to rely on, she has no future at all. On the rumor of a job in a small, remote town called Conconully, she decides to bet what’s left of her life on it.
But when she arrives, and to her relief is hired, what at first seem like small eccentricities loom ever larger and more inexplicably, mysteries that make no sense. That is, until she meets Conconully’s accidental magician, who wants her to save them.
Or at least that’s what I’m calling this one, because the fabrics in the center squares of the alternating stars are a Russian folktale themed fabric, fussy cut so that I didn’t chop anyone’s head off. Another to add to the stack of donation quilts I’ll take to the Monroe show in March.
This was a fun pattern to do.
So you can see the novelty fabric, and the mostly-diagonal quilting with a bit of echo quilting in the light squares.
I just finished another lap quilt (36″x48″), pieced last summer from a bunch of bits of novelty fabrics (everything from marbles to frogs to slices of fruit) I had lying around, mostly, with a few reads-as-solids to keep it from being too busy, and hand-quilted (just diagonal lines, so it went fast) it and finished it this month. I don’t remember the name of the block. I’m calling it a misfit quilt, because of the fabrics, but I like the concept and may do it again, just for the heck of it.
I’d have thought, after this past weekend, there wouldn’t be much in the way of leaves left. I was wrong. In spite of 40 mph winds and over three inches of rain, the bigleaf maples were still bright schoolbus yellow against the scudding clouds this afternoon.
Bright reflection off of the still water.Along the trail behind the lake.There’s a reason they call them *big*leaf maples.Geese! Flying across the still water.
It was chilly, and it was damp, but it was a beautiful afternoon.
Some of you have seen this already. And I want to thank Tracy MacShane, who taught me how to cut out a piece of art from its background, which has confuzzled me for a long time. Thank you, Tracy!
I have done some re-branding for the covers of Tales of the Unearthly Northwest, as well. Here are the new covers for Sojourn, and for New Year’s Eve in Conconully. I will be changing those on all of the major sales sites very soon.
So. This will be my third NaNoWriMo. I’ve made it to 50,000 words (the thirty day goal of the exercise) twice. The first time resulted in a trunk novel (as in, this one will stay in the trunk because I wouldn’t want to inflict it on anyone), and the second time resulted in my first Tale of the Unearthly Northwest, Sojourn.
This time I’m writing my third Tale, called Voyage, and so far I’m a bit above schedule.
1683 words yesterday, and 1915 words today (to make the 50,000 word goal, you need to average 1667 words a day for the thirty days). 3598 words so far.
I like deadlines like this, and goals. And accountability, definitely. I have a tendency to procrastinate like crazy, so this forces me to get my act together. It took me almost a year to write Reunion, my second Tale. I don’t want that to happen again.
So I’ll be making accountability posts here, hopefully on a daily basis. I suspect (and hope) that Voyage, will be longer than 50,000 words, so I’ll probably wind up going into December.
Any encouragement or firm shoves in the right direction are more than welcome!
So. The domain names for my two websites are registered through GoDaddy, which I first put together in 2007 (ye godlings, yes, that long ago) back when I didn't know any better. I have my webhosting through A Small Orange, who are generally fantastic, and I want to switch my domain name registrations over to them, too.
But apparently this is not possible unless you're a lot smarter and more Internet savvy than I am. ASO is more than willing to help and step me through their side of things, as they have many times before (the cliché champagne service on a beer budget is not an inapt description of them in general), but, obviously, they cannot help me with the GoDaddy side of things. GoDaddy is living up to their reputation (which I didn't know about when I signed up with them), being as obstructionist and obfuscating as corporately possible.
Reading the documentation is beyond hopeless. The words are in English, and they do appear to be structured in grammatically sound sentences, but otherwise the instructions might as well be written in Swahili. Or Klingon. The "help" chat is -- I'd say less than helpless, but that's insulting the word helpless.
I feel like a bloody hostage, but I don't know how to get myself out of this situation.
Has anyone here ever extracted themselves from GoDaddy's clutches and lived to tell the tale? If so, would you be willing to hold my hand as we get *me* out of them? I figure it can't hurt to ask...
Looking up towards Sourdough Ridge, at Sunrise, Mt. Rainier National Park.
So. A week and a half ago, we were having temperatures in the 80s here in the Puget Sound lowlands. We’ve had a summer for the record books — the most 90 degree days in one year, the most 80 degree days in one year, the hottest June, July, and August on record… The weather forecasters were beginning to sound like a broken record (and far too chipper for their own good, given the circumstances).
Then, a week ago today, the switch flipped. The temperatures dropped to the 60s, the wind picked up, and — you guessed it — we had the biggest August windstorm on record. All of a sudden it was October (the main harbinger of autumn here is wind — google Inauguration Day storm, Columbus Day storm, and Hanukkah Eve storm if you don’t believe me).
I’ve already got a second quilt on the bed, too, because the nighttime temps have started dropping to the 40s.
And then, to celebrate completing my new novel Reunion (the second Tale of the Unearthly Northwest), my friend L and I drove up to Sunrise today, on the eastern side of Mt. Rainier, and were greeted with this beautiful sight:
Low 40s, with snow-covered picnic tables. Suffice to say, we ate our lunch in the car.The trail was a bit icy and slushy, but the walk was wonderful. The air smells absolutely amazing up there.Not all was black and white and gray. Mountain ash foliage in full autumn color.Looks like some kids were having a good time!There really is a mountain up there. Looks like the bottom of the cloud deck was at about 12000 feet.
Oh, and the 6000 steps? Sunrise is at 6300 feet. We hit snow at about 6200 feet (Sunrise Point, about a mile from Sunrise proper, is at 6100 feet, and there was no snow there).
It won’t be officially astronomical autumn until the 22nd, or unofficially autumn until after Labor Day weekend, but still. It’s been feeling like autumn all week, cool and showery (and we had a very autumn-like windstorm on Saturday).
You can also tell because the hardy cyclamen are blooming beside my front door (please excuse the weeds).
Hardy cyclamen. I don’t remember if it’s hederifolium or neopolitanum or coum, sorry!
So today when I went for my walk along the Nathan Chapman trail, I decided to take my camera and see what I could see.
Here’s a shot of the beginning of the trail.
The northern end of the Nathan Chapman trail in South Hill, WA.
Here’s some blackberry foliage already beginning to turn color.
Blackberry foliage.
I don’t know what kind of berries these are. Currants, perhaps? The foliage does not say pyracantha or serviceberry to me.
Unidentified (so far) red berries. ETA: according to the Hardy Plant email list, they’re feral (and rather invasive, alas) white hawthorne (the white refers to the flowers, which indeed did come in big lovely white clusters last spring).
The photo below is part of the result of our very hot, dry summer this year. Things are starting to green back up now that we’ve had some rain, but some things won’t be back till next year now.
What the end of a hot, dry summer looks like.
The vine maple will be flame-colored in a few weeks, but for now it’s still green.
Vine maple leaves.
There are even a few flowers left.
Wild pea flowers.Wild asters.But the goldenrod has already gone to seed.
I found some blackberries, too, but the only ones that hadn’t been picked and eaten were up high enough to be at an awkward angle for photographing, so I’m not going to inflict my blurry efforts on you.
No Mountain today, either. Mt. Rainier is visible from where I took the picture below when the sky is clear. It should be out when my friend L and I go to Sunrise on Saturday!
A view of the Mountain from the Shadow Lake trail.
Late summer in early July
My friend Loralee and I went to Mt. Rainier for a wildflower jaunt on Wednesday. This just goes to prove that I have an unending jones for wildflowers, because I’d just seen tons of them on my trip to the Canadian Rockies.
It was hot in the lowlands, our 14th consecutive day above 80 — we tied a record yesterday with another one — so the 70s predicted for Sunrise at 6300 feet (about 1920 meters) on the east side of the Mountain sounded wonderful. (it’s been remedied by the long overdue return of our onshore flow, the wind off the ocean that we often refer to here as our natural air conditioning — so far, today’s high’s been about 70F (about 21C)).
We stopped to pick up what I always think of as an insta-picnic at Subway on our way up, and got to Sunrise around noon. We had a lovely picnic, then I went for my usual jaunt around back behind Sunrise to Shadow Lake while Loralee strolled closer by.
If I hadn’t known for a fact that it was July 8th, I’d have sworn it was the middle of August. There’s usually at least some snow on the ground near or on the trail this early in the season, the pasqueflowers aren’t quite over, and there’s glacier lilies everywhere.
On this July 8th, there was no snow whatsoever except way up on the Mountain, the phlox that normally blooms in late July was all but finished (I found maybe two clumps that hadn’t gone to seed), the lupines were past their prime, and there were August asters everywhere.
It was still gorgeous, as usual, but still.
Here’s some of what I saw today:
Pasqueflower seed mopheads.Davidson’s penstemon.One of about two patches of alpine phlox that weren’t finished blooming for the season.I don’t know what kind of butterfly/moth this is, but they were all over the place.The only four-legged critter I saw on my walk (he’s a least chipmunk). There were rumors of bears, but I was just as glad not to see them. I prefer bear-watching from my car, thanks.A rather low and murky Shadow Lake.Harebells! In early July! As Ivan Vorpatril would say, that’s just Wrong.Lupine pooling in the meadow.A not-normally-this low creekbed, with lousewort (what an awful name) and bistort.Mostly lupine, with about half a dozen neighbors including white lovage.Broadleaved arnica.Scarlet paintbrush and asters..False hellebore, which always looks like mutant cornstalks to me, with asters in the background.A single alpine aster flower.
All in all, given the lack of winter and a so-far unreasonably hot spring and summer, not bad.
But, as I said to Loralee on our way down the mountain, “Harebells! In early July!”
The last of the Rocky Mountains, along the Trans-Canada Highway.
Two weeks ago, June 21 and 22, 2015.
So, yesterday was the Fourth, which means I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the computer. Plus my monitor died Friday night. Fortunately, Best Buy was open on the holiday.
The penultimate day of my trip was the summer solstice. I also crossed back into the Pacific Time Zone, so it was quite a long day. I woke up at the crack of dawn again, into a gray-gloomy rainy day (which sounds so lovely right now — the temperature outside right now is over 90F, and has been for the last five days).
I’d had a reservation at a hostel in Kelowna, 215 miles down the road from Golden, but I’d decided to cancel it the previous night, because, well, now that I was on my way home, I wanted to see how far I could get. I always get sort of antsy the last day or two on the road on a trip like this — ready to get home.
I headed west again on the Trans-Canada Highway, through two more smaller national parks, Glacier National Park (yes, Canada has a national park called Glacier, too), and Mt. Revelstoke National Park, but there really wasn’t much reason to stop. The section through Glacier, over Rogers Pass, was the last section of the Trans-Canada Highway to be completed, in 1962. That road is younger than I am! There’s a historical site at what I’d call a rest area here in the States at the top of the pass, and I stopped to take a few pictures.
Approaching Rogers Pass, in Glacier National Park.Trans-Canada Highway monument, Rogers Pass.Looking east from the Rogers Pass Monument.
From there on it was down, down, down. I stopped in the town of Revelstoke, at a combo Tim Hortons and gas station, for liquid refreshment for both me and Kestrel, then turned south off of the Trans-Canada at the small town of Sicamous, onto Highway 97, which stays the same number in both Canada and the U.S.
Chicory flowers, near Sicamous, BC.
I drove past a pretty lake, and saw some blue wildflowers that had to be inspected and photographed, then south to the big city of Kelowna, where I arrived just in time for lunch (and was really glad I’d cancelled my hostel reservation). By that point, I’d left the lush forests of the western side of the Rockies behind, not to mention the rain and the cool temperatures. It was almost 30C, according to a bank thermometer in Kelowna, which translates to the lower 80sF, and not a cloud in the sky. It only got hotter the further I went, too.
The map had been somewhat misleading. I’d assumed that the double line that was Hwy. 97 through Kelowna meant that I’d be on a freeway, but no, just a four-lane boulevard with stoplights every hundred yards or so. It took me a while to fight my way through the traffic and reach the bridge across long, narrow Lake Okanagan. Then, after I was out of town, it turned into a freeway. Oh, well.
A glimpse of Lake Okanagan, south of Kelowna, BC.
Lake Okanagan is lovely, and the road clings to the cliff as it threads its way down past vineyards and through small towns and the good-sized city of Penticton. After Penticton, orchards were the order of the day, and I could have stopped and bought cherries any number of times. Alas, I was down to my last couple of Canadian dollars and didn’t want to get more at this stage, plus, I wasn’t sure if U.S. customs would let me through with them. So I didn’t.
Lake Osoyoos, BC.
I reached the U.S. customs station, just north of the little town of Oroville, Washington, along the shores of Lake Osoyoos (oh-SOY-oos — I asked the customs agent), about the middle of the afternoon. A very nice Hispanic lady checked my passport, asked me to take my sunglasses off for a moment so she could get a better look at my face, and to pop my trunk. If I’d known she was going to want to look in there, I’d have put all my dirty clothes back in my suitcase, but the only comment she made was how she, too, liked the brand of chips I had in my food bag. Oh, well, worse things have happened.
And then I was back in the land of miles and Fahrenheit (a rather high degree of Fahrenheit at that, almost 90 degrees, alas). I drove past Tonasket, which was the knot of the lasso of this trip, on to Omak, another hour or so, and got there around four. Found the motel I stayed at on my research jaunts for Sojourn, and crashed and burned. I’d been on the road since about 6 am Pacific time, and I slept like I was really working at it.
And the next day I got up and drove the five hours home, over familiar roads, down 97 past Wenatchee to Blewett Pass, to I-90 and home. I think I made three stops, one for gas and real MickeyD’s iced tea in Brewster, one just north of Wenatchee for cherries, and one just before I got back on I-90 to gather one last picnic from my cooler and food bag for lunch that I ate as I drove over Snoqualmie Pass. I got home about 2 in the afternoon. The condo hadn’t burned down and the cats were fine (although extremely eager to go outside, and beyond annoyed with me).
And that was my trip to the Canadian Rockies. Decidedly one of the best trips I’ve made in recent memory.
And so I turned towards home. But I had one more day in the Rockies, driving back down the Icefields Parkway, then west through yet another national park, so while I might have been headed back technically, there was still more than plenty to see.
For some reason I woke up at the crack of dawn, and was on the road by 7:30 in the morning. I wake up a lot earlier than I normally do when I’m traveling, but this was sort of ridiculous. On the bright side, because I was out so early, I got to see some elk alongside the road just south of Jasper townsite.
Elk just south of Jasper townsite.
I’m sort of jaded about elk — I’ve seen so many of them in Yellowstone, and even had one bull in rut bugle under my hotel room window all night there once — but they’re still beautiful animals. I was less enamored of the tourons who were walking right up to them to take photos, but Darwin knows what to do with them.
I arrived at Athabaska Glacier by late morning, and stopped at the Icefields Centre, which I hadn’t done on the way up, just to see what was there. An unfinished (they were still working on the exhibits) big fancy building, mostly, but I did buy my fourth and last magnet of the trip in the gift shop there. I also took some photos from that new vantage point (up the slope on the other side of the valley from the glacier), and when I got home, discovered that among the slides I brought home in January from my mother’s house, there was one I’d taken (my Instamatic took square slides, so that’s how I know it was mine, not my father’s) of the same glacier from a similar viewpoint back in 1970. So here’s what a graphic example of global warming on a human timeline looks like:
Athabaska Glacier, 1970. The parking lot is in the same place in the photo below.Athabaska Glacier, 2015. The glacier has retreated about half a mile.
Then it was down, down, down into the Bow Valley, with one brief stop to keep from running over another small group of bighorn sheep, to Lake Louise village, where I bought tea and then headed west on the Trans-Canada Highway toward Kicking Horse Pass, my last crossing of the Continental Divide, and Yoho National Park.
Female bighorn sheep, just south of Bow Pass.
Kicking Horse Pass (so named because an early explorer got kicked in the head by his horse there) was a fascinating place. I’m not that much of a railroad buff, although I’ve ridden Amtrak cross-country several times, but I’d never seen a railroad do what this one does before. The grade is so steep that it was all but impossible for trains to make it over the pass. That is, until an engineer got the bright idea to build tunnels in a figure eight configuration, giving more room for the trains to climb more gradually, with the tracks crossing over themselves as they climbed. If the train is long enough, you can see the engines and first cars passing directly over the later cars below them. I was lucky enough to be there when a long train passed through, and actually got to see this happen. It was hard to get good photos, but here’s one.
Train going through the lower Spiral Tunnel. The part of the train below is passing underneath the part of the same train above.
After I finished marveling at the turn-of-the-last century engineering feat, I drove a bit further west and turned onto the Yoho Valley Road, which winds (including a couple of “I hope Kestrel doesn’t rear-end himself” switchbacks) up the Yoho Valley to Takakkaw Falls, the highest single-drop waterfall in Canada, at 850 feet. There’s a trail right up close enough to feel the mist, of course. It really reminded me of Yosemite Valley, only without the crowds. It was also a great place to picnic.
Takakkaw Falls, the highest single drop in Canada.
And I saw another bear on the way up there. My seventh and last of the trip. I’ve never seen that many bears on one trip before.
My seventh and last bear of the trip, along the Yoho Valley Road. The white is snow.
And more wildflowers, of course.
Forget-me-nots along the Yoho Valley Road.Wild orchid at Takakkaw Falls.
The visitor centre at the village of Field, back on the Trans-Canada Highway, was my next stop, with its little exhibit about the Burgess Shale, one of the most famous fossil beds in North America. Unfortunately, the site itself is only accessible by guided tour and a long, steep hike, but at least I got to see some of the fossils.
My last side trip of the day was the road to Emerald Lake and the natural bridge along the way. I was more impressed with the natural bridge (and its lovely waterfall) than I was with Emerald Lake. It was still pretty, though.
Natural bridge, along the Emerald Lake Road.Emerald (in name only) Lake. The Burgess Shale site is up on that mountain somewhere.
And another flower along the Trans-Canada Highway which I’d never seen before. Gorgeous red lilies.
Wild lily along the Trans-Canada Highway.
Then it was on to the town of Golden, and my hostel for the night, run by a very friendly Scottish woman who fosters cats for the local humane society. First cat fix I’d had since I left home, and very pleasant. She also recommended a restaurant, the Wolf’s Den, which was part historic log cabin and part sports bar, serving an excellent hamburger, salad, and the best onion ring I’ve had since Burgerville perched on top of the burger. The TV was playing the U.S. Open golf tournament, playing this year at Chambers Bay, just down the road from where I live (and part of the reason I timed my trip as I did), which I found rather amusing.
And that was my last day in the Canadian Rockies. For this trip, anyway. I’d love to go back someday. I had a day and a half drive to get home, and a few more things to see along the way, though.
It was another misty moisty day and cloudy was the weather, as my mother would say (in sharp contrast to what we’ve got here in western Washington as I write this — we just came off the hottest June on record, and it’s supposed to get over 90F today, which is 20 degrees above normal), so I decided to start with something indoors, to give things a chance to improve.
But first I stopped at a Tim Horton’s in Jasper townsite, where they sold me a large hot tea and Timbits (doughnut holes) for breakfast. I’d never been in a Tim Horton’s before (I’ve seen their ads on the Canadian TV station I get on my cable at home), but they do very good tea and doughnut holes.
Jasper townsite has an active historical society, and an excellent museum telling all about its human history. The woman staffing the museum told me about at least one place I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, too, and was very friendly and informative in general. I am a big fan of local historical societies who are lucky enough to have volunteers like her.
A display at the Jasper Historical Museum telling about where the local First Nations lived.
It had cleared up a little by the time I left the museum, so I headed out to a pair of lakes, Patricia and Pyramid, which turned out to be a lovely short drive. I don’t know who Patricia Lake is named after, but Pyramid Lake was named after one of the mountains that looms over it, which is sort of pyramid-shaped. If you squint at it from the right angle. More to the point, Pyramid Lake has an island, accessed by bridge, with a pleasant walking trail around it. Even the rain, spitting and spatting, didn’t ruin the pleasure of that walk.
The bridge to the island in Pyramid LakeA robin and her nest on the island at Pyramid Lake.Pyramid Mountain.Yellow gallardia, white non-native oxeye daisies, and spiky butter and eggs, on the highway just outside Jasper townsite.
My next goal was Maligne (pronounced Ma-LEEN if you speak English, Ma-LINE if you speak French, according to the lady at the museum) Canyon, the third of those slot canyons I saw on this trip. More deep narrow recesses with water thundering down, more all but unnecessary bridges because it was basically close enough to jump if you were crazy, more wildflowers, more thundering waterfalls. And a sign telling all about how this canyon, at any rate, was created because I was standing on a karst formation. Karst. Here. I always associate karst landscapes with Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave. It seemed very odd to run across it way off up here, for some reason. And the landscape was so green and lush. I’d had it in my brain that the whole of Jasper National Park was going to look like the area around Athabaska Glacier, but it doesn’t. Not at all.
The karst exhibit at Maligne Canyon.
Just after I turned around (the trail and canyon go on for several miles, but I only walked down to the third bridge and the waterfall, about a kilometer, mindful of the steepness of the trail going back uphill), the skies opened up. If I hadn’t been wearing my raincoat, I’d have been drenched. My feet absolutely squelched, though.
A view of Maligne Canyon.Another view of Maligne Canyon.The waterfall at the third bridge on the Maligne Canyon trail.
While eating my lunch in the car after, I discovered Jasper must have a repeater for the Edmonton CBC radio station, because I got to listen to a gardening show, which was fascinating. Seems to me like it would be an uphill battle to garden so far north (although many of the houses in Jasper have nice gardens), but apparently it’s worth it.
And so on to Maligne Lake. I passed Medicine Lake on the way, which, because of the karst, drains completely by late summer.
Medicine Lake, which had not disappeared for the summer yet.
Maligne Lake is another of those jewels dropped into the middle of a forest, with mountains all around, and should be part of the seven wonders of the natural world, not Lake Louise, IMHO. If it weren’t for the mosquitoes and the rain continuing to threaten, it would have been almost too perfect. But about the time I got back to my car, I got showered with ice pellets. In late June.
Maligne Lake, seriously, utterly gorgeous. That’s a historic boathouse on the left.A view of Maligne Lake from the bridge at its outlet.
On the way back to Jasper townsite, I saw four bears. One lone male, then a sow with two cubs. Pretty exciting stuff, and by far my best bear photo of the trip.
Mama bear and one of her babies. The other one was out of sight at that moment, alas. This was taken with the zoom, from the safety of my car, just so you know.
When I got back, I prowled town for a bit, ate supper (better than the night before, thank goodness), bought some candy called naked bear paws (cashews on caramel), and headed for the hostel. Back down the Icefields Parkway tomorrow, the first step in heading home <sigh>.
I don’t know the name of that hanging glacier (if it has one), but I thought it was cool. I have literally dozens of photos of mountains like this. Just amazing.
Thirteen days ago, June 18, 2015.
Off to Jasper! By way of the Icefields Parkway, which I’d been thinking of as the big highlight of the trip, and it did not fail me.
First, though, I want to mention a restaurant called Wild Bill’s (Peyto, not Hickok — a local fellow from the early days) in Banff townsite, where I ate the night before. Highly recommended, in an old-fashioned western sort of way. I had three sliders, one each of three different kinds, and a really good salad, and was treated to some boot-stomping music along the way.
Anyway, I was up and out early, checked out of the hostel, and walked to a local McDonalds — in a national park! — for a large hot tea (not even Mickey D’s does a proper unsweet iced tea up here <sigh>) before heading out of town, into enough on and off rain to clean my windshield.
And into a serious surfeit of stupendous mountains. The clouds came and went with the rain, but it was clear enough a good chunk of the time, and the cloud deck high enough when it wasn’t, that I had a good view most of the way. I did run into a bit of road construction just north of Lake Louise, but it wasn’t bad. And, after all, they have the same problem with road construction up there that they do in Yellowstone. A very short season for doing it, that coincides exactly with tourist season. Not much to be done about that.
Who cares about a little road construction when the view’s like this?
But the views were absolutely amazing. Mile after mile after mile of amazing. After a certain point I just sort of went on gorgeousness overload.
I *think* this is Crowfoot Glacier.And I think this is Bow Glacier. There was a lodge and a lake partially hidden in those trees.
So here are some highlights of a day that basically was all highlight:
I took a short but steep walk up to a viewpoint over Peyto Lake (named after the same guy as the restaurant — and pronounced PEE-to, not PAY-to), which was a beautiful strip of aquamarine dropped down in the evergreens. Lots of wildflowers, too.
Peyto Lake from the viewpoint.Arctic willow blossoms on the Peyto Lake trail.Wild yellow columbines at a picnic area along the parkway.
I stopped at another viewpoint just south of Bow Pass (over 2000m/6000 feet) to look back towards the Bow River Valley.
South from Bow Pass.
And I hiked about half a mile straight uphill to the foot of the Athabaska Glacier (which feeds off the Columbia Icefield, the largest icefield in the Rocky Mountains). It provided a graphic example of why living on a moraine as I do results in a garden full of rocks.
The trail up to Athabaska Glacier.Athabaska Glacier. A lady I spoke with there was disappointed that they don’t let people just walk up on the glacier anymore the way they did when she was a kid.
It was cold up there. I was so glad for my heavy jeans and my insulated jacket — and the hoodie with the hood up underneath, especially when it started raining on me again on the way back down to my car.
Then I drove down, down, down, into into Jasper National Park and a climate zone that felt much warmer than at Banff townsite even though it’s over a hundred miles farther north (since Jasper townsite’s altitude is 3484 feet, and Banff townsite’s is 4800 feet, it makes a certain amount of sense — 100+ miles distance is negligible in comparison). It was also sunnier, which was pleasant.
I stopped at Sunwapta Falls, where three rivers come together to form the Athabaska River, which flows into the Arctic Ocean, which just flabbergasted me at the time. I knew I was far north, but really? The falls are pretty spectacular, too.
Sunwapta Falls.
And on to Athabaska Falls. This time of year, with the snowmelt, I was seeing all the waterfalls on my trip at their best. And more wildflowers, too.
The upper part of Athabaska Falls.Another part of Athabaska Falls. It was impossible to take a photo of the whole falls at once.Mertensia at Athabaska Falls.
Somehow, after I left the parking area at Athabaska Falls, I wound up on a sort of back road (not really another Bow River Parkway, but more like a paved forest service road back home) which wound north and eventually dumped me on the Parkway just south of Jasper townsite.
And so I arrived in Jasper townsite, which really reminded me of Libby. The scenery was different, but the ambiance was very similar. Small and remote (the nearest big city is Edmonton, about 225 miles, compared to Banff’s proximity to Calgary, only 75 miles) and touristy, but in a much more understated way than Banff. Unfortunately, my supper there was the polar opposite of what I’d had in Banff the night before, but even that didn’t dampen my spirits.
The hostel was several miles outside of town, and they assigned me a bed tucked way back in a corner, which was fine by me.
It was an incredible day. I was exhausted, even after just about 120 miles, but wow, was it worth it. And in a couple of days, I was going to do it all over again, in the other direction. After I explored Jasper.
Yesterday got away from me. So we’ll start again with day six today.
Off to Lake Louise. The literature says that it was once counted as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. I can’t say it lives up to that sort of hype, but it was rather spectacular. And about as crowded as Johnston Canyon was yesterday, due mostly to tour busses carrying folks speaking at least a dozen different languages (primarily French, but several other European languages and at least that many Asian ones).
It was pouring rain when I left Banff townsite to drive the thirty-odd miles to the lake, but by the time I got halfway there, to leave the Trans-Canada Highway for the upper half of the Bow River Parkway, it was just barely spitting.
Memorial for WWI internment camp along the Bow River Parkway. Even unfairly imprisoned (shades of Manzanar, etc., in the U.S.), men in that camp helped build roads and trails in the park.
It was much cooler, though, and today was the first day I really appreciated the fact that I’d brought my insulated jacket. I was also glad I’d taken as many photos of the mountains as I had over the last two days, because the cloud deck was low enough to drape like a shawl over the shoulders of the mountains, and I wouldn’t have nearly as many unimpeded photos as I do if I hadn’t (I uploaded my photos to my laptop that night, to discover I’d taken about five hundred on the trip so far — thank goodness for digital cameras, is all I can say, and you’re getting the cream of the crop).
Lake Louise.These lakeshore memorials to early pioneers in the area made me think of Han Solo, for some odd reason…Clark’s Nutcracker at Lake Louise.
So. Lake Louise. One of the most famous lakes in the world, or so I’m given to understand, named after one of Queen Victoria’s daughters, bright turquoise, nestled in a glaciated valley just below the Victoria Glacier, and ringed by mountain peaks. Really beautiful, actually. The hotel at the foot of the lake, also famous, I gather, is almost exactly like the one in Banff. Big and fancy and run by an international hotel chain, so without the kind of character and uniqueness a hotel in a place like this should have.
The big, blocky Chateau Lake Louise.
There’s a nice, paved path around the west side of the lake which I strolled for some distance, hoping for mountain goats on the mountainsides above, but no luck, alas. Perhaps tomorrow on the Icefields Parkway. And, my curiosity satisfied, I head back down to the turnoff for Moraine Lake, which I’ve also heard good things about.
Moraine Lake.
Moraine Lake, is, if anything, more gorgeous than Lake Louise, backed by a whole range of mountains. The outlet of the lake is marked by a huge natural rockpile, with a trail going to the top. By then it had pretty much quit raining altogether, and the clouds were beginning to rise, so I took the short hike up there to goggle at the view, spotting more wildflowers along the way as a bonus.
I think these are some kind of currant blossoms. Along the rockpile trail at Moraine Lake.Arnica along the rockpile trail at Moraine Lake.Least chipmunk at the rockpile viewpoint at Moraine Lake.
One of the exhibit signs said this was where the picture on the back of the Canadian twenty dollar bill was taken, but I took one out of my wallet and apparently they’ve changed the design. Still, the view was well worth immortalizing, so I did.
The view from the rockpile viewpoint at Moraine Lake.Doesn’t the water look almost opalescent? Especially next to that dark green tree?
On my way back to Banff townsite, I stopped in the village of Lake Louise (a couple of miles from the lake itself), and went in their visitor center. Unlike the ones for Kootenay National Park (actually in Radium Hot Springs), which only had a tiny exhibit section, and Banff townsite, which was just a bunch of information desks (although, to be honest, with the Whyte Museum and the Cave and Basin site it would have been redundant to do more), the Lake Louise visitor center had a great set of exhibits on the geology of the area.
And so back down the upper section of the Bow River Parkway, where I saw a wild canine! It was either a very large, very healthy coyote, or a lone wolf. Or maybe, from the tail, even a huge fox. From the distance at which I saw it, it was hard to tell (this photo has been cropped and enlarged to a faretheewell).
Lone wolf? Really big coyote? Enormous fox?
And then, further down the road, another bear! My second one of the trip.
Bear!
Add to that the loads of Columbian ground squirrels and least chipmunks (the latter of which were all over the place at Moraine Lake), and the ravens and magpies and Clark’s nutcrackers (the latter of which were all over the place at Lake Louise), and I’ve seen lots of critters so far.
Once back in Banff townsite, I filled Kestrel’s gas tank against the drive to Jasper tomorrow, which I was seriously looking forward to. Especially if the weather improved.
This morning I visited Cave and Basin National Historic Site, on the outskirts of Banff townsite. It contains the hot spring that first brought the area to the country’s attention and thus ended up being Canada’s first national park in 1885. Something they’re very proud of and make a bigger deal of than we do with Yellowstone (or some misguided folk, Yosemite), believe it or not. The first preserve was just a big spring inside a cave, discovered by the Stoney Indians, then rediscovered by some prospectors, who brought it to the attention of the railroads. It was developed into something of a resort, as have most of the other hot springs in these national parks.
They let you go into the cave, via a tunnel that was apparently blasted through the rock (the only entrance originally was in the top of the cave, and the only way in down via rope — the current entrance is a simple stroll). The basin, basically a pool, is still in fairly pristine condition, too, but the facilities built back in the early days for the tourists have all been closed down and paved over.
Display at Cave and Basin National Historic Site.Another display. I find it fascinating that it takes almost twice as many words to say something in French as it does English.The cave.The original entrance, looking almost straight up.
The main exhibits were about the Canadian national park system, with a big multimedia program which was well worth watching. I do find it amusing that it was hot water that started both the U.S. and Canadian national park systems. I didn’t know that the Canadian national park service (whose members are called wardens, not rangers) predates ours, though. The Canadians have the first national park service in the world. We just used the Army to patrol our parks until we finally got our act together and created a park service.
Next, I made the brief drive out to Lake Minnewanka, which, like Jackson Lake in the Tetons, is not an entirely natural lake, having been dammed at some point in its past. But it was still a pretty drive, and I saw my first bighorn sheep of the trip alongside the road here, which was very cool. It was also a good place for a picnic lunch.
Lake Minnewanka.Lake Minnewanka dam with mountains rising behind it.A rather scruffy-looking male bighorn sheep, who was in the process of shedding his winter coat.
Then I headed back up to Johnston Canyon, where I did find a parking space this time, and I saw more bighorn sheep along the Bow River Parkway on the way there.
Along the Bow River Parkway.Another small herd of bighorn sheep.
Johnston Canyon is, like I said before, another one of those narrow slot canyons, except that the trail for this one goes through the canyon itself, rather than along the rim. The trail is cantilevered out over the river for several stretches, which makes for some good views, and about half a mile in, there’s a waterfall. You can see it from the main trail, but there’s a tunnel, the far end of which is so close to the waterfall itself that you’re standing in the mist.
The river flowing out of Johnston Canyon.Johnston Canyon.A stretch of cantilevered walkway at Johnston Canyon.The waterfall in Johnston Canyon. I don’t know if it’s got a name.
The whole thing kept making me think of the Mist Trail in Yosemite, only not nearly so strenuous. Not less crowded, alas — people were even pushing strollers up that trail, which sort of boggled my mind. It was a spectacular trail, though.
My last jaunt of the day was back in Banff townsite: the Whyte Museum, where I caught a tour of two of Banff’s earliest houses, both log cabins, one owned by the people who started the museum, and the other owned by some early pioneers here. The museum itself was about the history and culture of the Banff area, and well worth the time I spent there.
It was a full day, and a good one. One more full day in Banff, then off to Jasper on Thursday.
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