Canada Earlier in the year, Judith and I agreed that rather than go to Canada again this winter (for the fourth time in five years), we’d go somewhere warm instead. But when it came time to actually book something, the lure of the beautiful, snow covered Canadian Rockies was just too much for us.
Flying Thursday - We had a special treat for our mid-afternoon flight to Calgary because we'd saved up enough Avios points to fly Business Class, which was very nice indeed. It certainly made a long haul flight such as this a much, much more pleasurable experience.This British Airways 747 passed us somewhere over Greenland, bathed in sunlight against the twilight sky, and appeared to be heading a fair bit further North than us. Edmonton or Vancouver perhaps? I'm pretty certain that British Airways don't fly direct to Alaska.
Delta We were pretty much the first people off the plane (there were only about a dozen people in the Business Class cabin), we passed straight through customs and our bags were already on the carousel when we arrived there. A seamless end to a very nice flight.Although we were out of the airport by around 6pm local time, that was still 1am in London and in our brains. So, as we've done in previous years, we decided to stay in the Delta hotel at the airport. This is a photo of their atrium.We had just enough stamina remaining for a pint and a bite to eat in the hotel's bar before flaking out for the night.
Kananaskis Country Friday - As we were asleep by 7pm, we were also up very early too. So we had breakfast at 06:30 and went to pick up our car from the Hertz desk at the airport just after 7am. As usual, they didn't have the car we'd booked a few weeks ago (a full-sized SUV) and asked us to go and have some breakfast while they found one, which we obviously couldn't do because we'd just come from breakfast.After a bit of messing about and waiting around, they finally produced the enormous GMC Yukon XL that you can see in the photo. 5.3 litre V8, 320bhp, 8 seats (3-3-2) and still space in the boot for half-a-dozen large suitcases. Comfy ride too, thanks to the soft suspension and tyres that must easily have had side walls seven or eight inches tall (unlike the tyres on Judith's BMW, which are about two inches thick).We left Calgary on highway 1a, which wasn't as scenic as we'd expected, before picking up highway 40 and heading South into Kananaskis Country.This photo was taken on highway 40, not far from the turn on to the Smith Dorien Trail.
Mountains This is what we came for - blue skies and snow covered mountains. Awesome. Also, as you can sort of tell from Judith's attire in this photo, it wasn't that cold. Well, okay, it was about -10C, which would be a really cold day in England. But in the sunshine, it was nice enough to hop out of the car for a few minutes to take some photos without the need for head-to-toe thermals.
Yukon A shot down the side of our Yukon on highway 40.
Smith Dorien Trail Before long we were on my favourite road in the world - the Smith Dorien Trail. Simply stunning.
Moose We seem to see a moose or two pretty much every time we drive down this road. Even though the Smith Dorien Trail is about 45 miles long and we see the moose (mooses?) in different places every time, I'm beginning to think they might be the same ones we keep seeing.
Moose This moose seemed to find it easier to eat the salt off the road if it knelt down. I'd never seen one do that before.
Moose
Smith Dorien View
Smith Dorien View A view looking north across the Spray Lakes Reservoir. The lake seemed to have started freezing at its north end and the ice was gradually working its way south.
Canmore The view looking down on the town of Canmore from the end of the Smith Dorien Trail.A short while later we arrived at our home for the next couple of days - the Banff Park Lodge Resort Hotel. Slightly annoyingly, our Yukon was too tall to fit through the 6'1" entrance to the hotel's two acre, heated underground car park, so we had to leave it to freeze out on the street.After unpacking, we managed to make it to the Elk and Oarsman for a pint and some dinner before flaking out for the day.
Tunnel Mountain View Saturday - After an excellent buffet breakfast in the hotel, I decided to take the short and relatively straightforward walk up Tunnel Mountain.Despite the snow on the trail, the going was good and I didn't need to resort to my Yak Trax for extra grip. Although the air temperature was still a fresh -10C, on the Banff side of Tunnel Mountain, there was a very brisk wind that numbed exposed flesh in about a minute. However, on the other side of the mountain the air was still, so there was plenty of opportunity to stop and take a few photos.This photo shows the Banff Springs golf course, with Mount Rundle on the right.
Elk During the winter the golf course is closed, so there was no-one around to disturb this group of elk that were hanging around on the fairway near the club house.
Elk Here I've zoomed in a bit so you can see them more clearly.
Elk Evidently they have somewhere more interesting to be though, as a few minutes later they formed into single file and disappeared into the trees.
Banff I made it to the top of Tunnel Mountain, but couldn't take any photos of Banff due to the freezing gale. However, I managed to take this photo of the town from about half way back down, where the wind had eased up somewhat.
Banff Avenue Crossing Banff Avenue on my way back to the hotel, I took the opportunity to snap the famous view of Cascade Mountain.
Bridge I met up with Judith back at the hotel and we headed out to have a look at the new pedestrian bridge they've built over the Bow River since we were here last year. It currently appears to have the rather functional name of the Utility Pipe Crossing and Pedestrian Bridge. Perhaps there will shortly be a competition of some sort to find a proper name for it?
Two Jack Lake Back at the hotel, we picked up our car (which was freezing, having been parked on the street overnight, as mentioned earlier) and headed out for the short but scenic drive to Lake Minnewanka.On the way we passed Two Jack Lake, which can be seen in this photo. One end of Two Jake Lake was starting to freeze, but most of it was still open water.
Two Jack Lake Here you can see the end that's starting to freeze.
Two Jack Lake Same photo, but in black and white. I can't decide which I prefer.
Lake Minnewanka A couple of miles later and we're at Lake Minnewanka. Here's Judith on the boat ramp, with Mount Inglismaldie in the background.
Judith Judith on the boat ramp at Lake Minnewanka, with Mount Inglismaldie in the background.
Mount Inglismaldie Although there was a bit of a breeze creating ripples on the lake, I discovered that if I crouched down right at the bottom of the boat ramp (having first slipped on some ice and fallen on my arse), I could get a passable reflection of Mount Inglismaldie in the lake.
Johnson Lake Back in the car and we drove the short distance to Johnson Lake. Despite only being a few miles from the unfrozen Lake Minnewanka and largely unfrozen Two Jack Lake, Johnson Lake was completely frozen over and covered with snow. I'm sure there must be some scientific reason as to how and why that sort of thing happens.
Johnson Lake Same picture, but in colour. I think I prefer the black and white one. The sky looks more dramatic.
Whyte Museum Back in town, we popped in to the Whyte Museum to have a look at their superb gallery of photos taken in the Rockies. Whilst exploring the rest of the museum, we came across this cabinet, which contained some of the kit they used to use to survey the mountains.The octagonal device on the far right is about nine inches across and four inches thick and is a GPS receiver. You know, like the ones that are now embedded in phones and watches. The device on the left, which is about the size of a stack of half-a-dozen iPads, is the device used to collect the data from the GPS receiver! It can't actually tell you where you are. It just collects the data, which has to be sent away to be processed.I think the most amazing thing about this kit is that it's from 1995!!!!! OMG!
Highway 1a Sunday - We'd only booked accommodation for the first three nights because we wanted to see what the weather was like before we committed ourselves to driving to Jasper. The weather was okay, but we decided to head to somewhere new instead - Golden in British Columbia.We left Banff on highway 1 before detouring onto the much quieter and more scenic highway 1a. Here's our Yukon parked in a layby on highway 1a.
Morant's Curve I stopped for my obligatory photograph at Morant's Curve. This must have been the sixth/seventh/eighth (?) time I'd been there and I'd never yet seen a train passing this most famous train-spotting spot. Denied again. Doh!
Morant's Curve The view from Morant's Curve looking south. Still no trains.
Continental Divide We left highway 1a and joined the westbound highway 93, which crossed the Continental Divide. Despite the fact the sign said there was a view point, the location appears to be famous simply for being a) the border between Alberta and British Columbia, and b) the point at which water to the west flows into the Pacific Ocean and water to the east flows to the Atlantic Ocean.
Kootenay National Park A miscellaneous view on highway 93 in Kootenay National Park.
Highway 95 At the end of highway 93 was Radium Hot Springs, which wasn't as nice as it sounded. So we pressed straight on to highway 95 north, which, bizarrely, didn't look like it had been visited by winter at all. In fact, driving along in the lovely sunshine, the only clue that it wasn't a lovely summer's day outside was the fact that the car's external thermometer was showing -8C. Weird.
Highway 95 The further north we went, the snowier it got.
Highway 95 Eventually we made it to Golden and this also was not at all what we were expecting. We were thinking Banff when the reality was more Bognor. However, we'd found some very nice looking accommodation a few miles out of town that was very highly rated on Trip Advisor, so we went for a look.Having managed to negotiate a very steep and snowy mountain road/track to get to the place, it turned out there was no-one there to talk to. So after a couple of minutes discussion, we decided to head back towards Lake Louise, which was only about 40 miles away down highway 1.
TRAIN!!! A railway line runs parallel with much of highway 1 and about ten miles from Lake Louise we caught up with and started to pass a train. At Lake Louise the line splits, going north towards Jasper and south towards Banff and Calgary. The southern branch of the line passes my much visited Morant's Curve.With a 50/50 chance that the train would be passing Morant's Curve, I simply had to head there for the chance to break my duck. And five minutes after we parked, the train arrived. Woo hoo!Here it is, appearing around the curve.
Morant's Curve After all this time, I've finally seen a train on Morant's Curve. It's a shame the light isn't better though. It's late in the afternoon, so the valley is in deep shadow, whilst the sky is still very bright, creating challenging photographic conditions
Morant's Curve
Morant's Curve As I'd waited so long to finally see a train here, I felt justified taking quite a lot of photos.
Morant's Curve These Canadian freight trains are pretty long. Finally the end passes.
Morant's Curve Last one. That's the end of the train disappearing into the distance.
Sky View Whilst the valley was getting increasingly dark and shadowy, the sky was still bright and interesting, so I took a couple of sky shots before packing up.
Sky View Photos done, it was time to find somewhere to stay for the night.
Baker Creek About six miles from Morant's Curve on highway 1a is the Baker Creek Mountain Resort, which is basically about twenty cabins in the woods in the middle of nowhere.Handily they had cabins available, so we booked in for a couple of nights. We had the option of a cabin with a jacuzzi, or a cabin with a real fire. We thought the one with the real fire would be more in the spirit of a cabin in the woods. Here's a photo of the stove in the living room of our cabin.
Cabin Here's the living room from a different angle. The ladder on the right goes up to a top deck that has a couple of extra, single beds.
Outside The resort had a fabulous bistro, where we had a bit to eat. After dinner, Judith went to read a book or something (there's no TV in the cabins, although they do have the slowest internet connection I've seen since the mid-1990s), whilst I headed out to take a few photos.This is a view of the resort from the road. Hardly any cars drive down this road during the day. At night there are no cars. As you can see, the view of the night sky out here in the middle of nowhere was stunning.
Milky Way This was the view when I just pointed my camera straight up. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars.
Morant's Curve I was so impressed with the sky views, that I drove the six-or-so miles back to Morant's Curve to take a photo of the stars over the mountains. In this photo the mountains are illuminated by nothing but starlight.
Railway Sunrise Monday - I was up at around sunrise. Judith was showing no sign of being up in the immediate future, so I thought I'd head out and take a few photos.The Baker Creek Mountain Resort is only a couple of hundred meters (or yards if you prefer) from the railway line, so I thought I'd head down there first. Looking down the line to the south-east, there was a nice view of the sunrise.
Railway Looking in the other direction, the view to the north-west wasn't bad either. I took a few more photos, but nothing worth showing, so I headed back to the cabin.The bistro was the only place to get food in the resort and it was only open in the evenings, so we had to find our own breakfast. As we were planning to visit Lake Louise today anyway, we decided to head to Laggan's Mountain Bakery in Lake Louise Village.
Morant's Curve Well blow me down, on the way to Lake Louise there was a train passing Morant's Curve as we drove by. I've waited years to see a train at Morant's Curve and now I've seen two in two days.
Fuel The first thing to do in Lake Louise Village was to give the Yukon a drink of unleaded. Considering it's got a 5.3 litre V8 and must comfortably weigh two-and-a-half tonnes, we had managed to drive it 450 miles so far without putting any fuel in. However, it turned out this was because it's got a vast 120 litre fuel tank.I "only" manage to squeeze 98 litres in, which costs a whopping £70 - about the same as it costs to fill my tiny Honda S2000 with super unleaded back in the UK.
Lake Louise Sky View Having filled the Yukon with unleaded and ourselves with a variety of delicious goods from Laggan's Mountain Bakery, we drove up to the Lake Louise ski resort, where we purchased a ticket to ride to the top of the Grizzly Bear gondola.I get the impression that not many people go up just for the view because there is absolutely nothing at the top and the view isn't that good either. I managed to get this shot of Lake Louise itself in the distance before we hopped back on for the ride down. You can just make out the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in the bottom right of the photo.
Lake Louise View Back in the car, we drove the few miles from the ski resort to Lake Louise itself. Here's the view from the little stream that flows from the eatern end of Lake Louise. As you can see most of the lake was frozen over and covered with snow.
Fairview Mountain A view of Fairview Mountain from the lakeside trail.
Trees Snow covered trees by Lake Louise. Very wintery.
Lake Louise View When we were here last year, this was as far as the lakeside trail went. However, as there had been no new snow for several days, the trail appeared to be open all the way to the Plain of the Six Glaciers Tea House. However, it's quite a challenging walk in the summer, never mind the depths of winter, so we decided to give it a miss.
Spider We saw a few of these spiders walking about on the snow. They didn't seem at all bothered that it was -7C out. I can't imagine what they eat.
Chateau A view of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise against the ski trails on Whitehorn Mountain (I think) on the other side of the valley (where we were earlier).
Milky Way Back at Baker Creek, I went out again after dinner to take a few more photos of the amazing night sky. This was taken from the road in front of the resort. The trees are illuminated by the lights from the resort.
Milky Way Pointing the camera straight up again, but this time using a sixty second shutter (because now I've found my remote shutter release in my camera bag).The red/orange smudge in the top left corner is the top of a tree.
Bow River Tuesday - Up early(ish) again. I ventured across the railway line and through the woods, all the way down to the Bow River to watch the sunrise, after which we headed back to Laggan's at Lake Louise Village for breakfast.
Johnson Canyon We visited Johnson Canyon a couple of years ago, but because we arrived fairly late in the afternoon, we only made it as far as the Lower Falls. On this day we had arrived before midday, so we had plenty of time to walk all the way to the Upper Falls, which, as you can see in the photo, are completely and impressively frozen over.
Upper Falls Judith at the Johnson Canyon Upper Falls. This was a tricky shot to get as all of the ice in the top right half of the photo is reflecting the bright sunshine, whilst the bottom left of the photo (and Judith) are in deep shade. But I think you can get the idea.Somewhere under all that ice, the river is still flowing.
Johnson Canyon This was the view looking down the canyon from the Upper Falls.
Lower Falls Judith at the entrance to the Lower Falls. Apparently the tunnel is a natural feature. The frozen lower falls are partially visible to the left of the rocks.
Bow River Back at Baker Creek, Judith's joined me for a walk down by the Bow River before dinner.
Star Trails After dinner, I drove back to Morant's Curve to take some more photos of the magnificent sky. This photo is a composite of fifteen 60-second exposures.Impressively, just after I arrived at Morant's Curve, another train went by - the third I'd seen in two days! Unfortunately, in the few seconds I had before it passed, I couldn't think how to photograph a train in the dark, so I had to let the event pass unrecorded.
Baker Creek Views Wednesday - It was time to leave Baker Creek, but there was just time to pop out in the early morning sunshine to take a few more photos before we headed off.This picnic table in on the (snow covered) meadow between the resort and the railway line.
Baker Creek Views The railway line at Baker Creek, looking north.
Baker Creek Views Down by the Bow River.
Baker Creek Views A barbecue pit/meeting place on the meadow.
Spring Creek Judith had booked us into an apartment at the Spring Creek Mountain Resort in Canmore, which turned out to be rather nice. Here's a photo of our living room.
Spring Creek And this was the view from our balcony.
Spring Creek The building also had a hot tub with a rather pleasant view, although we didn't get the opportunity to try it.We spent the rest of the day walking about in Canmore.
Policeman's Creek Thursday - It's another lovely day, so we decided to spend the day wandering around Canmore.This is the view from the footbridge over Policeman's Creek in front of our apartment building.
Main Street This is the view down Main Street in Canmore.
Railway Bridge A short distance from town is this old railway bridge. It used to carry coal from the local mines, but now it's part of the town’s network of walking and cycling paths.
Railway Bridge Judith on the railway bridge.
Swimming Rat A swimming rat of some sort in the river. Definitely not a beaver.
River View A miscellaneous view on the Bow River.
River View There are some fabulous views along the river. There are also some very fabulous houses. Unfortunately it seemed inappropriate to try to take any photos of those.
Town View This appears to be one of the nicest bits of Canmore to live in. There are some amazing houses in this area.
Warning A reminder of Canmore's past as a mining town.
River View The view from the bridge on the imaginatively named Bridge Road.The temperature was also up to 0C, which was the warmest we’d seen so far.
Kananaskis Country Friday - We went for a drive down highway 1a to see if it was as scenic as it looked like it might be on the map. It wasn't. But I suppose the industrial areas that generate wealth and prosperity have to be somewhere. So we cut across onto highway 40 and headed back into Kananaskis Country.Although we'd had pretty much clear blue skies all week, on this day it was very overcast.
Yukon On the Smith Dorien Trail on the way back to Canmore, I've taken the opportunity to take a few (more) photos of our Yukon (and the brilliant scenery).
Yukon
Yukon Our Yukon on the Spray Lake dam.
Fishing Saturday - Our last day, but our flight wasn't until 8pm, so we had plenty of time for a leisurely drive out of the mountains. On our way back up the Smith Dorien Trail we saw these fellows setting up their tents on the frozen Spray Lake for a spot of fishing (there’s one in the middle and another off in the distance on the left). Given that the lake wasn't frozen at all about a mile away, I'm not sure how they decided that this bit was safe to build a small hut on.
Favourite Spot I've got photos of most of the hire cars that we've driven down the Smith Dorien Trail in this spot. When I've got twelve I might do a calendar.
Favourite Spot Judith with our Yukon in my favourite spot.
Highway 40 At the end of the Smith Dorien Trail, we would usually leave the mountains by driving north up highway 40 back to highway 1 (about 40 miles away). However, this time we decided to venture into new territory by heading south instead. And we were just in time too. This photo was taken at about 1pm on 30-Nov, which, according to the sign I was parked next to, was about 11 hours before the road was due to be closed for six-and-a-half months. Apparently they do this to prevent disturbing the wildlife during the winter and not, as I had suspected, because they can’t be bothered to plough the snow off this bit (I say “bit”, but it’s about 40 miles to the next road junction after this point).
Highwood Pass After about thirty miles we came to the Highwood Pass, which a) has brilliant views, and b) at 7,239 feet (2,206m) is the highest paved road in Canada.
Highwood Pass Considering this is about sixty miles from the nearest town, there were an impressive number of people up here. Perhaps they'd all made a special effort knowing that this was the last opportunity they'd have to come up here for six-and-a-half months?
Yukon Our Yukon on highway 40, somewhere south of the Highwood Pass.
Bridge Out A few miles further on, the road was blocked with these "Bridge Out" barriers, so I got out to have a look.
Bridge Out Yep, that’s definitely out. No doubt about that. Presumably, as the road was was due to shortly close for months, there was no great pressure to fix it. In the meantime they had built a little temporary road through the woods, so at least we could continue our journey south.
Praries After a while we left the mountains and started driving across this rolling grassland, which didn't look like it had been touched by the winter at all yet. The temperature had also gone up to 7C, by far the warmest we’d seen all week.An hour later and we were back at Calgary Airport, where our holiday had started eight days ago.We've had a great time (again) and, despite this being the fourth time in five years that we've been here, we've managed to see some new and interesting stuff.Here’s some miscellaneous information about our time in Canada:Distance driven - 851 miles (1,370km)Fuel economy - 23.9mpg (not too bad for a 5.3L V8 being driven in a variety of mountain conditions I reckon)