Today was the only day in our trip to cover Jasper National Park. Although we already planned to skip some attractions, it would be still very tight. The first stop was Columbia Icefield. It is located on the boarder of Banff and Jasper National Park. Two major rivers, Saskatchewan River and Athabasca River, originate here and run through Banff and Jasper National Park respectively. Athabasca Glacier, fed by the icefield, is one of the most accessible Glacier in North America because Brewster Snowcoach Tour can take visitors onto the glacier. We are told that in order to avoid the peak hours, we’d better get to the Columbia Icefield visitor center before 10am. We got up at 7. By 8am, we had the breakfast and were on our way to Jasper.

It started drizzling soon after we departed Banff town. After passing the Bow Lake, we were now driving on the road we hadn’t visited these days. The mountain was getting grander and steeper. I stopped at a couple of places and tried to take pictures. However the cloudy sky made them really dull. It’s 10:30 when we arrived the visitor center. The drizzling had became shower. With 6676 feet elevation, it felt like winter, so we had to put on all our clothes. We indeed avoided the crowd. We took on the bus within ten minutes. After another 10-minute drive, we were transfered to the Snowcoach station and got on to one of the Snowcoaches. Snowcoach is a giant 14-wheel truck. It is the only safe and comfortable vehicle that can transport passengers on the ice and the gravel deposited by the glacier. We had 20 minutes on the ice. In fact, most visitors spent less than 2 minutes. In the video played in the visitor center, people smile under the sunny sky and children play on the snow – not now, it’s just too cold. The shower became sleet on the glacier and you really couldn’t walk, you could slip on every step. After about 5 minutes, the only visitors who hadn’t gone back into the truck were me and another guy holding a SLR too. We noticed a group of people were making commercial photo shots for models. I just wished they were not working on bikini projects.

When we returned to the visitor center, it’s already after 12pm. The tour took more time than we thought. Because we have booked 4PM boat tour at Maligne Lake, there were only less than 3 hours left for us to get to Jasper town. Although Jasper’s attractions are not as famous as Lake Louis or Peyto Lake, the mountain range is more majestic. The roadside view are more beautiful then Banff but I don’t have enough skills to capture them because of the rain. So, we just kept on driving until the Athabasca Fall. From the parking lots, we could already hear the thundering water. The wide and peaceful river is forced into a narrow canyon and the result is tremendous. The fall is short but the power is intimidating.

We had to skip other attractions on the Icefields Parkway. It’s almost 3pm when we arrived Jasper. We just had a quick lunch at KFC but had no time to shop at Jasper. Compared with Banff town, Jasper is just a village anyway. I learned the snow could reach 3-meter thick here. That would be quite a scene. When we book the Maligne Lake tour, we were warned that “Travel time between Jasper and Maligne Lake is approximately 50 minutes. As the Maligne Lake road is ideal for wildlife sighting, we recommned that you allow additional time for travelling”. We didn’t have additional time but less than an hour. The Maligne Lake road is narrow, I managed to pass several slower cars to buy more time. But once in a while, you could see some cars stopped in the middle of the road, that meant someone saw some wild animals. We saw Elks, a black bear and mountain goats. Although we were in hurry, but how could you not to stop for those lovely animals? Especially the mountain goats, they literally chased my wife around the car for food. When we reached Maligne Lake, it’s only a couple minutes to 4PM. People are already lined up to get on to the boat. We barely made it.

The view is spectacular. Inside the boat, it’s packed; but at any time 6 to 8 people are allowed to stand outside at the back deck. Standing on the deck was like reviewing the military parade, the mountains, smooth or sharp, were soldiers marching on the both sides. The destination of the boat tour is a tiny island, called Spirit Island. Although it is small and technically not even an island, it is often considered to represent the magnificent Canadian Rockies in a spiritual way. That’s where its name came from. Countless pictures have captured the island from different angels, but I haven’t seen a good one with the cloudy sky, so I’d rather think it’s chance for me to give it a shot :-). We had only 15 minutes, but when you are prepared, it really need only 10 seconds to take a shot.

We lived Hinton tonight. Hinton is a small road side town for visitors to spend a night. We had a dinner large enough to make us feel guilty. It’s a long day!

2009.8.9Today’s plan was to visit Bow Lake and Peyto Lake. As they are at least 1.5-hour drive from where we stayed, I couldn’t make the early morning trip, so we decided to leave after noon. In the morning, my wife went out for shopping and I could take some random shots in nearby places. I took a short loop of highway 1 – 93 – highway 1A. It was quite disappointing. The day was haze. The lighting was even worse than the noon time yesterday.

It was about 11AM when I finished the loop. As I almost exited highway 1 to enter Banff town, I turned my head to the right to see what the Vermilion Lakes looked like from the highway. I saw something standing in the center of the lake. I looked again to confirm those were either moose or elks. Quickly exited the highway, I drove myself to the lake side. Some people were there pointing to the animals, and I saw some rafts got very close to them and could literally touch them. Finally I could put my 2x teleconverter to use now. However, even with 2x teleconverter and 200mm lens, those animals were still too far to see from the camera. I thought maybe I could get closer to them by land, so I parked my car at a nearby trail head, put on the 70-200 mm lens and almost run to the trail. Unfortunately, the trail was separated from the lake by a river. At one point, I almost wanted to walk over a falling tree to get to the other side, but I didn’t have the guts. It’s not a creek, it is a river. I met my wife at the hotel and took her to see them over the Vermilion Lakes. I thought I was going to miss the best chance for the photos of the wildlife. I didn’t know I would watch them so close later that day.

It took us indeed one and half hours to get to Bow Lake. The lake was big. Similar to Lake Louise, the color was turquoise. The Bow Lake has a unique beauty and you can view the glacier hanging over the lake at the water front. The problem was the Sun was against us and the overcast sky make it very hard to produce any good photo. Peyto is only 20 minutes to the north. It started drizzling when we parked our car. The color of the green plants became brighter but I worried the lake would be too dark. The trail to the lake was a little steep but it’s really very short. The lake sat far below the overlook, again, in turquoise color. It is fed by the Peyto Glacier and the surrounding mountains provided perfect backdrop to the perfect-shaped lake. The only thing not perfect was the weather. We waited more than half an hour, then my patience paid off. The Sun came out so I could take some pictures.

As we drove back on highway 1, it rained quite hard but soon cleared up. A beautiful rainbow appeared over the Bow river against the mountain peaks. This was an easy day compared to yesterday. We thought that’s it for the day, but as we took a shortcut to the hotel, I heard my wife shouted, “What is that?” It was an female elk, by herself, walking around the railway station.

We stopped the car. The elk apparently was aware that we were following her, so she nimbly crossed the rail tracks and stood far from us near a grove. We decided to check her back later. I dropped my wife at hotel, got the lenses prepared and quickly came back to the station. The elk has gone, but somehow I felt I saw something moving in the wood, so I crossed the rail tracks and walked into the grove. The elk was there, by herself again, having her meal. She was an adult elk, higher than me and must weight twice as much as I do. I tried to sneak around the trees so she wouldn’t run away, but it seemed the elk was not alerted at all. Sometimes she did see me eyes to eyes, but she just turned back having more leaves. The closest I got was less than 20 feet from her. With my 70~200mm lens, I could take the close-up shots quiet easily. I was the only one in the wood with the elk. After about 10 minutes, she had enough dinner and I couldn’t stand the mosquitoes any longer either, so she run out of the woods and disappeared in another grove. I pondered if I should check the herd in the lake area, but there was no easy way to access unless taking the raft. Then, the elk appeared again around the railway station, this time, with a young elk. I am glad she wasn’t with her child in the grove. I am not sure if she would be more vigilant or even attacked me if she had her baby on her side.

On my way back to the hotel, I saw many people standing around Banff’s fire department, then I noticed a herd of elks having their dinner on the fire department’s grass field. There was a male elk, clearly the head of the group. I think that must be the same herd I saw in the lake earlier today. I could take pictures of them just across the road, but the background were people and buildings.

I felt very rewarded for seeing something wilder today, although I could see the elks had already got use to people watching them closely.

2009.8.8The view of Moraine Lake is also called “Twenty Dollar View” because the scene appeared in Canadian $20 bill. I set the alarm at 5:15AM, but when I waked up it’s almost 6AM. “Damn! I’m gonna miss it”, I thought. It took me 40 minutes to get to the lake. While driving the last 10 miles, I anxiously watched the sunshine gradually lighting up the mountain top. Luckily, when I finally parked my car, the sun just barely reached those peaks of the valley. I saw some hikers arrived at about the same time, but only a few people waiting at the lake side to take pictures. I turned back then turned right for a trail to climb a hill. After 2 minutes,  I saw the lake again. I got down to the bottom of the hill, almost standing in the water. Now I had the lake by myself.

What a view! The morning sun light turned the mountain top into the warm yellowish color. The ten peaks lined up in front of me and reflected perfectly in the crystal blue lake water. There was no single person in my view, just this tranquil yet grand valley. Words are trite, I was busy taking the shots. The mountain, the lake, the shore; switching lens; the overview, the close-up. After about a hour, I heard people’s footsteps coming closer. “This is my favorite lake”. It’s from a tour guide. Then, I saw more than 30 people rushing into the scene. They were early birds, luckily I was earlier.

I decided to take highway 1A on my way back because from what I read, there is a better chance to see wild animals there. Only about 50 feet after I passed the Highway 1 overpass, I saw a medium-size bear on the road side hill. I wanted to stop the car to take pictures, but there was a police waving at me, apparently asking me to keep going; then I heard a gunshot and the bear run into the forest. I guess the bear was too close to human’s area, so the park drove them away. Unfortunately, that was the last animal I saw for the day.

I picked up my wife at hotel at 9Am. We had breakfast at McDonald’s and checked out Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel and the Hot Spring on the Sulphur Mountain. We decided not to take the bath here. The pool was just too crowed. At about noon, we start off to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise again. Highway 1 had a traffic jam because of the roadworks. When we almost got to Moraine Lake, we realized we had to park far from the parking lots and walk to the lake. The parking lots were totally full. How different it was compared to 6 hours ago! The Sun at noon was harsh, but we were well entertained by several chipmunks. Because tourists always feed them, they have no fear of people and can almost jump to your hand for food.

Leaving Moraine Lake, we had some sandwiches at Lake Louis village. Lake Louis is only a couple of miles from the village. Again, there are too many people walking, sitting and taking photo shots at Lake Louis. This is the most well-known place of Banff National Park. The Sun was still too bright and directly against us at 4PM. The lake seemed to be foggy and the mountains lost contrast under the Sun. I didn’t even take one picture of the lake.

We decided to walk the trail to Lake Agnes. It is a 2.2-mile (one-way) trail. The slope is mild but steady. The 15-pound photo bag plus tripod became heavier and heavier, but we had enough time to get to the teahouse and come back before sunset, so we took easy and let other hikers passing by. When we reached Lake Agnes, the teahouse had closed (at 5PM). I tried my best to get to the bottom of Lake Agnes Falls and took some good pictures of the falls. The lake was quite beautiful, but certainly couldn’t compare with Moraine Lake in the morning. We still felt refreshing and rewarded because we haven’t walked a trail in real sense for long time.

Sun already went down when we returned to Lake Louise. Now we had a chance to take some pictures. We experienced the most famous view of Canadian Rockies and had a real hiking – A good day.

2009.8.7Our flight landed in Calgary at noon local time. Viewed from above, Calgary is a well-planed city. The streets are like chess-board with the Bow River running through the city. At the center of every housing community, there is either a lake or a park. It must be a nice place to relax.

It turns out that weather forecast is just a fuzzy science. There was no rain or shower, only a little cloudy. We soon started our 120km drive to Banff. It is a totally different experience driving on Canada’s country road. There was no mountain yet, only a few cars, just endless forests and wide-open view. Like my wife said, “it is a scenic drive already”.

When we arrived in Banff at 4PM, I realized where people had been. Unlike most National Parks in States, where only offer basic food and tenement, Banff is a small city. Its central streets are packed with restaurants and shops. Even Gap and Louis Vuitton have stores here. So many tourists strolled in the Banff Ave. They even made the central blocks quite crowed. This actually worried me because this made me feel that the park is over-developed and might have lost its natural beauty.

We spent two hours doing window-shopping and identified a couple of restaurant candidates; then, we drove to Surprise Corner that overlooks Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel across the Bow River; we went to the other side of the river where there is a park so we could get closer to the Bow Falls. The fall is short but wild. The Bow River makes a turn to the east here. It is a relaxing place to sit on the bench, listen to the roaring river and smell the breeze.

Today’s photography plan was to take pictures of Mount Rundle in sunset. Mount Rundle has a unique shape. The view from across Vermilion Lakes is an iconic scene of Banff National Park. A runner helped us, she was extremely nice and helpful, find the turn we missed so we could catch the show on time. Some photographers are already there. The color was not like exploding today but still not bad.

Sun goes down at 9PM in Banff, and restaurants are normally open until 11PM. Tomorrow morning, I’m gonna get up very early to visit one of the most photographed places of the park.