Trip to the Canadian Rockies July 2008

Trains wound around the mountains and along the rivers.

They went through tunnels and under snow sheds.

There is a lot of interesting history about the Canadian Pacific Railroad.

This river is in western Canada. The countyside looks a lot like MT!

The water is blue due to the mineral deposits of "rock flour" which are suspended in the meltwaters from the glaciers.


Elk graze along side of the road.

Beautiful mountain scenery everywhere!!!

The drive from Canmore, to Banff, Lake Louise and on to Jasper is breathtaking!

We took the gondola up Sulphur Mountain in Banff.

View of the Bow River from the top of Sulphur Mountain.

Banff Springs Hotel from the gondola.

We took the Bow River Parkway to the Johnston Canyon.

This is the view of the mountains from our dining room at our B & B.

Awesome!

Chateau Lake Louise

Lake Louise and Victoria Glacier.

We walked around the lake and enjoyed the scenery.

Moraine Lake
Our favorite place of the whole trip!!

We walked around the lake and climbed to the top of the "Rock Pile"

Geologists are stumped as to how these rocks got here.

The lake really is this color!!!

Amazing!!

Top of the "Rock Pile"

The scenery never ends!!!

Peyto Lake

The half mile walk into Peyto Lake has the most beautiful trees you have ever seen.

This is called the Weeping Wall. Many waterfalls run down from the top.

Awesome!

We drove along the Columbia Icefield and stopped for a tour of the Athabasca Glacier.

This water is 39 degrees.

Walking on the Athabasca Glacier!

The snow melted late this year and there were still waterfalls running everywhere along our drive.

Athabasca Falls

Athabasca Falls from a distance.

We saw gorgeous Big Horn Sheep near Medicine Lake!

We took a boat tour on Maligne Lake to Spirit Island.

More beautiful scenery!

Maligne Canyon

Wildlife along the roadway!

Elk crossing the road!

We drove through a tremendous golf ball size hail storm in Calgary on our way home.

When we drove out of the storm (that you see behind us) there were yellow fields of canola growing everywhere. They went on for miles and miles. Gorgeous!

We drove out of Canada into MT and entered Glacier National Park.

This is the Many Glacier Hotel on Swiftcurrent Lake.

It is called "The Switzerland of North America".

This is a mile down the road from The Swiftcurrent Motor Inn where Micky works.

Micky next to Swiftcurrent Motor Inn.

A nice backdrop!!

It was really fun to stop and spend a few hours with Micky.

We drove on "Going to the Sun Road" through Glacier and then headed back to WA.

We stopped at Grand Coulee Dam and took a tour.

It is its 75th anniversary!

This dam doesn't look large on the picture but is is 1 mile wide.

We were back to 90 degree weather.

It was in the 40's at night and 69 in the daytime while were were in Canada.
We highly recommend this trip to the Canadian Rockies if you enjoy beautiful scenery!!