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.