This time around, I was headed for Calgary, Alberta. Calgary bills itself as “The Heart Of The New West” and, looking around, it’s easy to see why. A bustling metropolitan area, complete with the world-famous Calgary Stampede rodeo grounds, sits alongside the gateway to the Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park.
I love Banff National Park.
My trip from San Diego began eventfully enough, as my flight out was delayed by an hour. This, of course, all but demanded that I miss my connection in Denver. I should’ve arrived in Calgary at about 8:30pm on Monday. But, after a painfully long wait in the Denver airport (I felt like that Tom Hanks character in “The Terminal”), I was able to score a standby seat on the 9:30pm flight to Calgary. Of course, travel being what it is these days, that flight didn’t depart Denver until almost 1:00am Tuesday morning. When it was all said and done, I arrived in Calgary at about 3:30am on Tuesday. Now, it sure would’ve been nice if those car rental counters were open 24 hours a day, but such is not the case. Instead, I got to wander around an almost deserted Calgary International Airport until Budget Rentals opened at 6:00am.
And, when I say “deserted”, I mean deserted:
I finally got my car and made my way to the Holiday Inn. As I’d been up all night, Tuesday was spent in bed, catching up on sleep a few hours here, a few hours there. I finally turned in for good at about 7:30pm on Tuesday. Such an early bedtime would surely mean an early wake-up on Wednesday, and it did. I awoke at about 3:00am, which was in keeping with my plan. I wanted to leave Calgary by 4:30am, so I could get to Banff, specifically Lake Louise, before the crowds started showing up.
One does not undertake this trip without one, if not two, cups of coffee. The downside of that, as you might imagine, is the inevitable call of Mother Nature. Well, after my second cup, Mother Nature wasn’t calling, she was screaming. Thankfully, about halfway between Calgary and Lake Louise, is a rest stop which I’ve stopped at every time I’ve come through here (this being my third time). It overlooks the Bow River, and offers some wonderful vistas for taking pictures.
It also has one of these:
After a pleasant drive into the mountains, I ended up pulling into the parking lot at the Chateau Fairmount, which sits right alongside the lake, at about 6:30am, camera in-hand.
If you’ve never been to Lake Louise, you need to go before you die. It’s just that simple. I’ve been fortunate to have been all over the world, visiting six continents, and Lake Louise remains, in my opinion, just about the most perfect place on the planet. The lake normally doesn’t thaw until mid-July, which is something I didn’t know the first time I came here, in April of 2006. At that time, there was two feet of snow on the ground, it was snowing, and there were dogsleds.
This time, however, the turquoise waters of the lake reflected the snow-covered peaks overlooking the lake:
When I was here last, the canoe-rental business was having, well, let’s just call it a “lull”. This time of year, though, the business is booming. Canoes rent for $55.00 an hour and, while some early risers head out in the pre-sun morning, all 20 canoes are routinely reserved every hour between 10:00am and 7:00pm.
There are signs everywhere around the lake warning of attempting to interact with the local wildlife. This is, after all, “Grizzly country”. While I didn’t see any bears, there were two member of the wildlife community willing to indulge me.
The first was a Clark’s Nutcracker:
And the second was this way-to-comfortable-around-humans Golden Mantel Ground Squirrel:
After spending a couple of hours at Lake Louise, I decided to drive the 10 kilometers up to Moraine Lake. The road to Moraine Lake was closed the last time I was here, so this was my first time visiting. The waters of Moraine seem almost even more turquoise than Louise, especially when the sun hits the water:
After a full morning of shooting, I decided it was time to head east again. I had an appointment in Canmore; roughly halfway between, well, not far from that rest stop, and I wanted to be there about noon.
To end the day, I ended up rolling back into Calgary, past Olympic Park, at around 6:30pm. The rest of the evening was spent looking at all the photos that I consider myself lucky to have capture.
The trip back to San Diegovwas uneventful, and it made me wonder why all the "travel drama" always seems to be on the way there, and never on the way home.
Maybe that's because, no matter how bad it gets, on the way back, you're still going home...
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