Tag Archives: Canada

Rocky Mountain, Hi!

5 Replies

Sunday 4 September 2022 – While we have made it a rule almost everywhere we’ve visited to go for an unstructured wander to explore (sorry, Kamloops – apparently you’re quite interesting after all), today was different in that the wandering would be structured – we were Going Hiking.  With A Guide.

Of course, he wanted to make an early start, so once again we had to tear ourselves from the arms of Morpheus slightly earlier than we might have liked; however, since the day was forecast to be a fairly hot one, an early start was probably best.  We met our guide, Geoff, in the hotel lobby and headed out to find the rest of the group he was leading on the hike. There were supposed to be five others; in the end, there were only four because he actually refused to take one lady on – she was, in his view, totally unprepared – wrong shoes, no backpack, no water. If it was the lady I thought I saw him talking to, he might also have assessed her as being physically the wrong shape to be taking on the hike.

Whatever, the group ended up as being just the six of us – Jane and me and two couples from Boulder, Colorado; Andrea and Dave, Susan and Scott.  Geoff took us about half an hour out of Banff to the trailhead of the Stanley Glacier Trail in East Kootenay, dispensing some wisdom, safety guidelines and information about what we’d let ourselves in for.  He described it as an eight km hike (four out and four back) of moderate toughness, which didn’t sound too daunting; but all the same he spent time making sure we had at least a litre of water each, and provided us with lunch packs.  The schedule for the hike seemed very leisurely – starting before 9am and expecting to be done by about 2 or 2.30pm.

We started up the trail

which shows, in the distance the Stanley Head Wall, a face of Mount Stanley (yes, the same Stanley that the Vancouver Park is named for).  The views as we went along were quite striking

but very hazy in places.  Much of the haze is due to wildfire smoke, as wildfires are an important part of the cycle of nature in the Banff national Park as in other parks.  The haze lightened as the day went on but it was, photographically speaking, a challenging day; allow me a geeky photo-type digression, here.

— START OF DIGRESSION: I SHAN’T BE OFFENDED IF YOU SKIP IT —

While modern cameras do a good job of extracting pleasing images from their sensors and presenting them to be viewed on a computer screen, they have to make editorial decisions about the data from the sensor in order to create such an image – so, for example, the .jpg file you see on your mobile phone screen has been extensively edited by the phone.  When I take my Big Camera (Nikon Z6) with me to Take Serious Photos, I decline to have the camera make these decisions for me, as I want a greater degree of control, so I shoot in a format called RAW, which creates an image not immediately readable by a computer without specialist software (DxO Photolab is my go-to) but which has very much more data from the sensor available for the photographer to play with in creating a final image. (In the good old days, one played with bits of cardboard and an enlarger projection on to paper; digital life is much easier.)

The practical upshot is that in challenging conditions such as today, the camera will suggest this as an image with a lot of haze in the background:

 

whereas I know (because I was there) that there’s much more to the scene than this image shows.  Once I’ve finished tinkering with the RAW file, the image looks like this:

Actually, the processed image is a little clearer than the reality as seen by the human eye; but I’m OK with this – what I’m after is not necessarily a recreation of that reality, but something that  may be more striking.

The net of this rambling is to let you know that I have tinkered with virtually all of the images from the hike to bring out specific elements of the image that I consider important; they are not necessarily a representation of what I saw, but I hope that they go towards telling the story of the hike.

— END OF DIGRESSION —

Geoff

is a very experienced guide, as well as a writer and scientist, and has a wide and detailed knowledge of matters to do with the National Parks of North America;  Yellowstone was the first to be established and Banff was the second. He said that the theme of the hike was “Wildfires and the Forest”, and it was very interesting to hear his perspective on forests, wilderness and managed ecologies.  His philosophy is well expressed by work published in 1995 by one William Cronon called “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Cronon said that it was time to rethink wilderness: that the the idea of wilderness as being a place that stands apart from humanity is wrong; and that wilderness – as an area that has no humans in it – is quite profoundly a human creation.

Geoff made a striking assertion: “The forest is doomed”.  A forest is not a permanent entity; bits of it will die from logging, fire or disease.  The cutting back or burning of forests saves the trees from dying of diseases caused by overcrowding and allows the forest to support a wider range of life.  The indigenous peoples that have been in the area for tens of thousands of years knew this, and effectively managed the forests to improve their lives – a greater selection of wildlife which is easier to hunt.  Fire was an important part of this management.

When Europeans came to the area and forced the indigenous peoples out, they lost sight of this; wildfires were regarded as something to be avoided or restricted – absence of wildfires was seen as a success. The result has been overcrowded, diseased forests with a paucity of wildlife, and only now has this realisation sunk in to the extent that proper action is being taken – or, at least, would be, were political will up to the task, which often it isn’t.  A very interesting and counter-intuitive philosophy.

Anyhoo…

We passed some nice scenes of forest and creek

with plentiful evidence of previous forest fires.

Above, you can see the red colours of the fireweed that is first to grow back after a fire.

We met a grouse, unconcernedly pecking away at the path

until disturbed by some people who passed us with a couple of noisy dogs, when it flew up into a nearby tree and posed for us again.

We passed buffalo berry plants

which are prime fodder for grizzly bears.  (Their other mainstay apparently is dandelions – dandelions – not much meat or fish in these here parts). The berries are, apparently, oily but I’m still astonished that berries can sustain an animal as big as a grizzly.  Another name for the berries is soap berries, and if you taste one – carefully, just a little of the juice rather than a whole berry – you can understand why; they have overtones of bitter grapefruit juice and detergent.

After a while, the path got steeper

and we ended up, some 1,000 feet higher than the start, at our lunch spot.  We were first there, but this trail is a popular one and so we were soon joined by others.

This is a big landscape.

In the distance, at the foot of the vertical bit of the Stanley Head Wall, were some climbers.

You can just make out some dots of colour near the white boulder at the bottom of the picture, with two red dots also visible some feet up the wall.  I tried to give some idea of just how big this landscape is.

The distances are deceptive.  For example, the patch of greenery towards the bottom of the picture above doesn’t look that far away,

but, on closer examination, actually has people in it

which are difficult to pick out with the naked eye (well, with my naked eye, anyway).

I tried taking photos of the glacier

and the waterfall caused by its melting

but, as I burbled about above, the light is extremely challenging, and it has taken quite a bit of fiddling to get images that I’m happy with.  I just want you to know that I suffer for my art.

After an hour resting at the top, we retraced our footsteps down the trail.  At the bottom, a stream we had crossed at the start of the trail was showing some lovely glacial blue colour in the water.

And that was it for the hike, which had been a really nice morning – an agreeable temperature, slightly demanding without being ridiculous and giving an opportunity to listen to Geoff’s wisdom about wildlife, ecology and forests.

My Garmin thingy told me, on returning to the hotel and a source of internettery, that we’d expended some 1,300 calories in the course of the hike, which is quite a lot, and could be interpreted as justification for taking it easy for the rest of the day.

So we went for a walk. Obviously.

Geoff had mentioned an area called Bow Falls, which is about half an hour’s walk from downtown Banff.  We needed something to eat anyway, so we headed the 15 minutes to downtown, ate a decent, cheerfully served, early dinner at The Keg, and then headed out along the path towards the falls.

Downtown Banff was busy, probably more than usual because we were here over a Labor Day weekend

but the lower part of the main street has a pedestrian area and is attractive, particularly with the mountains as backdrop.

The path to the falls is a riverside walk, and one has to decide which side of the Bow River to walk on; there’s a pedestrian bridge to help when you’ve made the decision.

We went along the north shore towards the Surprise Corner viewpoint, passing some lovely bits of real estate

almost certainly worth a fortune. At the falls, one gets a pretty spectacular view

part of which is the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Given that we’ve stayed in Fairmonts in most other places, I assume that this one was full because of the holiday weekend.  Anyway, the sight of the hotel we didn’t stay in complements the splendid view rather well.

We retraced our steps to our hotel.  Along the path is a variety of artworks

including one which is some glass bats in a tree, which is a rather fetching idea.

Banff town itself is quite an attractive place, in a sort of American take on Swiss skiing town way.

And so ended a very pleasant, sunny day, with quite a few miles under our boot vibram and shoe leather.  All that remained was an evening of wedded domestic bliss – me writing the blog and Jane doing the laundry, because These Things Are Important, You Know.

The morrow brings the promise of a ride up the Banff gondola and it will be interesting to see how the logistics of that works – it’s a holiday weekend, so it’ll likely be crowded.  I’ll report back, of course, and I hope you’ll come back to see how it all went.

Rocky II

6 Replies

Saturday 3 September 2022 – Timing had not permitted us a chance to experience the delights of Kamloops in person, so here is a photo of it that I found on the wall of our hotel bedroom.

Through sheer effort of will, combined with a certain amount of sleepwalking, we achieved the 0610 rendezvous with the coach that would take us back out to the industrial wasteland where we could board the Rocky Mountaineer for the second part of our journey that would end in Banff.

As the journey started, the scenery was very different from the previous day’s – much more greenery to be seen.

(more Hoodoos to be seen in the above)

and also, since the sparrows were still farting in the gathering dawn outside the coach, we got some nice sun rising photos

as well as some lovely reflections in the waters beside the railway.

The scenery then reverted to being broadly similar to what we’d seen the previous day,

i.e. subject to the same challenges of grabbing a shot between the trees lining the railway track.

We took a latish breakfast, since we were Second Sitting today, and passed a nice hour or so chatting to Judy and Tom, who are from Maui, Hawaii, which sounds a lovely place to live.

There were some moments of variety.  Jane spotted these snow sheds protecting the railway on the far side of the valley from winter avalanches

and I got a shot of some on our side.

And then it was time for lunch.  We passed lunch having a pleasant chat to an Australian couple, Nikki and Mark, from Fingal Bay, some 200km up the coast from Sydney.  At the same time, we were passing some spectacular scenery with some gorgeous colours, so part of the lunch consisted of a game where Mark would spot approaching gaps in the trees and Jane (sitting opposite) would miss them in trying to capture a photo through the window.

After a while, I simply couldn’t resist the lure of getting to the (rather less hot and smelly) open platform to try to capture some of this scenery, but I was a bit too late.  It didn’t, overall, matter, though – see later. I did get some decent photos as we went along, in many cases being still unable to resist the bendy train cliché.

We even saw some evidence of snow, or more likely glaciers, in the distant mountains, although the view was typical Walker “would have been better if it were clearer”.

There were some other nice scenes to capture as we went along, though nothing as arresting as what had rushed by us at lunch time.

Just as I was ruing my failure to take up on the photo opportunities on offer during lunch, as we were nearing Lake Louise and Banff, things really looked up.

The following 30 minutes provided an elegant demonstration of the reasons I no longer do any film photography.  The scenery was really spectacular with photo opportunities rushing past in rapid succession at 60mph.  Had I been using film, I would have missed almost all of them and/or got unsatisfactory images through not being able to quickly review as I went and having to change film rolls every 36 shots.  As it was, I took over 200 pictures in that half an hour.  Most of them were flawed in some way, but some were utterly lovely.  Well, I think so. Here they are, taken from either side of the train on that final rush into Banff.

These were worth letting my gin and tonic go warm for, I can tell you.

Then before we knew it, there we were in Banff and it was time to say goodbye to friends we’d made during the journey – Judy and Tom and Nikki and Mark – and Bonnie (and George) from Toronto, who Jane had had a long chat with whilst I was in photographic ecstasies on the carriage photo platform. It was also time to say goodbye to the four young folk who had worked so hard to keep us fed, watered and organised for the last two days

Stephanie, David, Vivek and Sian.

The transfer from train to hotel was as well-organised as all the other logistical elements of the trip and very soon we were checked in to the Fox Suites in Banff.  We have a couple of days here, with much potential for enjoying ourselves and getting some good photos.  One can’t ask for much more than that, except perhaps to wish that you will come back and take a look at how things unfolded.

 

A Rocky Start

4 Replies

Friday 2 September 2022 – We didn’t exactly spring out of bed with a song on our lips, but at least we were conscious and operational in time to make it down to the hotel lobby to catch the 0645 coach to the Rocky Mountaineer that would whisk us, over the course of two days, to Banff. Many other people had the same idea

and before long a sturdily-built lady with a sturdily-built voice started the process of getting us all organised as part of the cohort of 791 guests who would be on board the train. The whole logistical process was a little slow to get going, as we stood in a queue just long enough to wonder WTF was going on, but once things started to move it all proceeded smoothly – roll call, hand over bags, get on coach, transfer to station, get on train.

The only thing I was worried about was how my backpack was going to be treated. This is the 30lb monster full of photographic and ancillary gear that I’ve been toting around as hand baggage trying to pretend that it’s not heavy in case an airline operative smells a rat; but there is no room by the seating on the train for items this chunky, so I took out the laptop before handing it over with my fingers crossed that the contents would make it OK.

We were Gold Leaf class – obviously – so we had seating upstairs with big windows, the better to see our reflections in when trying to take photos.

Dining would be downstairs – immediately in our case, as we were first seating for breakfast.

Experience – or luck – pays when choosing the right breakfast.  Jane chose yoghurt and fruit, and I chose bacon and eggs. I came out ahead, as the yoghurt and fruit portion was miserably small. We also had to get used to the pace and quality of the service which were, respectively, leisurely and somewhat random. In our carriage, all the staff were friendly and willing, but not particularly skillful or well-organised. Upstairs, two lasses dispensed commentary on the passing countryside and drinks; downstairs a pair of waiters dispensed food. All were young, all were enthusiastic, all tried really hard, but I think lacked experience; and, of course, space is limited, which makes things more complicated, but we didn’t come away from our time on the Rocky Mountaineer particularly overawed by the service.

There were some notable scenes to be, erm, seen on day one as we made our way out of Vancouver

towards the overnight stop at a place with the unlikely name of Kamloops. The route broadly follows the Canadian Pacific Highway, which, in turn follows first the Fraser River and then the Thompson River.  This gives the opportunity to catch the odd occasional decent photo of, for example, bridges.

The suspension bridge shown above ran into a big problem after it was opened because of the Canadian climate; the steel suspension cables would get encased in ice during the winters, occasionally dropping ice on passing cars during the thaw. This caused too much paperwork, so technology has been installed to heat the cables to stop them freezing.

Jane got some nice photos of the passing landscape from her window

while I was sure that the best place to take photos was on a platform which was the entrance vestibule of the carriage, as I wanted to avoid reflections. This was noisy, smelly (mainly because the platform was just downwind from the toilets) and, eventually hot, as the temperature went above 30°C in places. But one could get decent photos of some passing scenes, mainly by waiting for gaps in the trees. These were a rare and precious commodity, but every so often one could get a nice shot, such as these of Hell’s Gate.

It has to be said that the landscape didn’t vary hugely for the rest of the day. We were beside the river, which offered many nice views

that gradually opened out into Bigger Country

but there was relatively little variety. I did, of course, look for the inevitable “train going round the bend” shots, which are hugely cliched but can give quite nice results.

 

Every so often there was an extra element one could include, like a bridge,

(this is at a junction called Cisco, where Canada national and Canada Pacific railways cross each other)

or a tunnel,

or a rock formation such as these Hoodoos,

(which are hard rock on top of soft rock, giving a risk of rock falls which led to a superstition that the Hoodoos were alive and threw rocks at anyone settling below them)

or one of the unimaginably long freight trains which also ply this route,

(seen above on the opposite bank)

occasionally coming right at you.

Right in the centre of one bridge, you can see an osprey’s nest which has been in use by a particular osprey family for over 100 years

and the odd occasional eagle’s nest could also be spotted,

and also, as we headed towards Kamloops, bighorn sheep.

I’m indebted to Jane who took some great pictures from her (cool, comfortable) window seat whilst I teetered around on the (hot, smelly) platform down below.

The heat we experienced was not unusual – the area we passed through is the “hot spot” of British Columbia and wildfires are common and sometimes tragic. There had been one recently, which was still affecting the light as the sun began to set.

I took this photo under the fond impression that we were on the outskirts of Kamloops;

wrongly, as it turned out – we were still some 10km away from our destination. We ended up in a vast great set of railway sidings a good 20 minutes’ ride from Kamloops town, with many other dull trains and rolling stock. Jane spotted one brighter moment among the typical railside desolation.

Once we’d arrived at Kamloops (meaning “convergence of the waters” in the native language), a central spot in BC, the smooth logistics continued. We were issued with hotel room keys and a coach number. We boarded the relevant coach which took us to the right hotel where we found our bags actually in our room. My backpack contents appeared to have made it OK. Overall, an impressive process. So far….

Our hotel was the Wingate, not at all fancy but perfectly comfortable and well-organised, and the view from the room was nothing to write blogs about;

more importantly, there was a kettle in the room and Jane scored some milk so we could have a Nice Cup Of Tea. It was after 8pm by this stage, and we had to be ready to depart the hotel at 6.10am the next day; for some reason, a wander around downtown Kamloops didn’t seem as attractive a proposition as, say, getting some sleep. Therefore a swift burst of internetting, a final cuppa and getting our heads down with the alarm set for 0500 marked the end of the day.

The Rocky Mountaineer adventure continues, with the promise of more varied and interesting landscapes to be photographed, so please come back and find out if the promise was fulfilled.