While waiting for the Calgary Stampede Parade last summer I couldn’t help taking a photo of this little girl waiting for the parade to start so she could see the Duchess and the Prince ride by in their motorcade.

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This was one of the best hike’s we took while in Banff National Park. All the lake’s have this amazing turquoise color, which you can see in the small lake at the base of the Saskatchewan Glacier in this photo. My kids loved playing in the snow on top of the pass here where I took the photo from. It was cool enough to require jackets, and rained on us on the hike down for a little while, but the view was incredible.

 

We Arrived at Lake Louise early in the morning, I was kind of disappointed at first because there was a dense fog over the lake. I was afraid that is was going to interfere with the shots that I wanted to take, reducing the visible light. It turns out I was worried for nothing, the fog broke at the far end of the lake creating a nice focal point to draw the eye into the scene. The lake was still, with barely a ripple on the amazing turquoise water.

Lake Louise was was settled a few years after the completion of the trans-continental line of the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in 1895. Lake Louise was adopted into Banff National Park in 1902. The Fairmont Chateau on the lake started as a small one floor log cabin with 2 guest rooms in 1890. The view of the hotel and the lake from the west end of the lake is amazing.

This is the view from the north side of the lake near the east corner where the trail to the Plain of Six Glaciers Tea House. From the distance the water seems very opaque and cloudy, though very saturated in color, up close as you can see in the photo, it is very clear and reveals the different colors and shapes of the stones that line the bottom.

I would love to hear about your experiences in and around Lake Louise. What were your favorite sights and experiences. What would you go see again and what would you skip the second time around

I could spend months in Banff National Park, I was fortunate enough to spend a few days there this summer on our family vacation. Everything there is on a different scale, Mountains tower over you, the lakes are a more amazing shade of blue. This was the view from the shower house at our campsite in Lake Louise, peering over the fence that keeps the bears from eating you and your food. There are scenes like this everywhere.

 

Banff National Park covers 2564 square miles, and contains over 1000 miles of hiking trails. In the few short days that we were there we barely got a start on the hiking trails, hiking 10 to 15 miles in 4 days. We managed to see only the highlights. I would love to spend a month or two exploring and soaking in all the amazing wilderness.

I took this while watching the Stampede parade in Calgary, AB this summer. The people in front of us including the owner of this hat, had an interesting way to make the parade more interesting. They brought sidewalk chalk and drew circles in the street with their names in them. The first one to have a horse poop in their circle was the winner.

On another topic I have never seen so many cowboy hats and boots in a major city as I saw in Calgary for the stampede. It was a generally a very urban cowboy look, more glamorized than what you would see in a real working cowboy town. But it was fun to look at and photograph. I would definitely recommend going, it is an amazing experience.