Alberta - Badlands & Rocky Mountains

July 29 - Aug 05 2023

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Great Canadian Trails have partnered on a series of trekking trips, and I had the great fortune of being invited to guest host one of these Canadian Geographic Adventures trips "Badlands and Rockies of Alberta". I love Alberta, and I've been out here many times in the past. It was great to revisit some places I've been before, and to also explore some new places that I've wanted to see for years now. Many thanks to our guide Chris Booth for being amazing.

Day 1 - 2023 07 29 - Calgary

Today was a travel day to get from Toronto to our starting point in Calgary.

Day 2 - 2023 07 30 - Dinosaur Provincial Park

Yesterday we drove from Calgary out to the badlands, specifically Dinosaur Provincial Park. This place is fascinating, a huge rift was cut into the landscape by ancient glacial activity, exposing all kinds of fossilized dinosaur bones and leaving behind amazing hoodoos & other geological wonders. We could literally just walk around and find dinosaur bones protruding from the Earth.

Day 3 - 2023 07 31 - Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump

Today we took in the UNESCO site known as Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. This is a cliff side that has been used for almost 6000 by the Blackfoot ancestral people as a natural trap to catch bison in the autumn. They would set up pathways to funnel the bison towards the cliff while someone dressed in a baby bison skin would draw them closer and closer. Suddenly, others, dressed in wolf skins would start to panic the bison, driving them across the rolling hills and over the cliff to their death. Sometimes a couple hundred at a time if the hunt was a good one.   Immediately the task of skinning and preparing the bison would begin in preparation of drying the meat etc as winter would be coming soon.   This is the largest and best known of all the Buffalo Jumps, and I highly recommend visiting the interpretive center.

Day 4 - 2023 08 01 - Waterton Lakes

In Waterton Lakes National Park is such a gorgeous place. The park is in extreme southern Alberta, right up against the border with Montana.   We did an amazing hike up to Lower Rowe Lake through an area that had burned during the 2017 wildfire that took out about 60% of the vegetation in the park. It was fascinating to see how much recovery the forest has gone through in the past 6 years. The purple fireweed flowers and the scorched tree trunks made for a surreal landscape, and we had a perfect blue sky day.   We also saw plenty of wildlife including bighorn sheep and deer.   The little town of Wateron Lakes reminds me of a smaller, less hectic version of Banff, so if you like Banff, you'll love this place. As we left Waterton Lakes National Park, we drove past an area where they have a herd of bison, and I was able to get some great photos of them with wildflowers in foreground and the Rocky Mountains in the background. Very nice.

Day 5 - 2023 08 02 - Waterton to Banff & Frank Slide

En route to Banff, we stopped at a little piece of Canadian history that I knew nothing about until we visited the site in person. It was very powerful to see it myself. The Frank Slide disaster, a tragic and catastrophic event, occurred on April 29, 1903, in the town of Frank, Alberta. The coal-mining town faced an unimaginable calamity when an enormous portion of Turtle Mountain suddenly dislodged and cascaded down its slopes, burying a significant part of the town under millions of tons of rock and debris. The slide, triggered by a combination of geological factors, including the mountain's unstable structure, the melting of an ancient glacier, and significant coal mining, resulted in the loss of around 70 lives and buried much of the town. In the aftermath of the disaster, efforts were made to recover and rebuild the town, but almost all traces of it are gone now. The incident also spurred greater awareness and research into the understanding of landslides and their potential triggers. Today, the Frank Slide remains a poignant historical site.   It was a little piece of Canadian history that I knew nothing about until we visited the site in person. It was very powerful to see it myself.   One thing I was concerned with on this trip was wildfires. This has been a record-smashing year for fires here in Canada, and the smoke has made its way all over North America.   Not too surprisingly, smoke from a wildfire in British Columbia started to drift over towards our location as we approached the town of Banff. It may affect our hiking plans for tomorrow, but it helped to make for a moody sunset as we pulled into Banff National Park.

Day 6 - 2023 08 03 - Columbia Ice Field

The wildfire smoke was still bad enough for us to decide it would be best if we didn't do vigorous hike in Banff, so instead, we decided to drive up to Jasper National Park. I loved this idea because I had never been to Jasper before. The drive up the Icefields Parkway is considered by many to be one of the most scenic drives in the world. The views of the mountains and glacial lakes like Bow Lake were stunning.   We did some trekking at the Athabaska Glacier, part of the Columbia Ice Field in Jasper National Park. The smoke was still hanging in the air, but it was better than in Banff. Along the trail, there are numerous markers show where the glacier terminated in the past. The glacier has receded a LOT, and there's no sign of that process slowing down. We walked past ancient rocks that showed the scars of millions of tons of ice that had once scraped across them. It was fascinating (and frightening) to see firsthand how parts of our planet are changing so rapidly.   We were also treated to a sighting of a mountain goat.

Day 7 - 2023 08 04 - Lake Louise & Moraine Lake

Lake Louise, the iconic Canadian viewpoint. Countless photos of this glacial lake have been taken over the years, and it’s easy to see why it is such a popular destination. The turquoise glacial-fed lake is absolutely stunning. We spent the day trekking in the mountains above the lake. It was a wonderful day of being in nature, experiencing one of the most beautiful places in Alberta.   While enjoying lunch up by the mountain tea house, we could occasionally hear pieces of the alpine glaciers in the distance breaking off and crashing down the mountainside. The sound reverberating though the valleys.   On the way back to our hotel, we also stopped by the stunningly beautiful Moraine Lake. The surreal blue/green colour is in part because of the very fine glacial silt that gets deposited in the lake.   This evening, I knew that there was a possibility of northern lights at our location, and I was able to capture some dim aurora borealis.

Day 8 2023 08 05 - Yoho NP Takakkaw Falls, Laughing Falls & Point Lace Falls

Today we crossed over into British Columbia to do some hiking in Yoho National Park, which was fantastic.   We got to see several waterfalls, including the impressive Takakkaw Falls. Many thanks to everyone on the trip, our guide, Chris Booth, and all the folks at Great Canadian Trails and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society & Canadian Geographic Travel. It is so important to explore as much of your own country as you can, and with Canada being so incredibly vast, that can definitely be challenging.

 

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