California and Utah

You are looking at El Capitan in Yosemite.  The first picture is the entire mountain.  The next picture is a closer view and the third picture even closer.  Do you see the 2 climbers?  Pretty amazing! 

Yosemite Valley

El Capitan on the left.  You can just see the top of Half Dome just right of center in the photo.

This is the smoke from a wildfire in Kings Canyon National Park where we camped.  We drove to the campground at night and saw the trees burning...pretty exciting. What we saw was a control burn by the firefighters to combat the wildfire in the park.

General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park...claims to be the largest living thing on earth.  103 feet around at the base.

Taken from the top of  Moro Rock.  It was over 400 steps up.  What an amazing view!  We could see 11 mountains over 12,000 feet from here--360 degree view.

We were just driving down the road and I spotted this rock...Don slowed down so I could snap a few photos.  What an amazing pattern....Art by God!

Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah.  This is only a few miles from our condo.  It is not as big as Bryce Canyon, but it is just as beautiful!

Moon rising over Utah red rocks.                        

  Bryce Canyon National Park.

 Hiking down among the hoodoos and canyon in Bryce Canyon.

 Next is Zion National Park....

And now the infamous hike along the edge!!  I think that it was much scarier than it looks in the picture!  At times the trail was only a couple of feet wide.  The drop off was 900-1200 feet!  Thank goodness for that chain!

Seattle and Oregon

Flower in one of the gardens on Victoria, BC

Our campground at Goldstream Park on Vancouver Island.

Fruit and flowers at Pike Market in Seattle....so colorful.  These big bouquets are just $5 and $10!!

The beautiful Oregon coast.  As we drove south the fog set in and we could see nothing or very little for most of the drive.  This is Haystack Rock.

The seals just blend in with the rocks.

Our campsite at Susan Falls Campground in Oregon...beautiful!  The next picture is the view we had.  It was so nice to lay in the tent and listen to the river.  This is the Umpqua River...pretty famous for fishing.  We met a man who travelled with two of his friends all the way from Denmark to fish here!

Just one of the MANY pictures I took on our hikes to waterfalls. 

One of many beautiful waterfalls we saw.  Some we hiked in to and others were right along the road...all on the Umpqua River.  This one is a tiered waterfall and is very big.

Here it is....Crater Lake!  After anticipating seeing this, it was not disappointing.  The color of the water is amazing--royal blue.  The water is 1,000 feet deep in the middle and is the purest water in the world (I read).
The Lake is HUGE!   As you look at it, it begins to look like a painting...not real! 

Isn't this beautiful?

This is Wizard Island...a volcano within the caldera.

So today we are waking up in Redding, CA on our way to Yosemite.  We plan to camp out three nights there before leaving for Utah.  Camping in the tent is going well...except that our mattress has sprung a leak and slowly, slowly goes down during the night.  I think it's time to visit Walmart for a new one!

B. C. and Vancouver Island

This is Nairn Falls where we camped in British Columbia, north of Whistler.  These falls were beautiful. 

below the falls...the water is really this beautiful turqoise blue from the glacier rock flour.

This is an inukshuck...symbol of Canada.  Someone made it along the banks below Nairn Falls.  Notice the little dog next to it!

Our first campground on Vancouver Island at French Beach.  We were just a short walk to the beach.  The trees and ferns were amazing!  We could listen to the waves pounding the beach as we went to sleep.  I woke up the sounds of the waves, birds singing and ravens calling...wonderful!

Saw some beautiful sculptures of driftwood on the beach.

As you can imagine, we loved watching the sunset over the ocean. 

Below are our beautiful campgrounds...do you see why we felt like we were in Jurassic Park?  We could just imagine dinosaurs coming through the ferns!

The eagles were stuffed--at a Nature House in one of the parks.  We thought Jackson would like to see them!

Pics from Banff-Jasper

This is overlooking Banff.  It is just surrounded by mountains and a beautiful city.

On one of our hikes.  The forests are beautiful...so lush and green with lots of mosses and fungi...very interesting.

Here is our campsite on the edge of Banff.  As you can see, we are drying out after one of the rains! 

Lake Louise...there was cloud cover, but it was still just beautiful!

This is Moraine Lake.  We loved this lake! 

Peyto Lake....we think the most beautiful!  The water color was amazing caused by the rock flour from the glaciers.

The Ice Explorer took us onto the Athabascar Glacier.  125 square miles and 1,000 feet deep.  The bus went down and back up the steepest road in North America--32 degree slope.

It is hard to tell how huge these crevasses are.  I am sure they are VERY big because there were very far away.

Look in the center of this picture and see the little black dots?  That is two Ice Explorers ....this is a big glacier, however, like the others it is definitely shrinking.  Above the buses, you can see three tiers of the glacier.  They were FAR away from where walked around outside the bus. 

Banff to Jasper

I am not able to download pictures right now :) but I will update on our trip.  We camped out at Banff for three nights--two of the nights it rained all night!  That's okay, we slept well anyway.  We did some nice hikes there--one to Johnston Canyon which was beautiful.  This morning we packed up our wet tent and headed north toward Jasper.  What an amazing drive!  About half-way through the drive, Don said this is the most beautiful drive we have ever made, and I agree!   It is called the Columbian Icefields Parkway.   Majestic, magnificent snow-topped mountains for miles and miles, streams, turquoise glacial lakes, waterfalls, and glaciers!  It was really breathtaking!   We stopped at Lake Louise and also went to Moraine Lake and Peyto Lake which were all beautiful. We took a ice bus thing up to the Athabascar Glacier.  It is 1,000 feet deep and the snow and ice field is 125 square miles!  It is just hard to grasp the size of it.  I hope I can post pictures later, but even then it is impossible to capture the beauty that we saw.  Then we stopped at Athabascar Waterfalls before getting into Jasper.   We saw two huge bull elk with enormous antlers here in town.  Tonight we are in a hotel!  What a luxury!  We enjoyed a delicious Cantonese meal and right now Don is snoring away...

Montana Sky and Banff

This sunset was just amazing!  The colors filled the entire sky and I could capture only a portion of it.  Yes, Montana is Big Sky Country!

Here is our campground in Banff National Park.  We set up camp Saturday afternoon and moments after we went to bed, it started raining and rained ALL night!  We stayed fairly dry though.  It rained most of Sunday so we enjoyed exploring the city center of Banff and doing some shopping.  Then we went to the Hot Springs--what a treat!  We stayed in for nearly 2 hours.  It was crowded, so we had fun visiting with people in the springs. They routed the hot springs into a HUGE hot tub.  so relaxing!

Here is a shot of the Canadian Rockies.  Banff is pretty much surrounded by mountains.  It is also very international.  Yesterday, driving in to town we saw a huge Mule Deer buck running down the main street in town. 

As you can see this is a HUGE vehicle.  It is what you can take to ride on the Canadian Icefields.  They are between Lake Louise and Jasper and are supposed to be something special to see!  We will head that way tomorrow!

Isn't this beautiful?   We are going out to do some hiking today. 
Tomorrow we head north to Jasper.

Glacier Nat'l Park

The morning after hiking out of Sperry Chalet, we drove to the east side of Glacier on Going to the Sun Road.  Although it was somewhat overcast and cloudy, we saw beautiful scenery of snow-crested mountains, glaciers, green valleys and waterfalls.  We got a camping cabin and met Ann and David at their campsite where we enjoyed pizza while it rained! 

The next morning we drove to many Glacier Lodge--what amazing scenery.  Ann and David decided to do the Cracker Lake Trail (12 miles) and Don and I decided on a shorter one to Red Rock Falls.  On that hike we found a pond with moose and saw 3 cows there then.  Ann and David came to our campsite for dinner and we drove to the lodge to enjoy a David Walburn concert on his experience homesteading in Alaska.  We had him sign a CD for Tommy because he loves to listen to David Walburn!  Back to our camp for a good night's sleep.

Friday morning we got up and headed to the moose pond.  We sat and waited for wildlife.  Don went to pick huckleberries.  As I sat there a doe and fawn muledeer came up about 30 feet from me.  Then I heard a grunting huffing sound.  I didn't know where or who it was coming from....then I saw a beautiful bull moose across the pond.  he was walking along the bank and calling for girls!!!  After he wandered off into the woods, a cow and calf came and grazed in the pond until we left.  Back to camp for fresh right-off-the-bush huckleberry pancakes...YUM!

We hiked to Grinnell Lake (7 miles) which is a beautiful glacial lake.  After dinner we saw the most gorgeous sunset...pictures later because they are still on the camera.  This sunset filled the entire sky with a beautiful orange.  We went to another David Walburn concert on Lewis and Clark.  It was SO interesting. 

Don wants me to report that we hiked over 31 miles in Glacier National Park--uphill both ways!!!

Saturday after another breakfast of huckleberry pancakes we packed up and headed to Canada.  It is raining now in Calgary...but I see blue skies ahead in Banff!!