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!!

Tuesday evening....we just got back to our campground after our trek up to Sperry Chalet.  What a great group of friends to share this adventure with!  We left out early Sunday morning in the rain for the 6.4 mile hike UP to Sperry Chalet--and I do mean up--every step was up, up, up.  We couldn't see too much for all the low-lying clouds, but we made it up about 3 p.m.  We were SO wet!  After shedding our wet clothes and  hanging them around the pot-belly stove to dry.  There was so much fog that the visibility was about 10 feet!  We couldn't appreciate the beauty that was around us because we couldn't see it!  After enjoying Thanksgiving dinner at Sperry Chalet we looked outside and the clouds were clearing.  We could see beautiful mountains and scenery!   Monday morning we woke up to a beautiful day and after breakfast we headed up to Sperry Glacier.  It was 3.7 miles UP (again).  I don't have the words to tell you what an amazing hike it was...waterfalls, glacial lakes, mountains with the fresh snow from the day before.  I hope you can get an idea from the pictures.  After lunch at the glacier, we  headed down and enjoyed the hike down just as much. 

After dinner, we played Trivial Pursuit.  Oh, Sperry Chalet has NO electricity, No heat, No running water!  We kind of roughed it.  There was a very nice self-composting toilet building though.  They do all the cooking on propane stoves and have propane lights in the dining hall. 

We had all decided that we would take the long hike out (over 13 miles) instead of taking the same hike that we did up to Sperry.  It would be long, but we would have some beautiful trails and scenery.  Then when we woke up this morning--it was sleeting!  So we changed plans and took the short route.  It was still a very nice hike and we could see more than we could going up.

So...I would recommend putting Sperry Chalet on your bucket list--if that is "your thing."  It is a very unique and special place.  The people who work there are so nice and love being there and serving their guests.

Tomorrow Don and I, Ann and David head to the east side of the park.  We will spend a few more days hiking.  Then Don and I will head north to Canada.  I'll post again when we have internet!

Gem Mountain, Montana

My sweet husband drove us WAY out into the middle of nowhere Montana to that I could hunt for sapphires at Gem Mountain!  On the Travel Channel I saw a show about a lady who went here and other places looking for semi-precious stones.  I knew I wanted to go, but didn't think I ever would.  I LOVE things like this!  So Don drove so that we got there just in time before they closed for the day, and we looked through buckets of dirt and rocks looking for these sapphires. Don learned the trick of washing the dirty rocks in the trough. Doesn't he look like he is having FUN in the picture?  I know they don't look like much here...remember they aren't ready to mount yet! Sapphires come in all colors and shades of gold, green, blue and even pink! I did find one that was big enough to facet.  Don couldn't believe it...but I bought another bag of dirt, rocks and (hopefully) sapphires to look through when we get home.  I think the big one is in there!