Banff

Lower Falls Johnston Canyon

Today we explored the Bow River Parkway from Lake Louise to Banff. The flowers along the side of the road were spectacular – lots of daisies, with fireweed and Indian Paint Brush intermixed. The skies are hazy with smoke from the near-by fire that has been burning for over a month. Our primary stop for the day was Johnston’s Canyon. We've been here many a time in the rain, but today the sun is shining. We started up, but when the trail became a suspended catwalk over the river, Mary let me proceed on my own. The canyon has seven waterfalls in this 1.5 mile stretch. The lower falls is unique because directly across from it is a cave which had been carved out from the river many centuries ago. It gave a unique perspective on the falls. I continued climbing past a series of smaller falls, until I reached upper falls. Here we had a weeping wall opposite the falls, streaked with yellows and orange rock. The falls itself had both a main falls and a side falls spurting down.

Fireweed along Bow Parkway

We headed for lunch along the parkway, and were hit by a vicious flight of mosquitoes as we ate our sandwiches. We headed on down to Banff and took the Vermillion Lakes road to see the mountains reflected in these shallow lakes. 

Vermillion Lakes

The town of Banff was originally created around a natural hot springs. The dispute for who owned the hot springs here was the original reason they turned this into Canada’s first national park.  While in Banff we stopped at the Park Museum, built in 1903, and now a historical museum. The animal exhibits were created in the early 1900’s, so you could get a feel for a typical museum in that era. Most of the exhibits were stuffed birds and mammals with a few unique artifacts like: a tree limb growing through a rock hole or fossils found in the area. It did allow us to compare the size of a coyote with a grey wolf or distinguish between the many types of hawks that live in this area. The building itself looked modern, they must have done an excellent job in refurbishing it. The town of Banff was filled with people – much worse than Estes Park, feeling more like Aspen. We attempted to go to the original bathhouse, but construction on the road made that difficult. When we couldn't find the bath house, we decided to head back to camp and avoid the crowds here. On the way, we crossed onto the Bow River Parkway and above us on a bridge was a nest of Osprey with at least three youngsters looking like they would be flying soon.