In 1998, on our forth adventure, we took a longer vacation than previously. We flew out of Boston to Salt Lake City, Utah, again over the usual Labor Day holiday in September.
We rented a Chevy and looked up at the dark ominous clouds above. in the valley of the Grand Teton Mountains.
We entered Wyoming and soon passed through a town called Afton, where we were greeted on Main Street with an archway of elk horn antlers.
In the center of town was a little park with another elk horn antler arch.
Here we are at one of the entrances to the park.
Each of the 4 entrances had the elk horn arches.
We stayed for 2 days in Jackson Hole, WY. It's a cute little western town right in the valley of the Teton's.
Here we are at the Grand Teton Mountains.
While in Wyoming we decided to take a ride on the Snake River. We went to Mad River White Water Rafting and were soon wearing life jackets and climbing into a raft with a bunch of other folks from around the country. Our guide, Adam, who was actually from Vermont and working there while going to school in Wyoming, told us stories about Indians and eagles.
Here's a picture of Adam, our guide.
Here's a picture of an adult male bald eagle.
Perched on driftwood, with magpies, eating fish.
Flying off, only to return as we continued up river.
The roads that we took driving to Yellowstone were challenging at times. Here's a road we just had to stop and take a photo of.
As soon as we were in the Yellowstone area we began seeing wildlife, elks and buffalo.
The fires from previous years had left their toll with acres of burnt trees, standing like sticks, with new growth slowly restoring the forest.
We stopped to see Old Faithful (of course).
Everywhere you turned there were sites to see, sulpher springs, hot mud bubbling, steam from geysers... and the smell of rotting eggs!
Here's a picture of Yellowstone Falls and another of Yellowstone River.
We continued north into Montana, where we saw logging trucks and miles of farmland, with rolled up hay and mountains on the horizon of the big, blue sky.
Off in the distance, as we were driving, we thought there was a fire because we saw "smoke" way off in the distance. We soon realized that it wasn't a fire at all. It was a herd of wild horses running right at us. They were heading towards a small river by the roadside, so we stopped and parked the car, got out the cameras and had a sight I'll never forget.
The herd galloped at full speed, past a group of antelope, stopping with a halt at the river. After wading and taking a quick, cool drink, the "leader" took off and the rest followed, just as wild and fast as they had arrived, kicking, and snorting. These horses were obviously different from the many grazing horses we had seen on ranches that we had been passing by for days.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition came through this section of Montana back in
We now were on the northern border of Montana and Canada, at Glacier National Park... Bear Country!
We drove around a bend and suddenly there was one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen, Lake McDonald, formed from the glaciers.
We left Montana, USA and entered British Columbia, Canada driving by the Columbia Lake, (which empties into the Pacific Ocean at Astoria, Oregon.)
As we drove down the highway we saw what looked like a fort so we turned around and went back to explore!
It was Fort Steele, the North West Mounted Police - Kootenay Post - built in 1887, to "uphold law and order" between white and natives.
Below are some photos we took at this Fort.
We drove further north, passing by Yellowstone Lake.
As we were driving through Glacier National Park, still in British Columbia, we noticed tour buses, with large wheels, taking tourist up into the glaciers.
We drove by Radium Hot Springs at the entrance to Kootenay National Park. We spotted a mountain goat so of course we had to stop and get a picture of the little fella.
Here's a few pictures we took as we crossed over from British Columbia to Alberta, still heading north.
These falls constantly change course.
On the right is Pat walking down a 'canyon'
where the water used to fall.
We finally arrived at our destination, Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, where we stayed at Lake Louise Inn. It was a beautiful condo, with a kitchen, 2 bedrooms, fireplace... really nice, near town but in a private wooded area. After settling in we took a drive into town. Here's a few pictures
Our next stop was Banff National Park, also in Alberta, a bit north of Lake Louise.
Here we met a guide who takes folks hunting with bows and arrows for elk. He pointed out a big buck and a female nearby in the woods and explained that they only hunt for lone males, ones that are looking for mates with their loud calls. This male had a mate with him so this one was spared the arrow!
The female in the lower picture is lying near the front.
We passed by this beautiful hotel on the side of a mountain.
For some crazy reason we thought we would try to paddle down 'Bow River'. We put on our life jackets, climbed into a yellow canoe with our cameras and quickly realized that we had no idea what we were doing. We kept zig-zagging back and forth, making no progress up river at all. We finally gave up, leaving the canoe by the edge of the water a half hour later, only a few feet from the dock we began at. I thanked the man at the rental booth and told him we had a good laugh when he told us that he and his friends all had a good laugh watching us!!
STILL TO COME:
The return trip took us through the west border of Idaho along Hell's Canyon, south to Nevada and eastward back to Salt Lake City.
