Monday, August 3, 2009
Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies
Last evening’s sunset coupled with a full moon rising was captivating! Tabitha on the couch and I in the back bedroom fell asleep staring out our respective windows at the breathtaking night view. Well, I fell asleep. Tabitha was awake for the late night rainstorm with accompanying winds that rocked the RV – I re-awoke to that entertainment!
Morning came early. Lawrence and I started driving after 7 am hoping to see bears and other wildlife along the way in the early hours. I guess our eyesight isn’t nifty for catching sights of wildlife. After enjoying mountain views, shimmering aqua Waterfowl Lakes and briefly stopping again for excessive picture taking., we reached the highest road pass leading to Peyto Lake. At this point we dragged (metaphorically speaking) everyone out of bed for an upward short hike and a family pic at the end of the trail! Peyton even though glacier-fed is a brilliant turquoise due to the glacier’s retreat leaving a delta area which filters out the rock and debris leaving the beautiful turquoise color. The plant life was fascinating on the way up. Evergreen limbs are slightly scooped upwards to catch the snow and insulate branches from the harsh cold and wind at this high altitude. It can snow any day of the year – which explains why we had to wear jackets to walk this trail.
Our next stop was Lake Moraine and climbing to the top of Rock Trail, the most photographed spot in the Canadian Rockies. Now we know why! There were two ways to climb to the top of Rock Trail – first, balance yourself on logs jamming a creek flowing out of Lake Moraine and then literally scramble over piles of rock totally covering the side of the hill to the top. Titus, Boaz, Tabitha and Silla chose this first way! Lawrence had dropped us off and was parking the RV a mile away (yes, there was a significant parking problem) the first time we climbed to the top; not wanting to risk wetting my camera, I chose to walk the path around to the backside of the mountainous hill and join our children at the top. On the return, our kids begged me to climb down the rock pile with them and balance across the logs. Lawrence arrived and we climbed again the rock pile to take an important family picture. Yes, we asked strangers to take pictures of our family with my camera! Scrambling over those rocks I kept exclaiming over the beauty of so many purplish rocks! Too bad I couldn’t bring back a small boulder with me!
Arriving back in the USA about 9 am, we realized cell phone connection was lacking. We had just heard earlier that Luke was called to Army bootcamp a few days earlier than we had expected. So we drove till 2 am in the morning to reach an RV site that had cell phone connection. Thankfully we were able to talk to him the morning he left as he stood in line for breakfast 4:30 am his time and 2:30 am our time.
Lawrence and Marjorie Clark
