Homeword bound

After the Tetons I guess both of us had felt we had seen enough for we mutually agreed it was time to head home. With an overnight in Boise with a dear old friend and another stop at McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park we arrived home late Friday 13th morning as luck would have it ;)

Colter Bay

We spent two nights in Colter Bay on Jackson Lake in the Teton Park. A friend Captain Jim is a tour boat captain and we went for the Breakfast Cruise to Elk Island. There we were served a scrumptious meal of trout and eggs with all the trimmings. Most of the rest of the time we were dodging thunderstorms, but we did manage to get in a couple of hikes around string Lake and then up to Bradley Lake.

Yellowstone/ Tetons

We woke this morning in West Yellowstone and set out early for a mini-tour of Yellowstone on our way down to the Tetons. Let's just say we hit all the "hot spots" A morning viewing of Old Faithful and stops at various areas in the caldera. At one overlooking Yellowstone Lake we found a young elk curious about some Canadian tourists.

On our way over Craig's Pass we stopped at Isa Lake. This tiny water lily choked lake in a small depression is unique because each end of the lake drains into each side of the Continental Divide.

Later on now in the Grand Tetons Park we came across our first roadsideGrizzly. He was nosing around next to the highway and as I shot this photo Mary noticed a Mountain Lion slinking off into the background. We suspected a kill that the Grizzly ended up scavenging.

Jasper/ Banff/ Glacier

We will just call it the peak and glacier tour, and we sure saw a lot of them! The last week was like being in Disneyland of the North. This was truly a completely different scene than what we had been seeing lately. The most potent thing we noticed was not the quantity of people although it was ten times as many as we had been around, but rather the quality. I guess these large National Parks (Canada or US) have visitors that never been very far in the outdoors. Not only did they stop randomly right in the middle of the highway to view anything alive alongside the road, but they opened there doors to let the kids flood out. These large groups would then practically surround the Elk/Moose/Bear and move within 10 feet of them. Enough about the people, the views were of course absolutely incredible. The first shot is of water coming out of the rocks in Maligne Canyon outside of Jasper.The second is of some glaciers south of Jasper.
Third one is from a short but steep hike we took up Parker Ridge to view the Saskatchewan Glacier. The fourth shot is of Lake Louise outside of Banff, Mary was saying her Grandmother came up here, probably it wasn't quite as crowded then ;).








Today we went into Glacier Park we got an early start so we could beat the crowds up the very popular hike to Avalanche Lake. After that we drove up to Logan Pass an already precarious drive made even more difficult because of one way traffic control for road repair. The other two pics are of the antique tour buses they use inside the park.

Yellowhead Highway

The last two days found us driving across British Columbia on the Yellowhead Highway. As so often been the case, we seem to find the most wonderful places everywhere we go. Today we came across the "Ancient Forest" apparently the oldest temperate inland rain forest in the hemisphere. These giant ceders and associated plants were truly amazing, even to jaded redwood folk like us. I want to point out here that certainly British Columbia and probably all of Canada is putting out the red carpet for tourism. Not only are the people most welcoming, but all the individual cities seem to be decked out in their best apparel. If anyone reading this has considered a road trip up here I highly recommend you come up and do it!
Tomorrow we head into Jasper and Banff National Parks to see some more incredible country, but probably won't post for a few days.
I have put a few more pics on My Galleries page