OUT AND ABOUT AROUND BANFF

We camped here in Tunnel Mountain Campground for about 3 days.  It's kind of like a parking lot, but we were hardly there, and it was centrally located.

 Up at the foot of Sulphur Mountain, the gondola takes thousands of people to the top for a great view of the valley.  They even let dogs ride...however, we opted for a walking tour of the area.  Here is a glacier bus which takes people out onto the glaciers.

We explored Cave and Basin National Monument, the first national park in Canada.  There are hot springs here.

 We walked along the Bow River, where canoe rides are available, and happened to hit the final farmers' market of the year.

CITY OF BANFF IN BANFF NATIONAL PARK

OVER AND UP THE COWBOY HIGHWAY TO BANFF

 From Fort Macleod, we traveled west through miles and miles of rolling prairie grass and farmland.  This area, we are told, is the windiest place in Canada; as such, windmills are put to good use.

 We stopped to see Frank Slide. The town of Frank was a coal mining town of 600 people with a railroad passing through.  Back on April 29, 1903, at 4am, a giant wedge of limestone broke off of Turtle Mountain, shown here, and obliterated the eastern portion of the town.  70 people died.  A few were never recovered. 

 Canada's interpretive centers are beautiful.  The stories are depicted artfully, and really engage you as a viewer.

 From Frank, we headed up the Cowboy Trail to find a campsite for the night.  The first park we pulled into had some flood damage from the Elbow River.  Lots of flooding in the central part of Alberta, and they are still recovering from it.

We found a beautiful spot in MacLean Creek campground for the night.

Tallest and longest railroad trestle in the world

About 30 miles to the east of Fort MacLeod is Lethbridge, where we discovered this railroad trestle, 100 yrs old, and still in operation.  It took us a bit to find an observation spot to take pictures, but Darrell succeeded.  It was a rr highlight for him.

Head-smashed-in Buffalo Jump

This site is located northwest of Fort MacLeod, where we stayed for 2 days.  For 5 to 6,000 years, Indians hunted buffalo on the prairies of Alberta.  This was how they accomplished a major kill; by "herding" them into a narrowing avenue of the prairie, getting them going so fast that they couldn't see or turn back from the cliff.  They didn't have horses yet, but were skilled at this method of providing food for their tribes. The center was built in the late 80's, but is beautifully done and looks and seems brand new. 

A LITTLE TRIP TO CANADA

CHECKING OUT CHOTEAU

Our pack trip scheduled for next spring leaves out of Choteau, which is on the east side of the Rockies.  On the way there to see what it was like, we stopped in Browning to see the Museum of the Plains Indians.  It was mostly a beautiful collection of native costumes of the Blackfeet Indians.  Well worth the stop, though it doesn't look like it from the outside.
In Choteau we discovered we had been through there before, about 10 yrs ago.  We decided not to take the trailer, but use a motel when we embark on our 3 day pack assisted trip.  We've talked to the outfitter, and she sounds like a great lady, and we can't wait.  More later....

IN SEARCH OF......

 We are newbies at finding huckleberries here.  Amber showed us the ropes last year, so we struck out on our own (did I say struck out?).  We drove along the road to Upper Whitefish Lake, scanning the shrubs.  We found what we thought were hucks, but as I checked my book on plants of the Rockies, I discovered we had picked mostly Serviceberries (aka Saskatoons).  Well, they tasted pretty good, so it wasn't all a failure.  I think there are some huckleberries in there too, we gathered 2 quarts of the things.  Brought them home and froze them til I can find a scrumptious recipe to use them in!

 Luna took the opportunity to sharpen her breath-holding skills in the lake.

The scenery was beautiful, and we drove over Red Meadow Pass, stopped at Polebridge and had a good dinner at Northern Lights Cafe, next to the merc. 

MEDICINAL?

Darrell found this in the woods one morning as he unlocked the gate.  Not sure why it was there, must be a story behind it, but we have no clue.  We called the sherriff's office to come get it. 

ALL DAY RAIN AND THEN SOME.....

A few weeks ago, it rained all day, and it was steady and hard.  That being said, the next morning when Darrell went to open the gate, he noticed quite a river going across our road and down the hill to the neighbor's house.  Later, we had a knock on the door from the caretaker of the home, informing us that they needed to do something about all the water flowing into their house.  They had called some earth mover type guys, and they brought out their equipment to try to divert the river.  They decided to dig a new trench in our upper entrance road, and that did the job.  However, the flood of water clogged our drain pipe, and now we had a new stream running through the park.
When all was said and done (many phone calls to our supervisor), everyone figured out that this was way more water than the rain had caused.
It turns out that there was a pond up on Big Mountain, at a home that used to be owned by Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle), and the pond breached, causing it to empty down the mountain.  We drove up and looked at the pond, and Darrell guestimated about 4 million gallons came our way.  Along with over 200 trout they had just stocked the pond with.

The owner of the pond came to the park the next day, feeling very bad, and trying to find out who all his pond had directly affected.  The pond was over 40 years old, and who knows what kind of maintenance was done to it....it was probably "grandfathered" in when new codes were implemented, and it was never brought up to specs.
Damage to our park was minimal, you can tell where the water flowed, but it didn't really hurt anything.  We're told that our road will be repaired, and things will be back to normal soon.

So, that's about the most excitement we've had all summer here.  The month of July has been warm, and our park has been packed every day.  Most of the exploring that there is to do up here, we did in the past 3 years, so didn't want to post duplicate pictures again.
It has been too hot for hiking, (we did that once in Glacier, and both suffered from heat exhaustion, don't want to repeat that experience).
We are waiting for a bit cooler weather for that, and in the meantime are keeping busy going to the gym and looking for huckleberries.