Thursday, September 2nd, 2004

When we woke up in the morning at Waterton National Park, it had cleared, but it was now quite cool (~40s F). The winds were as strong as ever, averaging 30-40 mph. I was curious about what effect they would have on the tent, so I removed the stakes, and it flew off 50 feet into the woods! It took me a while to remove the poles from the tent and get it back in order after that.

	I got a picture of our campsite, with some of Waterton's mountains in the background. It's hard to tell that the wind was whipping so fiercely by the still image below. The tent flew to the spot from which this photo was taken (and beyond) when I removed the stakes.

	I shot some images from our campsite in the morning light and pasted together a couple here to make a small panorama. The wind was so strong that it would have blown my tripod over if I hadn't held it securely!

	Once we broke camp, we headed to the heart of the park for breakfast. We'd heard about the famous Prince of Wales Hotel, which sits on a bluff overlooking Waterton Lake. The winds here were the strongest we'd seen on the entire trip, around 50 mph out on the bluff. Even the massive hotel was creaking under the strain of the winds!

	We had a great buffet breakfast in the hotel. It felt a little fancy so Ty tried his best to fit in.

	After breakfast, we headed out behind the hotel to check out the lake. It was so windy that I could lean into the wind at an angle and not fall over. You can probably make out the whitecaps on the lake due to the wind.

Mom and Ty on the front side of the hotel taking shelter from the winds

	Our next stop was the Waterton Village, which sits below the hotel. We were surprised to find out it was a lot more than simply a tourist-type village, as there is a school, real houses, and the feel of a real town.

	Our stop in the village was pretty brief. Even though it wasn't really raining, the strong winds were churning up the lake and throwing enough water in the air to form a rainbow. You can get an idea of the winds by looking at the trees in the image below. The wind is heading to the right of the picture.

Looking back from the village, the hotel sitting on its bluff above the lake.

	Leaving Waterton Park, it was time to say good-bye to the mountains for a little while as we headed into the great plains and made our way to Calgary. The winds continued to be strong, and I couldn't think of a better place to stick a wind farm.

	We passed through Calgary (below) and made our way back into the Canadian Rockies. Although the wind had subsided somewhat, the closer we got to the mountains, the thicker the clouds got. Soon it was raining.

	Finally, we arrived in Banff (elevation 4,540'). It was even more spectacular than I had remembered from my winter trip. Unfortunately, it was pouring at this point, so instead of a picnic, we decided to eat indoors. We went for pizza, and I got a picture out of the restaurant. Up on the mountain in the picture below, you may be able to make out a bit of white, which was new SNOW that had recently fallen. It was a sign of things to come.

From Banff we headed north along the world-famous Icefields Parkway. Despite the low clouds and rain, we could still see some of the amazing glaciers way, way up in the mountains over our heads. At the higher areas of the parkway, (~7,000'), the temperature was down to 34 F, and it was SNOWING HEAVILY!! It certainly wasn't the type of labor day weather most places were experiencing. We did manage to get a few shots when the sun broke through; below is a shot as we approached the Columbia Icefield area.

We arrived in Jasper that evening and contemplated getting a hotel room due to the persistent rain. But, we didn't really find anything too economical so we decided to tough it out with setting up the tent in wet conditions. We got a spot at the HUGE Whistlers campground, which has almost 800 sites! The setup of the tent went smoothly, and soon we were all asleep, hoping for clearing conditions in the morning.



On to the Next Day