Blogs from Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, North America - page 8

Full day travelling to the Columbia Icefields today with a stop off at Louise Lake (going back there tomorrow for a longer visit but guess what...the lake is still frozen..didn't expect that). Travelling to the Icefields is very scenic - snow capped mountains, lakes, rivers, many glaciers etc. Heard about the history of the early pioneers and first settlers. Once at the icefield, got driven to the glacier by a specially designed vehicle with very large wheels/tyres. Anyway, walked on a glacier today! Pictures will probably tell a better story than my words. On way back, stopped at Bow lake - also frozen - so started to walk on it and after a moment when ankle deep with both feet...oops. Quick backtrack...lol. Seems a little early in the season as still lots of snow and lakes ... read more

It was time for a break, so I headed out west where my son and I got to spend some time together AND explore the outdoors of beautiful Banff. My original travel plans took a bit of a u-turn with the threat of a strike by Air Canada. Instead of flying directly from home to Calgary, I spent a day driving to London ON to connect with a Westjet flight. That worked out fine since I have family there so the return home included a stop over and Thanksgiving dinner. Banff is a little over an hour west of Calgary, where my son lives, so this was a very manageable trip. We arrived in Banff on a Tuesday afternoon and got the lay of the land. Wednesday morning saw us up Sulphur mountain via gondola (yes, ... read more

Sunday, August 7th, 2011 Waterfowl Lakes Campground, Banff National Park, Alberta. 48 degrees out and cloudy at 9:50 Starting mileage is 14402. As we left camp, we noticed that the people who had vacated the campsite directly opposite us had left a fire burning very brightly in their fire pit. We felt that the park host should be notified and so drove around the park to his campsite. After asking for his expertise, he looked at Valerie’s pictures and confirmed that the “pinto bear” was indeed a grizzly even though his hump was not very pronounced. And that the small flock we saw outside of Jasper were female Rocky Mountain sheep and not goats. Continued on the Parkway and stopped to admire several glaciers. I especially liked the area around Bow Lake and the Wapta Icefield. ... read more

It is Wednesday the 20th and tomorrow I have my follow up with the hand surgeon in Kelowna. That’s why I am sitting in the greyhound since 2:35pm with more than four hours to go. The trip is about 8 hours in total, with stops at pretty much every town along the way. I’ve charged my laptop and phone so I have enough to keep myself busy with for that time. I must say I am really getting used to the long travel distances. Before I came here any trip longer than two hours already felt long. Now anything between two and eight hours is quite standard. Here at least you have the fortune you can stare at the beautiful scenery the whole way. I’ll try to give you a slight description of how inmensely scenic ... read more

Hi all. O.K I will admit I have absolutely no idea how to start a blog for the first time. I suppose convention dictates that introductions are usually the first priority. I'm Richard and I'm currently participating in the international volunteer programme at Banff national park. In probability if your reading this then you are either a future volunteer on this programme, a friend back in England with to much spare time, or a relative who is reading this as confirmation that I am in fact still alive. The point of this blog, or at least the intention for the first few of these is to give an honest version of life during this course, thus to limit any shock that may happen. Hopefully you will be given the details of where to read this before ... read more