...and then we saw mountains

A guest blog from Christine to share photos from the mountainous parts of our road trip. We first began to encounter our "serious" mountains in western South Dakota, and the Rockies remained the prime focal feature throughout Montana, Wyoming, and Alberta's Banff and Jasper National parks. The pictures here are an abbreviated smattering of the spots we visited.

We spent some time in the Many Glacier section of Montana's Glacier National Park. Like the rest of GNP, the area is beautiful, and, while crowded, not riddled with the same volume of people as the remainder of the Park encounters. Beargrass was common along the Iceberg Ptarmigan/Swiftcurrent Trail, pictured here facing Mt. Wilbur and Iceberg Lake (hidden behind the green ridge and below Mt. Wilbur). We then proceeded to Ptarmigan Lake, where we hiked the Ptarmigan Wall and through the impressive man-made tunnel. This view is from the top of Ptarmigan Wall, looking back at the Lake.

The ride between Glacier National Park and Banff National Park was an eventful one. Leaving the warm, sunny weather of Glacier, we had hardly entered Calgary before the skies darkened and the frequent lightening was quickly followed by plummeting temperatures and heavy hail, sleet, and snow. Thankfully the weather improved the following morning, and Banff welcomed us with warm sunshine and blue skies. We chose to hike up Banff's Sulphur Mountain rather than riding the chairlift, and earning the view made it much more rewarding.

Continuing our way north we stopped at Lake Louise and Moraine and Mirror Lakes, three glacial lakes surrounded by stunning peaks. This picture of Moraine Lake highlights the Valley of the Ten Peaks, which was featured on the back of the C$20. We followed a trail around the lake at lake-level before later ascending to a peak above the Lake via the Beehive trail, which offered even more spectacular views.

While in Jasper National Park we did two overnight hikes: the Skyline trail and the Maligne Lake trail. We had hoped to do the Tonquin Valley trail based upon a friend's recommendation, but the daunting mosquito reputation made us decide to postpone it until our next trip. From the number of mosquitoes on the other trails we were confident that we had made a wise decision. These pictures are from our hike along the Skyline trail.

Marmots, aka whistle-pigs, were common along the valleys of the Skyline trail. They were attracted to the whistle pitch of our bear whistles, which gave us prolonged observational opportunities and the chance to hear their own whistles.