Photos from the Rockies

OK, I promised some photos, so here are some pictures of my nine days in the Rockies, which I have to say are absolutely spectacular and should be on everyone's "must go there one day" list. I just fell in love with this part of the world - it truly is some of the most amazing landscape anywhere. And just when you think it can't get any better, it does - I just kept on being surprised by how beautiful it was. Every time the weather or the light changes, you see something new and different. And these mountains pretty much put every mountain in Australia to shame! Our mountains look like gently undulating hills in comparison.

Anyway, these photos are by no means exhaustive; I took several hundred photos in a week and a bit, so I picked out some good/interesting ones for now and will post a few more another time, as well as some from around Vancouver.


Depsite the horribly crooked horizon I really love this shot. This was Emerald Lake, which is a glacier lake in Glacier National Park, before you actually reach the Rockies. A few of the crazier people in our group (I was with the Moose backpacker bus) decided to swim in water that couldn't have been more than 1-2 degrees. And there were literally a hundred or more people gathered round with cameras to capture this collective insanity. Left to right: Steve (UK), Laurence (Albany, Australia), Kaz (NZ) and David (UK). I seem to have quite a lot of photos of Laurence swimming in glacier lakes because he swam in just about all of them. He's keeping the stereotype of the crazy Australian alive and well throughout the world.



A more tranquil Emerald Lake, before everyone went swimming.


Lake Louise, one of the most photographed and most famous spots in the Rockies.



The view from the Saddleback track around the Lake Louise area. This was a really tough climb (3.7km all uphill) but wow, the views were worth it! L-R: Lene (Denmark), Lukas (Germany), me (looking a bit hot and sweaty), Pieter (Switzerland) and Michael (Germany).



At Lake Louise again, having mostly recovered from the hike.



One of the many waterfalls we visited - I think this must be the Kicking Horse river, which might be the name of the falls as well, I can't really remember. (After dozens of rivers and waterfalls they all look a bit the same after a while).


This really captures the sweeping majesty of the mountains for me. I also have a portrait-oriented version of this shot where I like the light a lot better, but you'd have to look at it sideways because I still can't seem to rotate photos on Blogger.



This was the hostel at Rampart Creek, where we stayed in cosy wood cabins and woke up to the view in the background. There was also a sauna cabin by the creek, where you stay inside the steam room until you just about can't breate anymore, and then run down to the near freezing creek to cool off. Then run back to the sauna again and repeat a few times. The creek has a deceptively strong current though, so there's really only one area at the side of the creek where it's safe to take a dip in the water (bloody freezing, too!!) otherwise you'd be quite easily swept downstream and end up battered and bruised a hundred metres downstream (or worse). I only tried it once and wore thongs (flip-flops, for the non-Aussies) so as to not cut my feet on the rocks, but it's next to impossible to keep them on in the moving water. And so that, my friends, is how I sacrificed a thong to the great Canadian wilderness.



Sitting around the campfire while dinner was cooking inside. Ah, the campfires... two of the best nights of the trip, sitting around chatting until the small hours and making Smores (toasted marshmallow cookie sandwiches with melted chocolate). Mmm, so good!


Athabasca Glacier, part of the Columbia Icefield. The icefield is unfathomably big and covers an area which (apparently) is big enough for every person in North America to stand on with a distance of a metre apart. I can't quite picture this - as that's over 300 million people, but that's what all the guidebooks boast. It certainly is big though, and this glacier is only a tiny, tiny, tiny part of it. These big ice-bus things allow you to drive out onto the glacier and get out to walk around at a clearing which has been levelled and is safe to stand on. All the large mounds of rubble are moraines, which are part of the process of glacier formation. (And not, as some people frequently ask, rock which has been piled up along the sides by machinery so you can get to the glacier!)



Out on the glacier - the blue sky appeared once we got off the ice bus and made the skyline even more breathtaking.

Ben, a fellow Melbournian, and me out on the glacier. If I look cold it's because I was. Very.

Well that's it for now. More pictures next time.