Rockpile

This morning started with a sunrise trip to Moraine Lake, one of the most famous sights in all of Canada. Moraine Lake is closed to personal vehicles and it is too far to hike in, so a tour or shuttle bus is mandatory. Since we're at the summer solstice, sunrise today was at 5:29 am, and our bus left at 4:00 am. This meant an alarm at 3:00 am. No kidding.

Moraine Lake started as a glacial river, but a rockslide dammed the river to create the lake. Our shuttle driver suggested that we climb onto the Rockpile for the best view of the lake. They built stairs out of the rock so it was fairly easy to climb the Rockpile, even in the pre-dawn light. As promised, the view was breathtaking, even with overcast skies. No wonder why a picture of Moraine Lake was on the Canadian $20 bill for many years. Everyone was taking photos, and many people had fancy camera gear. The young woman standing next to Greg talked his ear off about photography, showing off her Nikon digital camera with a vintage Nikon lens and her medium format camera, which reminded Greg of when his mother was a professional photographer. Greg took dozens of photos and was very glad that we bought the replacement camera lens in Calgary.

Unfortunately, our return bus did not leave until 7:00 am, so we spent 2.5 hours outside in the cold. For Greg, the morning was totally worth it, but Amy probably would have preferred to sleep and wake to a hot cup of coffee. Afterwards, we did some errands (groceries, fuel, laundry), then parked the RV behind the grocery store and took a nap. Yes, even Greg took a nap.

In the afternoon, we hiked the Stewart Canyon trail, starting from Lake Minnewanka. About halfway into the hike, we reached a fork in the trail with signs that one path was closed due to bear activity! The hike wasn't particularly interesting, so we hiked back to the RV, then took the 30 minute drive back to the campground. A few minutes before reaching the campground, we saw cars stopped along the road. We slowed and saw a black bear in the woods. Grizzly bears get most of the attention in Banff, but we were happy to see a black bear.

Bear Count

Today: 1 black bear
Total: 2 bears