Icefields Parkway and Jasper
June 18-19, 2015
June 18 - The cold and rainy weather in the Canadian Rockies is continuing. Not knowing when it would stop, we decided to continue on our way, anyway.  We headed north on the Icefields Parkway, which runs from Lake Louise to Jasper.








Some of the more dramatic mountain scenery along the Icefields Parkway.








Bridal Veil Falls -in Banff National Park, not in Yosemite.








More mountain scenery along the parkway.







Athabasca Glacier looks a little smaller each time we come here.  It is shrinking due to global warming like almost all glaciers.











Sunwapta Falls in Jasper National Park. The weather is clearing and starting to look more promising.









Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park. An interesting puzzle concerning these falls is that below the falls, there are 14 species of native fish. Above the falls, there is only one species - bull trout. The falls are too strong and too high for the fish to jump them, so how did the bull trout get there? No one knows.










Another view of Athabasca Falls. The island in the river looks like it is about to be swept over the falls, but of course, it is quite stationary.








Arriving in the town of Jasper, we camped at Whistler Campground, which turned out to have a lot of elk also using the campground. According to Parks Canada, the cow elk in the area like to use the campground during the calving season because it gets them away from wolves, bears, and mountain lions; they tend to avoid places where people are.

That evening Nancy and I walked down a gravel path to the shower house to take showers. Along the way we saw 14 adult cow elk and 6 babies. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. On the way back to the RV we encountered a cow elk on the same path, who did not want us to proceed any further down that path. Apparently, her baby was hidden somewhere in the woods nearby, and the mother saw us as a threat to her baby. Realizing that we couldn't go any farther forward, we starting backing up to get away from the cow, but she kept following us and got rather close. Finally we got far enough away that she decided we were no longer a threat.  We made a wide detour around that area to get back to our RV.

June 19 - the cold and rainy weather is continuing.  But the elk are all gone.








Medicine Lake is a disappearing lake. Yes, in October all this water will disappear until next Spring. Is this magic? No. Underneath the lake are underground channels that are sufficient to carry the water when the waterflow is low, as in the fall and winter. But in spring and summer, the waterflow is much higher and the underground channels are not sufficient to carry the water, causing the lake to fill up.








A mother black bear and her two cubs.









Some tourists let themselves get way too close to bears! The mother bear wanted to cross a deep ravine, so she used the bridge where the tourists were standing. She walked along the ledge on the outside of the railing, putting her less than 10 feet from some of the people. But one of the cubs ducked under the railing, putting it on the same side as the people. However, the mother bear was unconcerned and kept going, and the people made room for the cub to get through. If the cub had sounded a distress alarm, the mother could have become very aggressive.  Fortunately, that didn't occur. In case you are wondering, I was a reasonable distance away and used my telephoto to get this picture.