On the road again!

 May 9 - Lake Louise, Alberta

 

Today we moved from Banff to Lake Louise with some sightseeing stops along the way.  The driver / guides have so much information to share that it is hard to keep up.  I’ll write about some of this in no particular order.

 

Parks Canada has a lot of ongoing projects to protect the animals and the environment.  One of the interesting things they have done is build Overpasses for the wildlife to cross the highways; these overpasses cost millions of dollars to construct.  They are like traffic overpasses except that they have planted trees and other plants so that they are a continuation of the habitat on with side of the highway.

 

They have  also built hundreds of kms of wire fencing to keep the animals off the highways.  The top wire is a bit flexible and has a low voltage charge to keep the wildlife off the highways.  This has been successful in reducing highway accidents involving animals by over 90%!  In fact, due to its success, other countries have adopted this method

 

Managing the forests is another ongoing job of Parks Canada. In recent years they have used Prescribed burns to renew the forest and as a method to try and eradicate the destructive pine beetle.  It takes several days of -40° temp or extreme heat to kill them, and they have not had that in Banff National Park in recent years, so these fires are being used.

 

Radio collars are also used to track animals and monitor their behaviour.  For example, if a wolf gets too close to a town or campground they can put a collar on it and determine if it is not well.  If it doesn’t come back, they would treat it as an isolated occurrence, but if it kept returning they might try to find out why.

Again today we saw beautiful scenery where the guide made photoshops along our route.  

route.  One of those stops was Emerald Lake.

 

You can see that there is still a fair bit of snow around!

 

We travelled to  Yoho National Park which is about 15 km inside the Alberta / BC border.

We stopped at Natural bridge , a natural rock formation that spans the flow of the Kicking Horse River.  

 

And today we finally saw the elusive elk! A small herd were just grazing as we were pulling off the road!  

 

We arrived at our hotel, Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise  in the early afternoon.  When we got to our room, this was the scene from our window! Yep!  Snow!

 

We are having an early night, excited about our day at the Columbia Icefields tomorrow!

 

Stay tuned!

The Travellers!