From there I headed south through the prairie areas toward Waterton Lakes National Park which is a sister park to Glacier NP in the US. It was pretty enough but the weather was cold and rainy so I mostly just drove. I stopped at a little campground about half way down. The rain stopped and it cleared up about an hour before sundown. It got cold that night. It never really dried out before it froze so I had a lot of ice on the camper in the morning. Where the heck did I put that ice scraper? Anyway, the frost was pretty and it warmed up fast.
There's a little frost on the ground here yet. This is pretty typical of what I saw of Southern Alberta. Prairies, cows and mountains with windmills as a bonus.
The Mountain Bluebirds are still around. That makes me think there might be a chance to find some other summer birds still hanging around.
Waterton Lakes is known for it's beautiful old hotel. It also has a lot of wildlife.
Some of the wildlife like Mule Deer and Bighorn Sheep can be found right in the Waterton Town site.
These guys were grazing on a helicopter landing pad.
They were very cooperative and I got some great shots.
Elk were there but not as cooperative.
Moose weren't near town but I found some at a nearby lake.
I think the Bull in this little group saw me from across the lake and it disappeared into the woods. This cow and calf kept walking around the edge of the lake and they eventually came very close to where I was.
Moose don't have very good eye sight but the calf eventually did see me. I think it didn't quite know what to do with me though.
I'm not sure the mother ever did see me. She never really did look right at me. But after a while her ears went back, the hair on her back went up, she rounded up her calf and walked quickly up a stream. I think she heard my camera or maybe she smelled me.
I got this shot on the way out of the park, on the way to Glacier.
On the way to glacier I crossed the US/Canada border for the last time this trip. I'll have to count up the number of times it crossed that boarder this year. I'm sure it's been more than a dozen. I'll miss a lot of things about Canada but it's defiantly cheaper in the US.
Like Waterton, Glacier has lots of beautiful mountains and lakes.
And streams and Waterfalls.
And the aspens are turning.
I took advantage of the never ending wind to get this blurred shot.
They also have a lot of wildlife. These little white dots are Mountain Goats.
Bears are a big attraction especially around the Many Glaciers area. A lot of people were stacking out this particular spot because a family of Grizzlies had a carcass they were feeding on. It got interesting when a family of Black Bears happened by. They got amazingly close to the Grizzlies before they saw eachother. In this shot the Black Bears in the foreground still haven't seen the Grizzlies.
Now mother black bear sees the Grizzlies. At that point she quickly rounded up her cubs and got out of there.
I spent most of my time on the east side of the park. It was cloudy and windy over there but when I drove over to the west side the skies cleared up some and the wind died down. The wind on the east side made it about impossible to get any reflection shots, but I could do that on the west side. Unfortunately there isn't as much scenery to reflect on the east side. I did get a couple shots though. in this one you can see the stones on the bottom through the lovely clear water.
I might have tried to go back to the east again, but the Going to The Sun Road was closed due to construction, so I would have had to drive all the way around the south end of the park. It's also a bummer because they tell me some of the best scenery in the park is in the closed area. I guess I'll have to go back there some time.
Heading south from there toward Glacier I saw a sign for Garnet Ghost Town. I decided to check it out. It was pretty interesting.
You can go into a lot of the buildings and see how they have them set up with items from that period.
A pretty young woman at the ghost town visitor center went out of her way to help me find this scenic campsite. Thank you Rachael! What she failed to tell me was that I would get snowed on there. That is snow on my hood.
It made for some interesting photos with the color and the snow.
On the way from there to Bozeman I came across this interesting place. It's a museum/gallery for the work of a very nice retired rancher. He has some amazing stuff there. You can see more of his stuff at http://www.ohrmannmuseum.com/ .
His wife came out of the house to show me the place. We started to talk about the birds in the area and she said said she had some interesting birds in the apple tree on the other side of the house and the night before they had a bear cub there eating apples. She said it spent the night in the Elm in front of the house and it hadn't come down yet. I said "You mean it's still up there?". It wasn't in a very photogenic possition but they let me snap a shot or two anyway. I had planned to include one of them here but I forgot to get it ready earlier and it's not a great shot anyway. If you want, I'll try to put in the next post. Just imagine a black blob in the crotch of a tree.
Anyway... I tok care of my weekend stuff in Bozeman and I'm now at the West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce building using their internet. I spent the night in the park and I did get a few photos, but I think I'll include them in the next post. Yellowstone looks interesting. I think I could spend quite a while here. Look for the photos in the next post. Take care till then.
Steve
