PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff
Mt Rundle & traveling PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff
July 7, 2007.
We are staying in the Tunnel Mountain National Park Campground in
Banff, Alberta. Tunnel Mountain Campground offers no hookups, electricity
only and full hookups. We are in one of the $29.70 electricity only
sites. I do not know what FHU or no hookups cost but they are all
in the same area. All sites are paved.
View traveling PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff
We are driving PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff and starting
this travelogue just west of the Continental Divide but looking east
into Alberta.
Snow avalanches and rock slides cut a path through trees and other
vegetation as they both make their way to the bottom. You can clearly
see where rock slides and avalanches have made paths down this mountain.
Traveling PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff
Even without this sign it is fairly easy to see the avalanche area.
View traveling PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff
This sheer limestone/shale cliff was carved by ancient glaciers.
Rivers carve V shaped valleys while glaciers carve U shaped valleys.
Take note that the sedimentary levels are level. That is normal in
the Main Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Front Range will feature
highly tilted sedimentary levels.
View traveling PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff
In this section there appears to be only a small amount of tilting.
Here the sedimentary rocks appear to be laying almost flat.
Crossing the Continental Divide on PH 93 between Radium Hot Springs
& Banff
We are crossing over the Continental
Divide and entering Alberta.
Again these sedimentary rocks are laying almost flat.
Traveling PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff
We can't pay exclusive attention to the scenery, this road demands
a little attention also.
Mt. Rundle north of Banff, Alberta
We stopped just north of Banff to get a picture of this huge tilted
landscape. At one time that mountain was on the bottom of a sea floor.
Then over hundreds of millions of years two plates within the earth
collided, with one plate rising over the other. This is where one
of the colliding plates was forced over the other plate until is was
almost vertical.
This is what is know as the front range of the Rockies, the particular
formation is Mt.
Rundle. Front Ranges like this were deformed as older rock
layers rode up over younger ones like roof shingles slanting crazily
up to the east.
The rock layer at the bottom of this formation bear fossil evidence
of having had their beginnings in the bottom of an ancient sea between
365 and 320 million years ago. Some of the rocks on the top are only
150 million years old.
Beginning about 175 million years ago and continuing for 130 million
years, North America drifted westward, colliding with chains of islands
moving toward it from the Pacific. The collision caused the horizontal
rock layers to slowly crumple into huge, accordion-like folds, and
fracture into great slabs that stacked upward and eastward like shingles
on a roof. By 60 million years ago the ancient seabed had been thrust
into high mountains. This explains why you might find fossils of ancient
sea creatures on the top of Mount Rundle!
Before all this took place sediments from the mainland and the remains
of sea creatures and corals accumulated in massive layers on the seabed
and hardened into rock.
Mt Rundle on the Front Range of the Rockies north
of Banff Alberta
From the other side you can clearly see the layers of sediment comprising
Mt. Rundle.
Layers upon layers of limestone and shale make up the entire mountain.
Can you imagine the earth quakes that must have shook this region
for 130 million years as tremendous forces caused the earth to crack
and move skyward like this.
View from pullout north of Banff
This is our motorhome and Saturn in a pull out just north of Banff.
Clarks nut cracker
This is the Clarks Nut Cracker a blue jay sized bird that is named
for William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame. Clark described this bird
in one of his journals from the famous journey.
Traveling PH 93 from Radium Hot Springs to Banff across the continental
divide and past Mt Rundle is one of those bucket list items that everyone
should experience.
Until next time remember how good life is.
Mike & Joyce Hendrix
Mike
& Joyce Hendrix who we are
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