Bow Valley Parkway, Castle Mountain &
Bow River
July 8, 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.
Mother bear & cubs off Bow Valley Parkway
We are driving from Banff to Lake Louise today on the Bow
Valley Parkway. The fast way to get to Lake Louise is PH 1
but we aren't interested in speed, we are looking for scenery and
wildlife.
On our first stop on the parkway we stopped to watch a mother grizzly
bear with two cubs. An Oriental family was trying to get closer to
the bears. I kept thinking about what I was going to do if the mother
bear charged this family. I could blow my horn and possibly drive
my car in the bears direction but this Oriental family was walking
into the woods to get a better look. There was no way I could drive
my car into the woods. They had two children walking with them. I
have no idea what they were thinking.
The bear did not charge but she certainly could have.
The sow bear is the brown spot in the center while one of the cubs
is the small brown spot to the left of mother.
Mother bear & cubs off Bow Valley Parkway
We weren't real thrilled with this view but know better than to get
close to a mother bear with cubs. Joyce took these pictures from the
safety of our Saturn.
Bow River Valley north of Banff
This is the Bow River Valley north of Banff. Note the "glacial
flour" that makes the water seem milky. The color of the Bow
River is caused by very tiny particles of rock, ground up by glaciers
(rock flour). The river transports different amounts of this "rock
flour", in different seasons thus the color is ever-changing.
East of Calgary, the Bow River joins the Old Man River to form the
South Saskatchewan River the waters of which eventually end up in
Hudson Bay.
Bow River & Canadian Rockies
The Bow River
got its name from the native people who found wood for their bows
along the river's shores.
The Bow River begins as meltwater from the Bow Glacier, on the Continental
Divide. You can see Bow Glacier above Bow Lake along the Icefields
Parkway on the way to Jasper
National Park.
Bow Valley from Bow Valley Parkway Alberta, Canada
In this area the Bow Valley separates the Front and Main Ranges of
the Rocky Mountains.
The Front Range mountains, like Castle Mountain are generally made
up of softer rock and are several million years younger than the Main
Range mountains to the west.
Front Ranges can be identified by:
Sloping rock layers, tilted table-top slopes with jagged ridges,
lower elevation peaks and mostly grey colors.
Main Ranges can be identified by:
Horizontal rock layers, Blocky, castle-like shapes with bands of
cliffs, more browns and reddish colors, higher elevation peaks.
Castle Mountain Main Range of Rocky Mountains
Main Ranges were pushed eastward with rock layers remaining horizontal
like Castle
Mountain.
Each rock layer in the dozens of strata on this mountain (elev. 9,075')
reveals a different chapter in the geological history of the Canadian
Rockies. A recurring cycle of alternating mud and limestone deposits
is the geological theme of Castle Mountain.
Remember that Main Ranges can be identified by:
Horizontal rock layers, Blocky, castle-like shapes with bands of
cliffs, more browns and reddish colors, higher elevation peaks.
Castle Mountain Canadian Rockies
From that information it is easy to identify Castle Mountain as
belonging to the Main Range of the Rocky Mountains.
If that mountain range could tell a story they tell of tropical currents
and life on the bottom of the sea. They would tell of millions upon
millions of years of sediments settling on the bottom. Some would
describe their birth as sand or dirt grains washed into the warm ancient
sea that lay there while more and more grains washed on top of them.
They'd speak of sinking to the ocean floor and of being covered over
by more and more grains and by the crushed bodies and secretions of
countless sea animals.
They'd describe how the ever increasing weight pressed the sand grains
into sandstone, the mud into shale, and lime into limestone.
After all this they would how they were raised high into the heavens
to be reborn as the Rocky Mountains.
Castle Mountain Internment Camp
Castle Mountain Internment Camp Monument
So much history would be lost without roadside information kiosk
and memorials. The Castle Mountain Internment Camp is one of those
moments in history that would fade from memory without memorials such
as this. It seems that Canada wrestled with the internment camp issue
just like the United States did.
This memorial and the above kiosk mark the site of this internment
camp.
Until next time remember how good life is.
Mike & Joyce Hendrix
Mike & Joyce Hendrix
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