Kootenay National Park from PH93
July 7, 2007.
We are staying in the Tunnel
Mountain National Park Campground in Banff, Alberta. Tunnel
Mountain Campground offers full hookups, no hookups, and electricity
only. 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.
Just past the road cut area is this reddish color hill of earth that
I do not recognize. What is it doing here? Has it got something to
do with the thermal activity less than a mile away? I don't guess
I will ever know unless someone is kind enough to provide me with
some information. Any takers?
It probably has something to do with iron since it is very near,
if not part of, Iron Gates Canyon------ do you suppose this is part
of the "iron gate" and the red color has to do with iron
content?
Some of that snow is actually deep glaciers that will not melt over
the summer.
Scenes like this will take your breath away.
Now we are following the Kootenay
River to its headwaters high on the Continental Divide.
We are going to have to find a pass through those mountains that
form the backbone of the Canadian
Rocky Mountains.
In addition to the deep green of the conifer forest small white flowers
are lining the highway.
We keep getting higher and higher as we continue to follow the Kootenay
River. Note that we are getting much closer to the snow.
The white flowers are so thick along here that they appear to be
snow.
The valley is beginning to narrow and we are getting closer to the
mountain.
By this time I think we are starting to cross the mountain instead
of just following the valley.
Isn't this a magnificient view of the Canadian
Rockies from PH93
in Kootenay National
Park.
Those are avalanche chutes and we are getting closer to them.
Snow avalanches and rock slides cut swaths through green vegetation.
Many large rocks, some weighing several tons, roll and bounce all
the way to the bottom.
You can clearly see where avalanches and rock slides have created
these distinctive trails through the vegetation.
Remember that this is limestone and shales that have been thrusted
up when two of the earths plates collided.
