Sunday bird blogging

Families of Canada geese at the lodge in Jasper National Park. These goslings are almost grown, but still sticking close to Mom and Dad.

There were dozens of geese around the lake in the evenings, and though our expedition leader -- a Canadian -- claimed that there are different types of Canada geese and these weren't obnoxious at all, I got hissed at many times when I attempted to walk anywhere they felt was their territory.

We'd heard stories about elks wandering into people's gardens in Jasper -- and though they look like docile creatures, a Mama elk with a baby can be very dangerous -- and that it always fell to the most junior members of the Park Service team to carry the baby elks away because they inevitably emptied their bowels all over their rescuers. So we joked that it was probably the new hires at the lodge who got stuck picking up the goose poop every morning, and sure enough, some of the group met one of these lucky folks while taking a walk before breakfast the next day, and he confirmed that yes, he was new, and by the way they probably didn't want to walk on that lawn yet.

One more bear

This bear was hanging out by the side of the road in Jasper. The pictures aren't very sharp, but I can't resist that face.

Saturday reflections

The reflections here at Lake Beauvert are just a bit of the sky and a tree, but it makes a lovely contrast with the lake bed.

More Sunwapta Falls

Sunwapta Falls

These beautiful falls in Jasper are fed by waters from the Athabasca Glacier.

The advantage of these splendid landscapes is that I don't have to say very much about them, as I'm still feeling pretty inarticulate. I am finally, on Day 5, starting to feel like I am actually going to recover from my surgery. I expected soreness, even what the doctors so blithely refer to as “discomfort”, but did not expect grinding pain in every tooth in my mouth and a non-stop splitting headache that a truckload of Advil couldn't vanquish. But the pain has finally subsided into something that falls within my personal definition of discomfort and my face is noticeably less swollen, though I still have a turkey wattle hanging from my chin that gives me an unfortunate resemblance to Mitch McConnell. And while there may be some humans on this planet who would not be dismayed by seeing his image in the bathroom mirror, I am definitely not one of them.

More Moraine Lake

Moraine Lake

This beautiful lake in Banff National Park had stereotypical mountain weather -- sun, then rain, then fog, then cloudy, then sun again -- all in the space of a half hour walk along the shore.

Views at the glacier

Athabasca Glacier

Our tour group had a hike from the bottom of the glacier, but I wasn't feeling great that day and opted to take a coach up to the top of the glacier instead. This was its own adventure, going up steep grades and down even steeper ones, and then directly on to the ice.

Columbia Icefield

This is the largest icefield in the Rockies, more than 125 square miles. It straddles the Continental Divide and both Banff and Jasper National Parks, but because of the mountains surrounding it, it's not really visible except from an airplane.

What you can see are its “toes,” the glaciers that spill out between the mountains. The glaciers here are seen from the Icefields Interpretive Centre, across the highway from the most visited of the toes, the Athabasca Glacier.

More pine beetle damage

An otherwise idyllic picture from Pyramid Lake in Jasper.

Postcard shot

I'll probably resume Rockies blogging tomorrow when I'm less grumpy, but here's a lovely mountain, seen from the Icefields Parkway, in the meantime.

Those reddish trees in the foreground add a nice color contrast, but unfortunately they're brown because they're dead. Even in the Canadian Rockies, winters are no longer cold enough to keep the pine beetles in check.