The mountains, lakes & flowers

It takes a Hemingway to paint in words the unbelievable beauty that is the Canadian Rockies.  I will do my best but to truly appreciate this place in Alberta, Canada, you need to see it for yourself.  At every turn there is a new and exciting vista, too lovely for words.  Only your eyes can open up the pallet of colors that make up the crags, crevices, ice and snow, water and vapors that are the  Rockies.  Maybe, just maybe, you can find some of this reflected in my photographs.

On this post many photos will be presented in slide shows. Just click on a photo in the gallery and a slide show will start. Some photos were in prior posts. Some may be of the same view but under different light conditions. I hope you enjoy them. And now, the first gallery.

The mountains, dotted with snow, are all shades of grey and green with an occasional golden dapple of sunlight.  

In many places we can see the remnants of avalanches; long swaths of gravely looking areas where snow, at tremendous speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, came cascading down the mountain side obliterating everything in its path, raining down rocks, trees, shrubs and anything that was unfortunate enough to be in the way.

The Rockies rise thousands of feet and stand fierce and uncompromising.  Frequently the mountains wear crowns of white, billowy clouds and at other times the crowns are of a foreboding and angry grey.  The clouds ride the winds and can be gone in a heart beat.

Growing in abundance from the base of the mountains up to the tree line are tall straight, dark green, pines peeking in and out of the shadows seeking the sun.  The growing season is abbreviated and the plants take advantage of what sun and warmth arrives in spring.  Around us is vegetation of all sorts.  

Footpaths, carved into the ground by years of usage, wind their ways through the forests.  

And, we know that the forests are alive with wildlife; bears, elk, squirrels, marmots, and birds.  Some places are home to eagles and their offspring.

Delicate wild flowers of red, orange, yellow and white, and in shades of purple and lavender, bloom along the paths and in the forests where the sunlight can reach the ground.  Fields of dandelions attract bears and provide them with banquets in preparation for the upcoming winter season.  Berries growing in the valleys are delicacies to the bears and other wildlife.

Lakes, in shades of turquoise and blue, exist at the base of the mountains.  Fed by glaciers, they are often hundreds of feet deep.  

Waterfalls, small and large, some starting high up, come cascading down into the rivers and lakes (the following is a video for your enjoyment).

Rivers, often white as milk, snake through the forests and alongside the mountains as they flow to the oceans hundreds of mile away.  

Sunlight glistens off surfaces as ribbons of water serpentine past.  

Soon the lakes and rivers will be frozen over and the glaciers, which have steadily been losing their accumulated ice, some of which is thousands of years old, will start to revitalize as the snows begin to fall.  The growing season ends in September and the harsh reality of winter is reborn.