A Winter Portrait of a National Park

[Art]

Here’s a taste of a photo essay that I put together from recent visit to Banff National Park. The park can be just as enticing and stunning during the winter months as it is during the rest of the year.

Our route to BNP usually involves a northern bypass of the City of Calgary via Carstairs, Cremona and Cochrane. By using this shortcut, we’re able to cut down on our driving time to Banff.


Where prairie meets mountains. The snowy hay bales echo the peaks of the mountains in the distance.


Approaching the outskirts of Canmore, the rugged snow capped crests seem quite a change from the flatlands that we left behind just over two hours ago. By now, the car is covered in grime from road slush and will stay that way for the remainder of the trip as you’ll soon see.


View point from the base of the Sulphur Mountain Gondola



The scenic drive along Lake Minnewanka


Cascade Mountain can be seen jutting out from behind in the photo.


Along the frozen shoreline of Lake Minnewanka


You just never know who or what you’ll run across on some of the backroads. We encountered several herds of these big horn sheep as they lazily plodded along licking the salt from the road.


Apparently, these creatures preferred using the XC as a salt lick. We hastened our departure once the alpha male came into view. You can see him just entering at the right of the photo.


Cascade Mountain front and center


A snowy section of road leading to/from Johnston Canyon.


Frozen in time. The Fairmont Springs Hotel seen perched above the frozen banks of the Bow River.


A shot of the meandering Bow River on a sunny but cold, wintery day.


Snow blowing off of the peak of Mount Rundle.


Well that about ends this chapter of my road journal to BNP. I hope to take you on more visual tours to some of Alberta’s lesser known heritage parks in future threads. Stay tuned.