November 04, 2013

The Canadian Rockies where superlatives of grandeur become mute


Clearing storm, Peyto Lake, Banff National Park (© Daryl Hunter's "The Hole Picture"/Daryl L. Hunter)

Autumn along the Icefield Parkway in Banff National Park (© Daryl Hunter's "The Hole Picture/Daryl L. Hunter)The Canadian Rockies where superlatives of grandeur become mute in a landscape abounding with peaks competing to dominate the sky, psychedelic lakes that contend for the coolest colors of the light spectrum and rivers that appear to be a pleasing, yet reality defying mistakes in Photoshop.


Being one of the most photogenic landscapes on earth, we have all seen photos of its break away stars, iconic landscapes like Moraine Lake, Lake Louise, Peyto Lake, and Maligne Lake, but there is so much more. No matter which direction you go, it as if you had the Colorado’s San Juan Range on one side of the road, Idaho’s Sawtooth Range on the other and California’s  Sierra Nevada around the bend. All surging with prodigious streams and waterfalls spilling out of the glaciers like the Chugach Range of Alaska. Of course, all the water feeds the panoply of the colorful lakes that make the place famous.
Moraine Lake , Banff National Park (© Daryl Hunter's "The Hole Picture"/Daryl L. Hunter)

 
I have had the pleasure of visiting Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, Yoho National Park, and Waterton National Park, and they have wet my appetite to see more. Kootenay National and British Columbia’s Glacier National Park I’m sure are as good as the rest, hosting their own endless procession of pyramid-shaped peaks hemming in broad alpine valleys and glacier feed lakes
I have written how, where I live, close to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone has an embarrassment of riches, but I’m afraid the Canadian Rockies has hoarded more that its share of wilderness splendor relegating northwest Wyoming a notch or two down on the “embarrassment of riches scale, and I wish the Canadian Rockies weren’t so far away.


My Canadian Rockies Gallery - click through to purchase print or license photo



Canadian Rockies - Images by Daryl Hunter

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