Banff National Park — Kirk Kittell

Tag: Banff National Park

Day Trip to Banff National Park

[Photos from the trip to Banff posted to Flickr: Banff National Park, 29 August 2008.]

First of all, despite any indications below that might seem like I had an entirely cruddy time in Alberta over the weekend, let me before I dive in say that it was an excellent weekend. This past weekend was the first time I had seen Megha since May, thereby giving this weekend a grade of “excellent” in spite of the weather’s attempts to dampen everything.

Disclaimer done, let me whine that I waited three years to get to Banff National Park and now that I finally got the chance, it rained nearly the entire time that I was there. Bloody weather…

The first time I thought about going to Banff was on my return trip from Mojave to Illinois in spring 2005. My ultimate road trip home, i.e., what didn’t happen, was a 30-day trip from Mojave via Portland, Missoula, and Bismarck, with one leg of the trip through some of the Canadian Rockies national parks: Banff; Jasper; Mount Revelstoke, Yoho; Kootenay; Glacier — especially Banff and Jasper. In the end I scaled it back to a 19-day trip, minus the Canadian portion.

Well, you can’t choose the weather. It was 10C and rainy most of the time that Megha and I were in Banff. She was tough, not at all complaining about our fortunes, but the following photo captures the essence of the trip: soggy and huddled for warmth. She’s almost smiling here. +10 for her. If I were her, I might have tossed me in the lake.

It was still excellent to see Megha and good to be in the mountains. Sure, the mountains were often hidden behind the clouds — and if you want to get really deep, Megha is Sanskrit for cloud — but now I’m back in Houston and have neither mountains nor Megha. So it goes. Here are my photos from the trip. They’re not my best — often hurried due to the rain — but they’re nice memories, nonetheless.

This photo of Lake Minnewonka is my favorite photo from the set. It’s mysterious, feels like a gateway to a someplace hidden and guarded further.