Part Seven

Banff and surrounding area

We set off reasonably early the next morning to have a leisurely drive to Banff.  The photo below showing the Main Street.

After lunch in Banff, we had a walk following the Bow river down toward the Fairmont Hotel and beyond.

The View down river just below Bow Falls.

The View up-river from The Banff Avenue Bridge.

We left Banff and headed towards Canmore, to drive the Smith Dories Spray Trail. We had a brief walk in the hills before returning to Banff

The view just before the top of the climb up on the Spray Trail

Setting off down a Mountain trail (complete with beware of wolves signs)

Male and female Spruce Grouse encountered on the way

 and an American Three-toed Woodpecker which stayed put even though I was obviously creeping nearer minute by minute.

After our walk, we had a leisurely drive back to Banff to find our campsite. We never saw sign of any Moose, Elk or Caribou, even though we looked for quite a while. We hadn't seen anything remotely interesting from a wildlife point of view throughout our travels, apart from the occasional fleeting view of a distant black bear whilst driving or a few deer in the distance, usually too far to even be sure of what they were.

Anyway, as we approached the campsite entrance At the Tunnel Mountain Campground, guess what was in the woods at the side of the road?..... yeah, you guessed it..... a herd of Elk!..... yep, ...... right opposite the campsite.

There was a big Bull with about 30 cows and a few calves in the herd and we often heard the Bull calling out. I managed the above photograph before he saw me and responded as below!

Cheeky Bugger!

A couple of times another bull came close to have a look at the herd, but the big Bull Elk chased them off, without coming to blows. We sat and photographed the herd for a good hour and a half and eventually we decided that we would have to go and register and find our pitch on the campsite.

We registered and then headed off to our pitch. We found it and yes, it was right by the road, maybe 50 yards away right where the Elk were! 

We set up and sat down to have a drink and within minutes, part of the herd came over and wandered right by the side of our camper, maybe 10 yards away. The Bull Elk didn't like them straying too close to the camper and he came over to keep an eye on things but from a distance of about 40 yards. Close enough to intervene should any interloper, either human or elk,  try anything on.  

I went out to get a little bit closer and hopefully, get a better shot of him.

but within minutes he also started to come closer, so I made a strategic withdrawal just as one of the park rangers arrived in a pick-up and got out of the cab armed with a rifle that shot compressed air pellets that exploded on impact.   He advised us to get back in the camper and placed himself between the Bull Elk and the camper, firing off a few shots at the feet of the Bull Elk which didn't have that much effect until he eventually aimed at the haunch of the beast and the resulting "explosion" of air had the desired effect and they withdrew back towards the road and the ranger left us a few minutes later.

So, we didn't see any "up-close" large deer at all until they tried to invite themselves in for a drink!  We did get some good images though. 

We were up early the next Morning, and we beat most people up onto the mountain trail around Lake Minnewanka.....

Great views and the wildlife was already up and looking!

We walked for most of the morning, never getting too high up but the going was tough in places.

After a while there were more people around, running and paddling....as we crossed the Stewart Gorge and headed into the foothills of Mt Astley.

More people turned up this time peddling mountain bikes up ridiculously steep paths, presumably for the pleasure of going down them again!

Although there were lots of notices regarding Bear awareness, we never saw or heard one. The views more than made up for it though!

After returning to Banff, we decided to follow up on a lead for seeing a different herd of Elk and headed off towards the Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course.

A chap told us that he had seen the herd in the rough surrounding the fairways..... but when we arrived, they were on the Fairways and the Greens!

Not only were they on the fairways, but the bull decided to take the velvet off his antlers by dragging them through the grass....ooops! bet the groundsmen weren't happy!

The bull then headed off to the green.....

Heading back to the nineteenth for a quick one with the lads! and we headed back to the site to freshen up before going out on the town for a meal.

We couldn't be too late to bed as, in the morning, we had a mega drive back to Vancouver (nearly 900 Kilometers) in order to return the camper. We were staying just outside Vancouver so we only had a twenty mile drive to return the van the following day.

Our next and last stop would be Whistler!