Favorite Travel Quotes

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts."
-- Mark Twain
Innocents Abroad

"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey." -- Fitzhugh Mullan

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." -- Lao Tzu

Recent Icefield Adventure Evokes Nostalgia–Generates Memories of Icefield Adventure-travel Tour

©Bert Gildart: My past few entries have concerned the glaciers of Jasper and Banff National Parks, and for that reason I’m posting a short photo essay on a winter outing two friends and I made about 20 years ago in this same area. I consider this trip to be one of the great adventures still to be found in the Rockies. Here, we explored the “back country” by starting in the “front country” that Janie and I visited this past week in our Airstream. Both modes of travel have their attractions.

Week-long ski trip began on Bow Lake

Week-long ski trip began on Bow Lake

For over a week in late March, David Bristol, Dick Silberman and I skied through a particularly ice-strewn section of Alberta’s Banff National Park. Most of the time we stayed in huts, and that was the plan for our first night out, though it didn’t work out.

On that day, we started skiing across Bow Lake fully intending to stay in Bow Hut. But as we started across an open section of Bow Mountain, we kicked off an avalanche, and decided that we should not tempt fate any further.

STRANDED OVERNIGHT

We were carrying with us an alpine tent as well as a light-weight shovel. Leveling out a snow platform we erected the tent, cooked supper and then crawled into our sleeping bags. As I remember, the night was a particularly long one.

Stranded by an avalanche

Stranded by an avalanche

The next day we ascended the flanks of Bow Mountain, found our unheated hut that had grown in our anticipation to the point it seemed like a castle. Subsequently, we skied for another five days staying at Balfour Hut and finally at the Peter and Catherine Whyte Hut. During the trip we skied down narrow cols and eventually trod across the toe of the Vulture Glacier.

FILM VERSUS DIGITAL

As a photographer, what I remember most vividly was our wonderful weather. I carried a Nikon F2 mechanical camera and still have it. I use it in extreme conditions and believe it is ideal for sub-zero temperatures. Obviously, I used film and though I’m now pretty much of a digital person I still carry a film camera and film. In certain situations, such as for night photography and long time exposures, film still seems to work best. Batteries don’t hold up for more than a few hours in digital cameras, and long exposures also produce “noise.”

Glory of the mountains

Glory of the mountains

The ski trip was one of my best adventure travel experiences, and now I have to wonder why I haven’t made repeat trips? After hiking across several ice fields these past few weeks–in the same general area–such thoughts are much on my mind.

TWO YEARS AGO WE WERE TRACING THE TRAGIC DEPORTATION OF THE ACADIANS:

*Tragic Deportation



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