Tag Archives: Rocky Mountains

Water, Snow, and Ice

Posted on June 2, 2012 by ivonprefontaine

insignificant

countless gathering form one

majestic power

This is a winter picture of La Chute (waterfall in English) Montmorency just outside Quebec City. At the base of the falls, around the open water, fly fishermen will be out during the summer. What you see a the top is a walkway across the falls and there is a tram just to the right of this picture. The St. Lawrence River is only a few hundred metres from the base of the falls.

Here is a second picture of the falls. When Kathy and I were determined to see these falls. The pictures do not do them justice, but, as you can tell even in winter, they are spectacular. While driving across Le Pont Pierre-Laporte my fear of heights kicked in when I realized how far above the St. Lawrence we were. I needed to be in the right lane, but there was no way I was getting that close to the edge and it took creative driving on the far side of the bridge to get to the falls.

This is Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park. You can see the Athabasca River in the background. Even in the park, it is a wide river at this point and it narrows quickly to shoot through the gorge. Kathy took this picture from the small wooden bridge that goes over the falls. You can just see the railing in the foreground. When you cross the bridge, you can walk up-stream along the river for several kilometres.

This is a slightly different view of the falls. The force of the water passing through the gorge has created a new stream bed. The water cut through solid granite. Below, you see one of the many mountains along Highway 93 between Jasper and Banff.

This is a view of one of the many mountains along Highway 93 between Banff and Jasper and is not far from Athabasca Falls.

This is the Columbia Icefield looking back towards the source of the glacier and mountains. This is at the headwaters of the Athabasca River.

This is the Columbia River in Oregon. Although it is a spectacular view, I wonder what price we pay for progress:? Under that water, lies a spectacular river with rapids and waterfalls. Also hidden from view is a way of life of people who settled along this magnificent river. What a loss!

This was a small waterfall along the Continental Divide in Yellowstone.

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Posted in Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry and tagged athabasca falls, athabasca river, fly fishermen, haiku, Jasper National Park, nature, Rocky Mountains, travel, waterfalls. Bookmark the permalink.

Primarily Montana

Posted on May 26, 2012 by ivonprefontaine

These pictures were from a trip through parts of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.

This is a small church along Highway 89. It seats about 10 or 12 people and it must get very warm inside on a hot summer day. My mother always reminds us the heat we feel here is a small sample of what we might get in the after life.

Here I am at the University of Portland at the convocation ceremony when I received my Master of Education degree. The cohort group I was part of and the unique delivery of this program by the University of Portland made this one of those events that I look back and treasure.

The white speck up the mountain side is the statue of Our Lady of the Rockies as you drive into Butte. It sits on the Continental Divide at more than 8000 ft. above sea level and it is about 90 feet tall. It looks the mountains and valleys traveled by First Nations’ people and explorers such as Lewis and Clark.

Kathy and I are avid golfers. This is a view from a Jack Nicklaus designed course in Anaconda MT called Old Works. The course was built on the site of an old copper mine and the black pile in the foreground is a slag heap from the mine. In the design of the course, the slag was used to fill bunkers instead of sand and several tee boxes were built on top of some of the piles. In the background, you can see the stack from the mine. The greens are unforgiving and difficult to read. I hit most of my fairways and reached the greens in regulation or one more shot yet struggled to break 95 in the rounds I played. Most of the greens I putted 3 or 4.

Here I am at one of the Lewis and Clark interpretive centres in Great Falls MT. We spend a fair amount of time in museums during our travels. I was auditioning for role, but apparently, the people were a bit smaller than I am.

This is a view of the dam at Great Falls MT from the Lewis and Clark interpretive centre.

This was a small creek we stopped beside as we made our first crossing of the Continental Divide.

Please enjoy.

Yellowstone 2005

Posted on May 19, 2012 by ivonprefontaine

We love to travel and these are from our trip to Yellowstone National Park in 2005.

I was able to get within 15-20 feet of this bull elk. There were several trees between him and I plus I believed I was faster than at least one other person down there with me.

This is Emerald Spring. The emerald colour is a product of the reflected blue colour from the pool and the yellow sulfur. Although it does not seem very deep, this spring is 27 feet deep.

This is Steamboat Geyser. When it erupts, it is capable of producing a column of 300-400 feet in height which is 2-3 times higher than that of Old Faithful. The difference and a reason Old Faithful is better known is it is predictable in its eruptions because Steamboat Geyser is not and its major eruptions occur four days to 50 years apart.

This is the Pearl Geyser area. I love mountains and it was that aspect of this picture which drew me. We lived in McBride, a small town in British Columbia, for two years and were surrounded by the mountains. We drive through McBride several times a year.

This is in the Cistern Spring area. Living algae and bacteria create the ‘living colours.’

Twig Geyser erupted for us.

This is a view across Yellowstone Lake to the mountains.

We do not get many swans in the Edmonton area. I enjoyed the single one on the river. There were other pictures, but this one had a stillness I found appealing.

Kathy took this picture. My morbid fear of heights forced me to hang out in the parking lot. She walked in to the overlook and this was the result.

Yes, I am pretty sure Kathy took this one, as well.

I started with the elk and will finish with a bison. He was seriously considering what I was doing. I took this one from about 10 feet away with the front of the van between him and me. He grunted at me a couple of times, but kept moving when I grunted back.

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Posted in Nature in All Its Glory, Photography and tagged buffalo, cistern spring, elk, geysers, nature, pearl geyser, Rocky Mountains, steamboat geyser, travel, Yellowstone National Park. Bookmark the permalink.

Posted on May 9, 2012 by ivonprefontaine

This is an amazing set of pictures. Even though this would be impossible for me to attempt, this blog brings it into my life. Thank you guys.

An Extraordinary World

Posted on April 6, 2012 by ivonprefontaine

I am reading a book called The Radical Christian Life by Joan Chittister. A line that stood out was “spend our time well, to contemplate the divine in the human, to treat everything in the world as sacred. We need the wisdom of stewardship.” I recalled the Buddhist concept of the extraordinary explained by Thich Nhat Hanh. A story he recounted was about an oak tree at Plum Village. Attendees stop and literally become tree huggers as they hug that tree and admire its splendour. With small actions, humans move from seeing themselves as part of the world not separate and superior to the world we share with all of Creation. There are things and times I take for granted.

We regularly drive the Yellowhead Highway between Prince George and Edmonton. Recently, I realized it is extraordinary. Each trip we pass Mount Robson. Sometimes it is shrouded in clouds. Other times, it looks like this. It is always spectacular.

We observe wildlife: bear, elk, deer, goats, bald eagle etc. Last summer, I took a picture of two black bear feeding along the side of the road. They seemed quite unaware of my presence.

We took a picture of an Inukshuk in Jasper National Park. An Inukshuk is an Inuit symbol reminding us others were there before or that we are on the right path. It is an excellent reminder of the need to stop, reflect on the world, and take stock of our role in the world. It is an extraordinary place.

I was reminded of the extraordinary nature of the world as I read Malou’s blog entry. She wrote about tulips in Holland. Tulips might seem ordinary to people who see them everyday just like driving through the Rocky Mountains has been to me. When I mindfully, attentively observe the world and become aware of it, its breathtaking beauty is readily revealed.