Happy New Year’s Eve.
 
I promised a friend I’d get this summer’s trip write-up finished by the end of the year… This fall proved to be exceptionally busy and life certainly hasn’t slowed down in the last few weeks. As such, I sit here in very cold Boston, Massachusetts (it's -12°F with windchill) watching Rockin’ New Years Eve on ABC and writing the finale blog post to a summer of adventure… so here we go, the storyline of the last 530 miles of the journey.
 
I slept soundly in Puxatawney, waking with the sun and quickly packing away the gear inside the Jeep. I snapped a quick photo of the “campsite” and was on my way again, navigating the sleepy back roads before eventually arriving back on I-80 eastbound. My dreams of cruising along through Pennsylvania were quickly shattered as traffic backed up for miles due to seemingly endless construction. Knowing that my days were numbered as a roadway traveler, I rolled the windows down and turned up the music, enjoying the rolling green hills around me as I worked my way towards Poughkeepsie, NY. My plan was to complete the 300 mile route to visit my aunts and grandparents, spend the night, then head on back to home in Boston. 

Shortly after 10h00 the traffic cleared up, and within an hour I saw my first Massachusetts license plate. With cruise control set to 70 I passed by corn fields and under party cloudy skies, eventually turning onto I-84 around Scranton, PA and seeing the “Welcome to New York” sign shortly thereafter. I pulled into Poughkeepsie in the mid-afternoon and spent an enjoyable afternoon relaxing with family and showing them the photos of the trip I’d so far had the ability to catalogue and touch up. We ate an early dinner at one of my grandparents most frequented local restaurants, and I fell asleep not long after the sun went down.

​The next morning came quickly, and I stared out the window at an overcast world while a gentle rain fell on the Hudson Valley. I ate a quick breakfast and talked about plans for future exploration endeavors with my grandfather – a man who always saves New York Times obituaries of great adventurers for me to read. Somewhat anxious to get home, I loaded what little gear I had brought inside and hugged my grandparents before hitting the road around 11. As I headed towards the Taconic State Parkway the rain steadily increased in volume, eventually becoming a downpour by the time I got to I-90. The three and a half hour drive went by without a hitch, and crossing back under the Boston skyline put a huge smile on my face and a sense of sadness in my heart. Crossing over the Zakim and Tobin bridges and getting off the highway, I pulled into my driveway and sat in the driver’s seat for a while without moving, a light rain still falling on the Jeep's roof.
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It had been 24 days since leaving this same place, and our Trans-Canada Overland Expedition, as I've come to call it, had covered 6,793.3 miles across 5 Canadian provinces and 11 U.S. states. We averaged 23 miles per gallon over the distance, consuming just under 300 gallons of gasoline, 176 of which were purchased as Canadian liters. We carried a reasonably sized and exceptionally reliable array of vehicular gear, mechanical equipment, radio/comms/navigation systems, camping gear, and photography equipment, the majority of which was used almost daily. With the sole exception of what was now a sizable crack in my windshield from the dump truck in North Dakota, we had traveled nearly 7,000 miles without an accident or police interaction of any kind. We saw two of the most beautiful national parks I’ve ever laid my eyes on, stood and camped under vast starry skies, and soaked up some of the most indescribably brilliant colors beaming up from lakes so spectacular I’ll never be able to adequately describe them to you. The trip was a complete success, and one that will forever serve as a basis for a passion in long-distance overlanding and even weekend backcountry exploration on wheels.
 
Thank you all for following along and sending in your thoughts, comments, and compliments; above all though, a special thanks to each of you for your endless support of and enthusiasm towards adventure.
 
It’s 23h28 as I finish typing this... meaning I’ll be able to publish the blog before midnight on the last day of 2017, as promised. Happy New Year to all, and best wishes for your year ahead... I'm sure we’ll talk soon :)
 
Onward & upward,
 
Ryan McKee

​I slept like I was dead on a full stomach of delicious food. It was easy to see that the past few days of traversing the U.S. was taking a slight toll on my body, and I was somewhat looking forward to getting home and relaxing for a while. I took a hot shower and joined Marcus and Molly in the kitchen for breakfast, enjoying a half hour of a family lifestyle, something I’ve long since been absent from in my own life, as their son Andrew got ready to take his driver’s permit test that morning. I was out the door by 08h00 and on the road just in time to be caught up in Chicago’s morning traffic. It was Wednesday August 16th, and I had 1,100 miles to go until I was back in Boston. For the first time since leaving Calgary, I had no real plan as to where I needed to be at the end of the day. I only knew I wanted to be within cruising distance of Poughkeepsie, NY for the next day, where I was hoping to visit with my aunts and grandparents. 

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Despite the traffic I crossed into Indiana within an hour, thereby entering my 6th state since the border crossing in Wild Horse in Montana. The highway eventually opened up again and I set the cruise control for 75, happily moving along with the music up and listening to occasional chatter on the CB and HAM radios in the cab of the Jeep. By the late morning I was into Ohio, the sun shining overhead and casting its light down on the vast fields that skirted both sides of the highway. Shortly after noon I stopped for a quick lunch at a highway rest-stop and found myself staring at a map of notable locations in Ohio; there hadn’t been much by way of beautiful photography opportunities in the past few days and I was itching to see something aside the paved roads and reflective paint lines that sprawled out endlessly ahead of me. As far as accessibility was concerned my options seemed few; I could go an hour out of my way to photograph a lighthouse on the shore of Lake Erie, arriving far too early for any kind of sunset opportunity, or I could move forward an hour or so to the small town of Milan where I could visit the childhood home of one Mr. Thomas Alva Edison. The latter option quickly became the obvious choice.
 
Hopping off the highway and following signs for the village of Milan, I wandered down quiet streets with beautifully homes on either side until I arrived at a small brick home on a dead-end road. I hopped out of the Jeep and entered through a door labeled “Office” as a half dozen other people walked out. Paying the reasonable $7 entry fee for the tour, I joined the family I had just seen next door in the brick home and began what ended up being an absolutely fantastic tour of the Birthplace of Edison. Being in the technical industry where Edison and Tesla are often argued against each other, I know a fair bit about Thomas’ inventions and mishaps in the invention process, so naturally as the tour guide quizzed the group I would answer as best I knew. By the end of the tour she simply referred to me as “Boston” and seemed to expect I’d have the answer to every question she inquired. At the end of the tour as the family made their way back to the car, I spoke with the tour guide a bit more as she asked what brought me by Milan. Her husband is a backcountry hiker and son was attending school in Vermont, so we spoke at length about the Appalachian Trail and Long Trail hikes. Before leaving I asked about her opinion regarding places to stop for the night and she pointed me towards Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park, located another hour east on I-80. I plotted the destination in the iPad’s navigation software and eased my way back out of town as quietly as I had come.

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Somewhere between Milan and the National Park, on the phone with Dani as she finished work, I looked down at the odometer to witness the Jeep (now 8 months old) roll from 9,999 miles over to 10,000. Being the first brand new car I’ve ever purchased, I’ve never had an odometer be that low to witness this moment, which I found to be very exciting.. quite the long trip this had been! As the sun began sinking in the sky I pulled off towards Cuyahoga Valley and found myself a nice open field in the park to have dinner at. I laid out my laptop and the Coleman stove on a picnic bench and began cooking a tuna and pasta meal and blogging simultaneously as families and their dogs wandered around the park grounds. As soon as my meal was completed I washed my dishes and packed up my gear, returning to the Jeep and doing some research as to any known “wild-camp” sites I could reach on the western side of Pennsylvania before calling it a night. Using a little creativity with Google’s Earth View mode, I found a little dirt clearing on the side of a forest access road on the outskirts of of Punxsutawney, PA where I’d aim for.
 
The ride would take another 3 hours, the majority of which I’d spend in the pitch black on an otherwise empty highway with the 30” LED bar blazing the path ahead of me with light. My music was loud and the moon roof open allowing the warm summer night’s air into the cabin. Shortly before 23h00 I pulled off the interstate and found my way along the breadcrumb trail of the GPS to the wild-camp site I had selected. I backed the Jeep up off the dirt roadway and turned on the reverse lights to illuminate the area as I set up my camp for the night. The stars shone brilliantly overhead, leading me to snap a few images with my camera before climbing into the Jeep and laying down for the night, hearing the crickets chirp outside through the windows I had vented for air circulation. In a million years I’d never have guessed I’d be camping in Punxsutawney Phil’s hometown, but here I was… another day further east, closer to home, and absolutely exhausted.
 

​I woke up early to have breakfast with Greg and Carol before heading off on my next leg, a 450 mile haul to the Chicago suburbs where I’d spend the night with my buddy Marcus and his family. The ride was to be relatively straightforward, taking I-94 and I-90 for 6 and a half hours before arriving in Lemont, IL. Quickly packing up the Jeep after a toasted bagel with an assortment of cream cheese options, I made use of being in Minneapolis and stopped by my friend Emma’s house (Greg’s daughter) to meet her three young boys. Hanging out for half an hour or so, I hopped back in the Grand Cherokee and headed towards the highway. The weather was absolutely perfect, in the mid-60s with the sun shining and wispy clouds in the air. I rolled the windows down and rolled my eyes as I eased onto the brakes and made my way into the stop-and-go traffic of Minneapolis’ morning commuter traffic.

 
With the promise of Marcus’ famous homemade BBQ waiting for me in Lemont, I knew my day was to destined to have minimal distractions en route. I had but one instruction: to stop in Osseo, Wisconsin, at the famous Norske Nook Bakery to pick up pies. Two hours after my departure I pulled off the highway and began following the GPS down the quiet back roads of Osseo. Easily finding parking alongside the bakery, I wandered inside to discovery a little breakfast restaurant with a wide array of pies lining the food display cases. I had been given specific instruction from Marcus to get a banana cream pie for him and strawberry-rhubarb for his wife Molly… I then of course needed a slice of raspberry pie for myself. The challenge with the pies was keeping them from baking in the sun over the course of the remaining hours of my drive. Of course I had the fridge in the back, but fitting the gigantic pies required me emptying out everything else from inside and then rearranging it all. Not wanting to let Marcus down with his one simple wish for pie, I sat on the edge of the road in this tiny little town and unloaded every piece of produce from the fridge onto the sidewalk and wiggled the pies in (with less than a millimeter to spare on each side) and piled everything else that would fit back in on top and discarding food I knew I wouldn’t be consuming before getting home.

I drove slowly back out of town, cruising down wide roads with small houses and manicured front lawns before merging back onto the highway and back into the figurative slipstream of interstate travel. Everything was going flawlessly until I reached for my single slice of pie and realized I didn’t have a utensil to eat it with. Fear not, I flipped on my hazard and strobe lights and pulled over to the side of the road to fish one out of our cooking gear in the back of the Jeep. I was laughing as 18-wheelers were moving over into different lanes to give me space in the brake-down lane as they whizzed by… if only they could have known I was simply looking for a fork to eat my pie with.
 

I hit the traffic starting about 40 minutes outside of Chicago, making a brief pit-stop to fill up the Grand Cherokee’s tank and getting back on the road. I’d been getting text messages all afternoon of the food Marcus was preparing, and I was eager to get there. I crossed the Illinois state line just after 15h30, and arrived at his place about an hour later. We spent the night sitting around the table on his back porch with neighbors, family, and a few friends from work who were in town doing production for an event in the city. The vast array of food was incredible and I did my best to pace myself to ensure I consumed as much as I could. We finished the night with the Norske Nook pies I had carried 350 miles for dessert, and I retired to bed on a massively full stomach. It had been a relatively short day in comparison to the long hauls the two days prior, and I rested well knowing that the trip was slowly nearing its end. 
 

Our morning started slowly, meandering around the apartment continuing to pack the last of our clean laundry as I continued to make repeated trips to the elevator and down to the basement garage to access the Grand Cherokee. The drive to the airport, located across the city, would take around half an hour. With it technically being an international flight, we left about three hours before her departure to make sure there was enough time for security. Our time in the car was rather quiet as we were each off in our own worlds thinking about the miles and adventures behind us. We had officially traveled over 4,500 miles together since leaving Boston, crossing through five of the ten Canadian provinces, and visiting two of the most incredible national parks imaginable over the last three weeks. Our new REI Quarterdome 2 tent served us well, and the two-person Exped SynMat Duo air mattress was worth every single penny. Cumulatively we’d taken a few thousand photos, and would have these memories to look back on for the rest of our lives. Arriving at Calgary International, we parked the Jeep in the airport’s short-term parking garage and carried her luggage inside, finding the American check-in desk and getting her boarding passes set for her quick layover in Dallas.
 
I walked back out to the Jeep and sat in the driver’s seat in relative silence, unsure what to do with the situation. It was incredibly strange to be alone, to look at an empty passenger seat while my peripheral vision simultaneously recognized the missing luggage in the back seat. It took a little while for the realization that I now had nearly 3,000 miles to travel alone before reaching Boston. After a song or two had played on the radio I reached forward and started the engine, realizing that simply sitting there in the airport parking garage wasn’t getting me any closer to home. About a week prior I had begun thinking about my route home, things I’d like to see, and people I’d want to/be able to visit. I sent a few text messages and looked through possible map routes and ultimately decided I’d head back into the United States instead of getting back on the Trans-Canada Highway for days and traipsing back across the same Canadian provinces we had already come across. I’d follow Alberta Hwy 1 (technically the Trans-Canada) 200 miles from Calgary International to just east of Medicine Hat, AB, turning south on Highway 41 towards the Canadian/US border.
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If you will, travel through time with me back to mid-August...

Our itinerary had us spending two nights in Calgary, with our actual tourist day slated for that Saturday. We woke up with the sun, partially due to habit of the past weeks of living in a tent, but more likely due to the floor to ceiling glass windows that our Airbnb was outfitted with flooding the room with light. While Dani showered I got our massive pile of laundry together, breaking it up into separate loads to fit inside the tiny washer and dryer we had in the unit. Once the first load was in and we looked presentable to the world, we wandered out the door and into the local urban neighborhood that surrounded the apartment building. Our first priority was to get caffeine in a cup for my girlfriend, at which point she became much more enthusiastic about the day. We found a really unique corner shop called Analog Coffee, a small establishment with white walls lined with vinyl records on shelves, mismatched photos, and a lively atmosphere created by the long lines of a younger crowd.
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The beauty of the stars glistening in the sky overhead was slightly interrupted throughout the night by trucks passing on the nearby highway. We woke with the sun, the air cooler and more crisp than on other mornings, and I began packing up camp immediately as Dani prepared us a quick breakfast. We had one mission: make it to the Lake Louise parking lot before the masses of other visitors arrived; the focus of our day was entirely on a Pinterest-worthy “Tea Hut Hike”. Due to my incredible campsite finding skills the drive to Louise took no more than five minutes, and we arrived early enough to secure a parking lot just a few cars from the trailhead entrance. We packed my 66L Cold Cold World bag with the appropriate gear we’d need for a day hike, and though the bag itself probably appeared to be overkill to anyone walking by us, it served us well. I included a light windbreaker for myself, my camera bag with a few lenses, an extra liter of water for us to share when our primary ones ran dry, and the usual bag of minor medical supplies and a headlamp just in case. The snowshoe straps on the exterior of the bag worked phenomenally as a place to fasten my aluminum tripod to, and there was plenty of space left in the backpack to fill with Dani’s extra layers as the day got warmer. We made a final restroom stop in the gorgeous Lake Louise Fairmont hotel and made our way to the trailhead alongside the lake’s shore as hundreds of people gathered to take photos of the water as we had a few days prior.

Waking to the sunlight casting shadows of trees across the rainfly of our tent, I checked my watch to verify both the time and date. As I had suspected it was our last morning in Banff, and we had just spent our final night at Tunnel Mountain. After relaxing for a few minutes longer, we then ran through the checklist of breaking down the tent and packing our gear away for good, having spent five nights in a row at the Banff campground and living the luxurious life of leaving the tent pitched for days on end. Knowing that we had no concrete sleeping arrangements for the night we each took a quick shower before leaving the tent site and dropping our vehicle parking pass in a drop box as some informal kind of checking-out.
 
First up on our social calendar for the day was visiting the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, a site of natural thermal springs around which Banff, Canada’s first national park, was founded. Though depicted as originally being utilized by Native Americans present in the area, the first recorded reference from western settlers was in 1859. Twenty years later two men working with the Canadian Pacific Railway rediscovered it, descending through the narrow skylight entrance to the cave, then building a small cabin nearby and claiming it theirs for commercialization. Other community groups pushed against the men and asked for intervention from the Canadian government, and in 1885 an order from John Macdonald, the Canadian Prime Minster, reserved ten square miles around the Cave as the Banff Hot Springs Reserve; this simultaneously gave birth to the Canadian National Parks system. The admittance to the Cave was free, and Dani and I read the abundant signage and absorbed the gigantic murals depicting the discovery of the thermal spring before venturing through a low tunnel carved into the mountainside to see the spring itself. The smell of sulfur was overwhelming to my nose, and the dark environment made for a tough photography subject, but we lingered for a while watching the sunlight dance on the sparkling turquoise water before heading back out to view the rest of the museum.
 

A walkway outside the cave led us to a massive hallway with even more historic photographs and writings detailing the creation of the National Parks in Canada. We looked at countless images while a video played across massive screens overhead, then found a quiet room in a seemingly forgotten part of the visitor center where a 1958 film played detailing the efforts of the Canadian Railroaders, the men responsible for the daily operations of the railway. I never anticipated being so intrigued by this, but we ended up watching the 30 minute narrated documentary from start to finish before departing. In the courtyard outside the museum hall was a living scene depicting how a small established village may have looked while the railroad was being constructed a hundred and thirty years prior. Canvas tents were sprawled out with period-correct beds and desks inside, and two cast members from the Cave and Basin site were re-enacting a land surveying as a crowd of us visitors watched. The entire experience at the Caves was rather fascinating, and the cherry on top was seeing a Ford Model T truck outside as we walked back to the parking lot.

We spent the early afternoon indulging in all that the city’s downtown had to offer, beginning with lunch at the Banff Avenue Brewing Company. Settled at a 2nd-floor balcony’s bar-top table overlooking the main avenue of town, we got to work writing a dozen or so post-cards to friends and family. The streets were bustling below us and we made a million comments to each other about the pristine weather and incredible view of the mountains as we ate lunch, sipping some locally brewed hard ciders. Finishing up our last bites and last written words, we paid the bill and decided to explore the shops surrounding us. I found a t-shirt that wasn’t overly touristy, a shot glass for my globally inclusive destination-based collection, and an 8 oz can of ISO/propane fuel for our backpacking camp stove. Dani window shopped nearly every establishment on the street, then grabbed my hand and brought me into the Spirit of Christmas store to find an ornament for this winter’s holiday tree. By the time we were back at the car it was 15h00, with a half-hour drive ahead of us to the town of Canmore where we’d begin our afternoon traveling an off-pavement route I had read about on a fellow overland blog, Desk to Glory.

​The Smith-Dorrian Trail is a graded gravel route that runs 62 kilometers through Kananaskis, Alberta. While, in my opinion, it doesn’t hold a candle to the drive from Jasper to Banff, it does has the phenomenal benefit of being relatively void of any other people or vehicles. Dani and I turned off pavement we passed a large sign denting the “narrow winding mountainous road ahead”… had there been a camera in her hands at that moment, I’m sure she would have captured a look of childish glee on my face as I pressed the accelerator a little harder and the Jeep began climbing up the gravel to our first mountain pass. The road rose with the side of the slope, the small town of Canmore disappearing in the rear view mirror. As we crested the gap between two peaks our eyes found a large lake sprawled before us, a half dozen people swimming in the dark blue water. We continued on, knowing that there was limited daylight and lots of driving left before we called it a night. Our elevation continued varying as we traveled along, but stayed within a reasonable range of 6,000-feet. Pine trees towered over the road as we passed by them, and I decided it was an opportune time to stop and send the drone up for some aerial photography of the Jeep and mountains around us. Stopping alongside a massive and completely vacant lake roughly halfway through the trail I threw a telephoto lens on my camera and took some modeling/marketing photos of the Grand Cherokee to send to the dedicated and supportive off-road industry companies that have chosen me to represent their products. The scenes we were privy to are unlike anything I’ve found myself able to photograph back in New England, and I’m not one to pass up the opportunity to click away with my shutter. 

It took us a few hours to complete the Smith-Dorrien Trail as we stopped occasionally to soak in the feeling of being completely alone in the mountains. The sun began sinking in the sky as we progressed further south, dust kicking up behind us as the Jeep’s tires churned over the dirt and gravel road. Towards the end of the route we stopped on the side of the road to catch a glimpse of a mother and calf moose nestled back in the woods. I used my telephoto lens to capture a terrible photo of the young moose, but by the time I was able to grab it from my camera bag the mother had lay down on the ground. We hung around for a few minutes hoping she’d stand back up but knew we had over an hour of driving between the end of the Trail and getting back to the highway, so we pressed on. Eventually returning to pavement, we rolled through a stop sign and turned north onto Alberta Highway 40 to make our way back to the Trans-Canada route and return to Banff.
 
One of the most prominent things on Dani’s bucket list for our vacation was to complete one of the famed “tea-hut” hikes at Lake Louise. While we hadn’t been able to the morning we photographed sunrise there, I finagled a plan for us to be able to the next morning on our last day in the National Park. We had no definite plans for somewhere to spend the night, but I had done a bit of research on the same iOverlander webpage we used crossing the continent, and found a marked wild-camp site up by Lake Louise right off of Highway 1. The drive would take us another two hours to complete, and by the time we arrived it was already dusk. The site was a large trailhead parking lot with a clearing nestled back in the woods at the far end that overlooked the glaciers behind Lake Louise. Dani got to work cooking us a small dinner on the stove while I set the tent and got our sleeping gear ready, and by the time we climbed into bed it was nearly 22h30. Luckily for us the moon had not yet risen, and through the faint light pollution of the town below we were able to see the Milky Way stretching out overhead. I lingered outside of the tent for a few minutes with my camera and tripod to capture the scene, and was elated to find out just how well it came out when I viewed it on my computer - it is probably my favorite image from our entire trip. Below you’ll see it, our REI Quarterdome 2 tent on a cliff with the small town of Lake Louise, Mt. Victoria and her glacier in the background, and the Milky Way sparkling in the left side of the frame. It was quite the sight to fall asleep to, and I was thrilled with all we’d been able to see and do throughout the day. Our final night in the Rockies was being spent at an otherwise uninhabited campsite with the stars shining brilliantly overhead; it was the icing on the cake of what had been an amazing week and a half in the mammoth mountains of western Canada.

​With the day before having been such a long one, and our arrival back at the tent having been so late at night, it was no surprise that we slept in till nearly 10h00. I cleaned up the sleeping gear inside the tent while Dani went to take a quick shower, and then we traded as I rinsed off and she made us a quick breakfast of instant oatmeal. Once our cookware had been put back inside the Pelican cases in the Jeep, we made our way out of the “neighborhood” and back towards the campground’s main gate and turned down the now-familiar roads towards downtown Banff.
 
Over the past few days we had passed by the Cascade Gardens, acres of stunningly maintained flower gardens surrounding the large stone-made Park Administration building. We parked inside the gates and began our self guided tour, spending well over an hour meandering down the paved walkway through trellises, over bridges, and winding around the manmade waterfalls and ponds. The sunshine was brilliant and the skies blue with interspersed clouds, making the colors of the flowers pop against the green manicured lawns. I snapped the obligatory photos of the garden and Cascade grounds, then we made our way back to the car and down the road a few minutes to visit the nearby Bow Falls. The parking lot was overflowing with cars and the waterfront packed with people, but we lingered for a few minutes overlooking Bow River, the falls, and a few rafts out in the water for rent. Horses made their way past with riders atop as we walked back to the car and began speaking aloud about lunch.

 
Our first day in Banff we’d eaten by Two Jack Lake but had been rained out before any real exploration of the area was possible. Dani thought it’d be great to return to that area and drive around a bit more to get our bearings and see if there was anywhere fun or scenic we could eat. The drive back towards Two Jack Lake didn’t take long at all, and I decided we should approach counterclockwise to get a different view from the day before. We arrived at the shore of Lake Minnewanka as a pack of Elk made their way up the middle of the road, stopping traffic in both directions. Enjoying watching their movement from our vantage point in the Jeep on the side of the road, we eventually hopped out and explored the rocky path along the waterline of Minnewanka. The lake itself was the same brilliant hue of blue I remembered from the photos I had seen in photos leading up to our trip, expansive beyond description to our left and right, and stretching out for miles ahead of us. It’s the only lake in Banff National Park that allows motorized boats, and there were more than a few out and about in the heat of the afternoon. After fifteen or so minutes of checking out the area we concluded there was nowhere ideal to set up and cook lunch, so we got back in the car and continued along the Lake Minnewanka Scenic Drive road past the immensely busy beaches and boat docks, and on a few miles further to a small day-hike parking lot with picnic benches.
 
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We cooked a rice dish with turkey sausage patties and avocado, doing our best to keep the trash reigned in as occasional gusts of wind blew. A few minutes after we set up the stove and began cooking we were joined by a small and exceptionally annoying chipmunk who wanted in on our meal. Despite doing our best to shoo him away as we ate, by the time we were packing up he was actually following us to the Jeep and back as we packed up our gear. I was almost expecting him to hop right in the truck with us and come to wherever we were going next, though thankfully he didn’t. Turning back onto the road, Dani did some research on the iPad and found the nearby Mt. Norquay, a ski mountain a few miles outside downtown Banff with a winding scenic road that climbed three quarters of the way up the mountain to an open vista look-out. We began ascending the mountain as a light rain began to fall, the Jeep navigating the hairpin turns well as I kept an occasional eye on our strapped-down cargo gear in the back to make sure it wasn’t shifting as we went along. The drive to the top of the road was enjoyable as the mountain gave us a more and more scenic view as we continued climbing. By the time we reached the top the rain was coming down heavier, clouds having begun moving in over the mountains, so we sat in the car and enjoyed the view for what it was. We drove up to the “base” of the ski mountain itself, located some 6,000’ above sea level, and I showed Dani the motorized mats that are provided for the bunny hill slopes, as well as the snow-cat grooming machines that were parked in the lot.
 
We turned around and headed back down the road towards Banff as the sky got darker and the rain eased up, making a brief pit-stop at the famous “BANFF” sign on the town’s main road to take a photo in front of it. Parked on the side of the road with another half-dozen cars all with hazard lights on, we waited a few minutes before quickly setting up the tripod and snapping a picture of ourselves. It was a one-and-done kind of photo, with no time for a re-do as more and more people arrived to take the same snapshot. By the time we turned back towards Tunnel Mountain Campground it was nearly 19h30, late enough that we decided to call it a day. We sat in our camp chairs, hers a recent birthday gift I’d given with a large Florida State Seminoles logo on the back, and each worked on our computers. With an extension cord running into the Jeep for our laptop power supplies, we were truly the epitome of 21st century camping as she answered work e-mails and I edited countless photos and jotted notes about our adventures. It wasn’t the most abundantly thrilling day, but with all the non-stop effort put into the last few weeks, it was nice to have another relaxing day in gorgeous weather to explore this small town in the Canadian Rockies.

If my 04h00 alarm clock hadn’t woken me, the nearby campsite’s blaring car alarm at 04h02 certainly would have. Dani rolled over, not looking too amused with the situation, and we each began layering up in anticipation for a cold morning further north. We piled into the Jeep and pulled out of our campsite, turning out of Tunnel Mountain Campground and onto the main road at 04h21 exactly. Not a word was exchanged until we got to the highway a few minutes later, when I asked her to verify the destination for our morning. I had debated the night before between Banff’s famous Lake Louise and an equally gorgeous but slightly less popular Moraine Lake. Ultimately deciding to devote my shutter time to Moraine, we turned our compass there and continued with the hour-plus drive north up Alberta’s Highway 1. The highways are unlit and there was not another soul in sight, so I ran my 30” roof-mounted LED bar to blast through the darkness of the night and illuminate the road ahead of us.
 
Shortly after 05h00 we pulled off the highway at the exit for Lake Louise, following the signage for Moraine Lake another 14km away. Signs warned RVs of winding narrow roads, and I slowed the Jeep as we climbed up further into the mountains, eyes peeled for any kind of wildlife that may have thought it a smart idea to jump out in front of us. When we arrived at the tiny Moraine Lake parking lot it was still pitch black; almost all of the spots were empty, and as we parked another vehicle arrived and a photographer hopped out with his tripod. I could have guessed we wouldn’t be alone, but I was interested to see just how many people were already up at the lake’s famous overlook. Using my headlamp as a guide Dani and I found the sign for the Consolation Trail which would take us up the rocky mountainside to the perfect vista to watch the sun rise from. Within ten minutes we had reached a stone patio area, surrounded by tall pine trees, and were looking out over the most beautiful lake I believe I’ve ever seen. Moraine glowed back at us from under the cloudy morning skies with a saturated blue that I struggle to even describe. I set up two cameras on separate tripods and began shooting, capturing early morning light and waiting the sun cresting the horizon behind us, checking my compass and verifying that the first rays of light would illuminate the Ten Peaks mountain chain across the lake. This iconic vantage point is known as the “20 Dollar View”, as it was once portrayed on the back of the Canadian $20 bill.
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A few minutes after the sun rose we became aware of the crowds of people showing up around us. At the same time, in some sort of satirical form, Mother Nature rolled in heavy clouds in front of the Ten Peaks and the view people came to see was almost completely gone. Dani and I packed up and returned to the car, finding the tiny parking lot that was empty upon our arrival completely full of RVs and rental mini-vans. We drove a few miles back down Moraine Lake Road, passing countless vehicles making their way to the dead end parking lot, before turning left at a T, our next destination set for the world-famous Lake Louise. Thankfully due to our early start we were able to park at the main lot by the lake without issue; even an hour later we’d likely have had to park at a remote lot a few miles away then hopped on a shuttle to view the lake. Throwing my camera bag over my shoulder as Dani shed an insulating layer, we walked past the regal Fairmont hotel and made our way to the rocky shores of Lake Louise. With the sun still relatively low in the sky, the refraction of light against the glacial water left us with the most indescribably gorgeous hues of blue and green I had ever seen. We took photos for a while as crowds of people began piling into the waterfront area, then decided to head down into the downtown Lake Louise area for a small café breakfast. We found a gluten friendly menu at Laggan’s Mountain Bakery and enjoyed our time staring out the window at a busy parking lot with seemingly endless mountaintops in the background. Hopping back in the car we made the hour drive back to Tunnel Mountain campground, arriving at 10h30 and taking a multiple hour nap in the tent to make up for the exceptionally early start to our day.
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 Waking up drenched with sweat in the early afternoon heat I began looking up activities for our afternoon. While I had made a map of notable places to visit, we were enjoying our “choose your own adventure” vibe and went to work debating between what Banff had available to us. We knew that the Banff Gondola to the top of a nearby mountain ridge was of interest, especially with the Sky Bistro restaurant located some 7,500’ above sea level as an option for dinner. To fill the afternoon we decided to hike up the Johnston Canyon Trail to a few different waterfalls. Located about 30 minutes north of our campsite we hopped back in the car and drove with the windows down, enjoying the sunshine that soaked the world around us. The hike to the Upper Falls was about 1.5 mi and took us first through a pine forest before we began walking on a narrow steel walkway cantilevered off the edge of a vertical rock cliff. It was an exceptionally awesome experience to be walking along the side of a wall that was perpendicular to the ground below, and we stopped often to stare over the railing at the river rushing through the canyon below us. Eventually reaching the falls, Dani and I took a few photos as the spray of the waterfall soaked our clothes. The colors of the water were as gorgeous as every other river and lake we’d seen, and the pine trees offered the perfect shade to accompany the river. 
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​As the afternoon crept past us we made our way back down the Johnston Canyon trail towards the car. Dani got to work on the 4G LTE enabled iPad and reserved us two tickets for the Banff Gondola ride for 19h00. The drive to the downtown area was easy enough and the clouds were wonderfully clear, giving us hope that our cable-assisted journey to the top of a mountain would gain us access to even more incredible views of the Canadian Rockies. After checking in at the base lodge and using the restrooms we got in line for our gondola. I snapped photos of a display case highlighting the cable specifications: 28mm in diameter, 3,330 meters long, weighing in at 9,490 kilograms, with a 55,000 kg breaking load… It was impressive. Dani had never been on a gondola of any kind before, so as we made our way up the side of the mountain she was excited to be suspended some hundred or so feet off the slope below us. By comparison to others I’ve been in this gondola was rather small, enough room for four people, but was exciting nonetheless. In a few minutes time we were atop Sulphur Mountain getting our first taste elevation in the region. The wind was fierce as we first stepped out on the deck, and we almost instantly turned back inside to buy Dani a knit “Canada” hat to help her keep warm. Returning outdoors we made our way across the expansive wooden deck that spans across the mountain ridge and up to the next peak’s observation tower. 

Checking out the first-ever weather observatory in the Rocky Mountains, constructed in 1957 and officially (and rather epically, in my opinion) called the “Sulphur Mountain Cosmic Ray Station”. Inside was a simple bunk bed for the weather observatory staff, and basic amenities for their residency. I took some photos of the scenery around us, followed by an iPhone selfie or two, and we began the long walk back across the boardwalk to the gondola/restaurant on the other side of the ridge. Exploring the historical museum & art gallery that highlights Banff’s history, we then climbed a flight of stairs to the Sky Bistro restaurant and got seated for dinner. The place was relatively quiet with only a few other customers  at the bar, so I requested a table by the massive floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the mountain range across the way. Our waiter, Timo, was a local photographer and after taking our drink orders he informed us that the restaurant had in fact closed for the night. The three of us spoke for a while about the scenery, photography, and his adventures of moving across the United States over the course of the last few years. He made some suggestions of gluten-friendly restaurants in town, and Dani and I watched the sun disappear behind the distant peaks before paying our tab and walking down to the gondola loading zone. We were the last patrons to be taken down off the mountain, and spent the entire ride down enamored with the views the gondola provided.
 
By the time we arrived back at the Jeep it was pitch black and we were the only car left in the lot. A five minute ride into town left us at the Saint James’s Gate Olde Irish Pub where we found a great menu to choose our meals from. Service was “relaxed” and we both expressed how tired we were as we finished a delicious appetizer and moved on for our main courses. Eventually paying the bill, we drove back to our campsite at Tunnel Mountain, getting our teeth brushed and climbing into the tent just before midnight. The day had been one for the record books – up exceptionally early to watch a beautiful sunrise over gorgeous snowcapped peaks, moving on to witness the indescribable color of what is arguably the most famous lake in the Canadian Rockies, a well deserved nap, and exploration for the entire afternoon wrapped up with a gondola ride and breathtaking sunset from a 7,500’ mountain peak. It’d be hard to argue just how uniquely amazing this adventure, this “vacation”, is, but I can honestly say that there’s nowhere in the world I would rather be right now.
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Our alarm clock was that of a small child screaming at the top of his lungs then bursting into tears. I referenced my watch and learned it was 08h30, a decent night’s sleep but from the way my body felt, not a restorative one. We emerged from the tent half an hour later to find the campground quieter and far more empty than when we went to sleep the night before. The large family behind us was packing up their belongings into the car, and the couples on either side were already gone leaving vacant campsites around us. The weather was a bit chilly, cloudy and in the mid 50s, and we decided that with it being a Monday we both had a little work to get done. We cleaned up our campsite and headed back to downtown Banff to find a coffee shop to work out of.
 
Setting up shop at the White Bark Café right on Banff Avenue, Dani ordered something coffee-like and I settled into a comfy chair in the lobby of the connected hotel to edit some photos and get a little writing done. She went straight to e-mails as I had a chance to look over the time-lapse images from the campsite on the Athabasca River the night before, elated to find that the Northern Lights had in fact been captured by my camera. I spoke briefly with some other photographers who were editing images in the lobby seats, discussing the wild fire’s impact on the visibility and sky, and how clear Jasper was further north. After an hour or two of working Dani and I closed our laptops and went in search of a grocery store for a few key gluten-free items we needed for dinner. By this point town was full of sunshine and quite warm, making me regret the jeans I was wearing. We toured through a few grocers until we found what we needed, then decided we’d find somewhere picturesque to have lunch.
 
About ten minutes out of town we arrived at the parking lot for Two Jack Lake just past the notable Two Jack Campground. Curious as to what parking was available we drove straight down the hill to the lakeside lot and found an empty spot that backed up directly to the water. I put the Jeep between two other SUVs and we got to work setting up our cooking station, the same Coleman grill we’ve been using all along atop a collapsible table. She had a toasted cheese sandwich with cucumber and tomato, and I made a bowl of spicy white queso rice with chicken sausage. Despite the gorgeous scenery there were occasionally massive gusts of wind, and we unexpectedly were joined by a Park Warden who arrived to issue a ticket to a family for operating an engine on their inflatable dinghy in the lake. The father got argumentative with the (armed) Warden and basically refused her ticket, so she issued him a court date and the whole thing turned messy quickly to the point where another Warden showed up. In the guys defense, it was a battery powered engine, not a gas one, but apparently they still frown on that. 
 
Having had enough of the scene, we packed up our lunch and cooking station and began a short drive around nearby Lake Minnewanka as a massive storm cloud blew in and soaked the world around us in torrential rain. We scrapped the remainder of our scenic drive, opting instead to return to the campsite and put a tarp up over our tent as an extra measure of protection against precipitation. Honestly I’ve been quite disappointed in REI’s Quarter-dome 2 for its moisture management during colder and more wet nights. We’ve had to use towels to mop up vast amounts of precipitation off the rain fly on multiple occasions, and even had to throw it in the drier on a delicate tumble dry at one of the Airbnb’s to make sure it was usable the night instead of soaking wet. I had an 8x10 tarp in the Jeep that was easily died between trees around our tent at the Tunnel Mountain campsite, and I’m now a little more reassured that it will stay dry in case of unexpected downpour.
 
With the sky still looming with darkness overhead and thunder threatening another storm, we decided that it was a great time to do laundry, and headed into town with two full bags of clothes and towels. I did some more writing in the Laundromat as the watched the new(er) JFK movie Jackie on her laptop, and within an hour we were folding our clothes and headed back to the campsite to cook dinner. I played the role of Dani’s sous chef as we made a ground-turkey taco dinner, and after the dishes were washed, dried, and put away, we retired to the tent in hopes of a few hours of sleep before enacting an ambitious plan to drive an hour north and photograph dawn at Lake Louise. Having spent the last years chasing dawn's colors and other epic early-morning photo opportunities, these plans are always great in theory, but don't always work out... so I’ll just say I have my fingers crossed we actually make it up there in time for the 06h20 sunrise.