Cross-country Skiing in Lake Louise

Our focus in Lake Louise is guided snowshoeing and guided hiking, but there's another great way to travel around here: cross-country skiing.  It's snowing as I write this, which means excellent conditions for skiing. The season here lasts from November until the die-hards put away their skis in the spring.  We've cross-country skied as late as early May!

Last week, the Calgary Herald sent a reporter and videographer up to Lake Louise, and put together a great piece about the ski trails and the Parks Canada grooming team.  Read about it here and if you want any advice about skiing in our neighbourhood, give us a call or send us a message.  Even though we don't lead cross-country trips ourselves, we'd be happy to tell you about trails, instructors, and ski rentals.

The Year of the Cat

Remote camera footage courtesy of Parks Canada

According to the Chinese horoscope, we are officially in the year of the snake, but you wouldn't know it here in Banff National Park.  In January, a family of cougars were caught on the park's wildlife cameras, working their way through a deer they'd hunted on the outskirts of the town of Banff.  And here in Lake Louise, our local lynx and her now ten-month-old kitten have been making a big splash through February.  We've seen them on a snowshoeing tour, there's been numerous roadside sightings, and many skiers have caught a glimpse of them crossing the runs at the Lake Louise ski area.

Photo courtesy of Alex Taylor, Parks Canada

But the best sighting came from our friend Alex Taylor, who works for Parks Canada as a wildlife-conflict specialist. A few weeks ago, while patrolling the TransCanada highway, Alex saw the two lynx trying to get across the road.  He and the highways crew stopped traffic, and then the cats decided to put on a show by going through the fence, rather than climbing it.  The mesh is just over six inches by six inches, and yet these two lynx proved to be real contortionists.  They squeezed their heads through first, then one leg and shoulder, then the other leg and shoulder, and finally, the hips and back legs.

Nadine showcasing the 6.5 X 6.5 inch mesh of the fence

The park gave us permission to post one of Alex's excellent photos.  If you want to see the full sequence of shots, the Parks Canada facebook page is lynx central.

There has been concern about the lynx not being stopped by the fence, but this is the first documented case of them fitting through the mesh. The fencing is very successful at keeping wildlife off the roads most of the time, and in March, 2012, a lynx crossed the highway using one of the wildlife overpasses, another first.

It's truly been The Year of the Cat.  Take it, Al Stewart.

Wildlife Crossings in the News

People often ask us “do the wildlife crossings in Banff actually work?”  The obvious answer is yes: tens of thousands of large mammal crossings have been recorded in the park over the past 15 years, and the fencing along the highway keeps most animals off the road.

Wildlife overpass in Banff National Park

A harder question to answer is this one: “Are they cost-effective?”  According to a report by the Miistakis Institute, who study highway safety, the answer is yes. Near Dead Man's Flats, just outside of Banff National Park, a three kilometre section of highway was fenced in 2004, and outfitted with a wildlife underpass. Since then, the number of crashes between cars and animals has dropped considerably, and that means society has saved a lot of money.  Insurance claims are way down, and when people and animals aren't hurt, we are all winners.

Wildlife underpass, Banff National Park

The Miistakis report has inspired the transportation department in Alberta to look at other highways in the province, to see if they are good candidates for fences and underpasses.  If you drive through Crowsnest Pass in southern Alberta, there's a good chance you'll see wildlife-saving measures on Highway #3 in the future.

Surprising sights in Lake Louise

Yesterday, our snowshoeing group got a very rare treat.  Just a few minutes into our tour, a female lynx and her 9-month old kitten strolled across the trail in front of us.  They were just far enough away that photos were pretty much impossible, but it was a very exciting moment for everybody.  Apparently, over the weekend, a few more people got lucky enough to see the pair, including wildlife photographer Duane Starr.  He caught the two lynx with his long camera lens.

Lynx sightings are impossible to predict, but fabulous ice carvings are easier to find. The annual “Ice Magic” contest finished up yesterday on the shores of Lake Louise.

This year's entries are excellent, and they should stay in really good condition for viewing for about a week or ten days (weather dependent!).  Come for a visit and see how ice can be turned into art, and don't forget your camera!

New Year's Brunch, Wildlife Style

On our snowshoeing tours on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, we got to see two rare examples of how the wildlife were celebrating the season by feasting.

Joel and his group saw a short-tailed weasel dash across the trail with a mouse in its mouth.  It was all too quick for a photo, but on the internet photo sharing site Pixdaus, we found a great shot of another weasel carrying its meal.

In their winter coats, weasels are called ermines, and even though they only weigh 60 or 90 grams (2 to 3 ounces), they can take on prey as large as snowshoe hares.

Photo by Nadine Fletcher

Yesterday, Nadine and her group came across some beautiful traces in the snow where an owl had swooped down, and then plunged into the snow.  It was probably after a mouse as well, and had dug right through the snowpack in pursuit of its meal.  Snow photography is tricky, but the feather marks from both the tail and wings are clearly visible.

Happy New Year!

Starry Starry Night

We had a scheduled power outage in Lake Louise a couple of nights ago, and when the lights went out at 10:00 p.m., we went for a walk in the starlight.  Wow!  Orion was bright in the sky, and with binoculars, we peered into the Orion Nebula and into the nearby Pleiades star cluster.

Winter is star season in the Rockies, and if you want to enjoy incredible night skies without light pollution, here are a few helpful tips:

Jasper National Park was recently declared a “Dark Sky Preserve” by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and you can go on guided star walks on Saturday nights throughout the winter.

Pyramid Lake, Jasper National Park.  Photo by Thomas Pleiss.

To help you figure out what you're looking at, you can buy an amazing $3 app for your i-pad or i-phone called “Star Walk”

To catch the northern lights, subscribe to "aurora watch", and you'll get real time updates of likely aurora borealis.

And finally, we'll be doing a night snowshoe trip from the Lake Louise Inn on December 28 starting at 6:00 p.m.  It will be a full moon, so the stars won't be as easy to see, but snowshoeing in the full moon is magical!

Photographer Amar Athwal

Northern Harrier in flight.  Photograph by Amar Athwal

A couple of years ago, we decided to give ourselves a weekly gift.  We signed up to receive emails that feature the photographs of a colleague of ours, Amar Athwal.  Amar lives and works in Banff for Parks Canada, and is a wizard with a camera.  The weekly photos he sends out are always a welcome sight in our inbox.

Amar explains how he took up his hobby: “Some eighteen years ago I started to take pictures while on hikes, today photography is the way I experience nature and it's the way I capture the moments I come across.”  His photos are the culmination of a lot of experience, a lot of hard work, and a very good eye.

If you want to give yourself an early Christmas present, without spending a penny, you can sign up for Amar's weekly “Moments” by e-mailing him at warmlight@gmail.com.  Or, for a sneak preview, try his website.