Banff Nat'l Park - Johnston Canyon Lower & Upper Falls - Bow Valley Parkway - Castle Mtn Picnic - Osprey - Campfire

Beautiful sunrise to welcome Gretchen to Canada!  

New snow on the mountain this morning--very pretty!  We got moving fairly fast this morning…needed to because it was COLD—hats and mittens today!   

 

 But not before we gathered firewood for our first fire tonight.

Off to Johnston Canyon Falls this morning.  It's the most popular walk in this park.

It was a fun hike among the masses..hundreds of people with us but the hike is such that it can handle all those people.  

In places you are on a wide path and others you are actually on a catwalk over the canyon—very different.  

 But also makes for good pictures because nobody was in front of you.  It was a really fun hike!  

 

Lots of smaller falls along the way.

The lower falls were actually the best.  You go into a little tunnel so you can get right up next to them. 
John and Gretchen were snapping like crazy and I borrowed Gretchen’s little camera to get a few pix with people in them--my favorite people in this canyon!!

 On up to the Upper Falls - it was a beautiful walk. 

Most people stop at the Lower Falls so we had this trail pretty much to ourselves.

 

Upper Falls - worth the walk!

Got back in the car in the packed parking lot and drove by the ½ mile of parked cars on both sides of the road and followed the Bow Valley Parkway –
beautiful mountain scenery in this section-a goodly number of photo stops.  Stopped at the Castle Mountain Chalets area for a picnic lunch and then headed down 93 (the Banff Radium Hwy) and as we crossed a bridge I saw some guy down in the water taking pictures of the mountain…looked back and it was spectacular

so we pulled over and went down that way and found some wonderful surprises!  

There was an osprey nest on the top of the bridge…

on the top of a tree near the bridge was an osprey and down the river another osprey in a tree…plus the beautiful mountain scenery!  Got lots of good pictures there! 
John even got out the monster lens for this one!  There were two immature Osprey's in the nest that started fighting.

Mom flew in and shooed them out of the nest--sort of if you can't behave go outside!!

Then back to the campground and a little relaxing... 

steaks cooked over a campfire for dinner with somores for dessert – YUM!  Cadbury Chocolate ranks way over Hershey’s for somores!  Gretchen made the prize one though—golden brown marshmallows on graham crackers with melted chocolate – it was a masterpiece!  Alas no camera nearby.  Enjoyed the fire for awhile and then hit the hay. Great day!