DanLJ images

On our way from Calgary to Banff, we saw smoke ahead. Then we saw a traffic jam behind the smoke. And then we saw the car burning... You can just imagine the situation... It was one of those days... Fair sky, puffy clouds. The old car was bucking and smoking a little bit as we headed off from Canmore to Calgary along the Trans-Canada Highway. Then Helen looked at me, wrinkled her pert nose, and said, "Bill, do you smell burnt rubber?"

I guess I did. Was it something we were driving past? I didn't see no fires. Was it that old truck we was following? Maybe not. Then Helen offered up a little shriek. A puff of smoke had wafted past her toes beneath the dash. "Bill! Stop! The car's on fire!"

Well, some times she don't need to ask twicet, don't y'know. That old pontiac don't have such good brakes, but I leaned hard on the pedal and got off on the shoulder and we piled out. She grabbed our things and walked back a few feet. I looked under the car, just to check before I opened the hood, and saw flames down underneath. So I kept my little fingers outa the grill. Grilled sausages, that's what they woulda been, yes sir!

Anyhow, the car was smokin' pretty good by then, and the traffic was sort of easing by in the left lane. Somebody must've had a cell phone, 'cause pretty soon the police came sirening up behind. The officer blocked the whole freeway off and called the fire department on his radio. He said he had to keep everyone back at least a hudred meters in case the gas tank blew. Made sense to me.

This picture was taken by some tourist from Wisconsin who stuck his camera out the window as he drove past in the other direction toward Canmore, just before the fire truck pulled up. He didn't even stop to offer us a ride home.

I hear traffic was backed up 5 or 6 kilometers behind us. Sure sorry to inconvenience everybody, but that's nothin' compared to my troubles now. No money, no insurance, no car, and a bill from the fire department for putting it out....

Banff, Alberta, from Sanson's Peak on Sulphur Mountain, just before sunset, looking a little east of north, 29 August 2002.

The clouds are cumulus induced by slope thermals, maturing in the late evening, some dropping rain as virga that evaporates before hitting the ground.

The blue band wandering through the lower half of the image is the Bow River. You can't really see the Spray River joining it from the lower right, but you can see the famous old Banff Springs Hotel glowing in the sunlight at their confluence.

The Bow River flows away to the NE from the hotel after tumbling down Bow Falls (the little patch of white that's above the roof of the hotel), and you're right, that's a golf course along the River's south bank: a 27-hole course, only $180/round. Not the playground of our sort of folk.

The sunlit small mountain above the hotel is Tunnel Mountain; in the distance beyond that is the southwestern tip of Lake Minnewanka; the tiny spot below it is Two Jack Lake.

The mountains to the right of the lake are the Fairhome Range, Mount Inglesmaldie at the tip close to the lake.

The mountain at the left of the picture is not snow covered. That's Cascade Mountain, made of light tan rock that dominates many of the mountains of the Banff area. Flour of this rock fills the glacial runoff, making the rivers white rather than blue.

Oh, yes, Banff. Banff townsite is the pale splotch tucked between Cascade Mountain and Bow River. The town spills across the bridge toward Banff Springs Hotel. If you want to see how this scene looks right now, click here.

Kodak Portra 800, 35mm, CanonZ90w, at 28mm, auto exposure.

A bow in the Bow River east of Banff. You are looking at the east slope of Mount Rundle, and below it the river.

You might notice, if you look carefully, a faint horzontal line in the forest just halfway to the mountain, up from the right side of the river's bend. I hate to trash the imatge of unspoiled wilderness that this photo otherwise conveys, but that faint line is the roof of the clubhouse at the Banff 27-hole golf course.

The hoodoos dignified surviellance of the Bow River and its valley continues from the lower left hand corner of the image.

Kodak Portra 800, Canon z90w, 28mm, auto exposure.

The Tunnel Mountain Hoodoos.

The Bow Valley was formed during the Wisconsin Glaciation about 80-170 centuries ago. These hoodoos are formed of moraine-like debris flow deposits which contained a lot of limestone, so that a natural concrete was formed. These hoodoos have lost their capstones; the look fragile, but this is only in relation to materials of real substance such as granite or gabbro.

August 30, 2002
Kodak Portra 800, Canon z90w. auto exposure.

This magnificent rock is Castle Mountain viewed from Highway 1A Nortwestbound in the early morning, west of Banff.

August 30, 2002
Kodak Portra 800, Canon z90w, 28mm, auto exposure
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

Castle Mountain, morning, 30 August, 2002. The high tower on the right is Eisenhower Tower. I appreciate the help of John Lundgren in identifying this.
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

An anonymous mountain west of Banff, lit by the setting sun on August 30, 2002, as the Wisconsin tourists hurry towards supper and a soft bed. No, it's not anonymous, I just don't remember just where we were when I pointed the camera.

Kodak Portra 800 35mm, Canon z90w.
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

To the best of my recollection, this is Protection Mountain, northwest of Banff, Alberta, waiting for the lights to go out. August 30, 2002.

Kodak Portra 800 35mm Canon z90w, 28mm.
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

Moutain NW of Banff, Morning, August 31, 2002.

Kodak Portra 800 35mm, Canon z90w
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

Mountain NW of Banff, morning of August 31, 2002.

Kodak Portra 800 35mm Canon z90w
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

A fantastic Rockies sky. No, I don't remember what mountain this is; it's possibly Mount Burgess, Mount Field, Mount Ogden, or Paget Peak. north of Highway 1 in Yoho Park.

Just over the road is a cumulonimbus dropping rain; to its left is a nice, smooth wave cloud. Low over the mountain is fractocumulus, cirrus above that.

Kodak Portra 800; Canon z90w, 28mm. August 30, 2002
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

Every few kilometers along the four-lane section of the Trans-Canada Highway, between Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta, is an overpass like this or a broad underpass. No roads and no vehicles cross here: it's for the wildlife. The skid marks in front of our car suggest that perhaps, just perhaps, an elk or deer didn't read the map and took the short way over the tall fence. But it's a nice, liberal idea, anyway.

2 September 2002
Kodak Portra 800 35mm
Canon z90w
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

Cascade Mountain stands on tiptoe, a meadow below soaks up the rain. Banff Townsite, 3 September 2002, Banff National Park, Alberta

Kodak Portra 800
Contax 645, 80mm, f8.0 1/125 sec
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

Raindrops glint in the trees and grass, mists shroud Stoney Squaw Mountain. North edge of Banff Townsite.
3 September 2002, Banff National Park, Alberta

Kodak Portra 800
Contax 645, 80mm, f8.0 1/180 sec
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

A shaft of sunlight brightens the mists on a rainy day east of Banff.
3 September 2002, Banff National Park, Alberta

Kodak Portra 800
Contax 645, 80mm, f8.0 1/1400 sec
Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Johnson

The file names are my file numbers, and are not directly related to image contents. The subject and technical data are contained within each jpeg file itself, as a comment readable by the Gimp or Photoshop, and the comment is provided to the right of each thumbnail image below.

I'm not in the photography business, but if you'd like a print of any, these photos in real life are all 6x4.5 cm color negatives, and we can arrange this through Photos, Inc., of Minneapolis. I send them my negative and you send them your charge card number and address, and in a week or two you'll get a print. email me at drdan AT wwt.net if you wish to pursue this.