It all started when I first visited Banff to participate in an IEEE workshop. Having seen the dull and drab hills of California, and the rocky slopes of the Sierras, I wasn't prepared for the colors that saturated my retinas. The black-forest-cake style layered mountains, the truly emerald lakes, and the exceedingly dense coniferous forests. The visit was short, and leaned towards computer networking rather than outdoor photography. The highlight of the trip was a guided tour to Lake Louise, and dinner on the top floor of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. Thats it. Nothing else was explored or even remotely poked at. Nothing. Even so, I just couldn't shake off the images of those lush green mountainsides off my mind.

After years of dilly-dallying, and fully aware that our travelling will be reduced drastically once our soon-expectant daughter is part of the family, we decided to to embark on that one final big trip before types of diapers took precedence over types of film.

The plan was to fly into Calgary and drive down to Canmore, where we would spend the night in the Priceline-booked hotel. Over the next 2 days, we would explore parts of Banff and Yoho National Parks. On the third, we planned to drive all the way down to Jasper via the Icefields Parkway, stopping and exploring as little as time would allow. The fourth day would be spent exploring Jasper, and driving back to Banff. A little touristy shopping was reserved for the final and fifth day, when we would fly out.

As with pretty much all our recent trips, the weather was completely uncooperative, and it rained incessantly throughout the 5 day period, with the skies clearing out for just a couple of hours on the third day. Of course, it was forecast that it would be glorious and sunny starting the day that we fly out of Calgary.

With just 5 days of cumulative stay across Jasper and Banff, it was pretty much a been there done that (BTDT) trip for us. Believe me, if you would like to even get out of your car and view the roadside attractions across just the Icefields Parkway, you need a good week. If you would like to take the 1 mile or smaller trails to points of interest, you need at least 2 weeks. Needless to say, our goal was to pack in the Yosemite Valley kind of tour, and ignore even the trivial Tioga Pass kind of extensions.

So of course we started with the most visible landmark of the Parks - Lake Louise. The drive from Canmore to Banff is around 10-15 minutes, depending upon traffic, and Banff to Lake Louise is another 20-25 minutes. By the time we reached the Lake, everyone and their extended family was queuing up for a canoe ride, and the lake was dotted with red canoes and rippling waves. Coupled with the overcast sky, this was the worst possible situation for a good reflection shot. So we decided to take our BTDT picture of the day, and move on.

Our next stop was Lake Moraine. By the time we started driving through the breathtaking Valley of the Ten Peaks, it started pouring. We drove up to the parking lot and munched on our pre-packed lunch while observing people running through the slush to their cars to avoid getting drenched. We were prepared (ah the joys of Internet weather forecasts), and boldly headed out slinging our cameras and umbrellas.

Let me just get this comment out right up front. From now on in this article, you will not find me ooh-aah'ing the deep emerald colors of the lakes and rivers, or the lushness of the coniferous forests. There's no point, as those of you who have seen the place are enlightened, and those who haven't been to the Canadian Rockies will never have a clue of what you are missing out on. Suffice it to say, that the colors will simply knock you off your feet, and digital reproductions (like the ones on this page) will never do justice to the actual stimuli hitting your eyes.

At Moraine, we took some hurried travel shots of the Lake in the pouring rain, and then headed inside for souvenir shopping. After about 10 minutes of hard hitting downpour, the rain reduced to a drizzle. It was time to capture the beauty of still water, as there were no canoes (yet) ploughing through the calm. A few quick images, and then a quick rush up the pile of rock next to the parking lot, from where you could get a bigger and more expansive view of the lake. No reflections, as the sky was a drab gray, but it was eating me up inside to hypothesize what it would be like on a sunny evening.

Soaked but satisfied, we headed out of the Valley of the Ten Peaks, and decided to make a small detour to the Yoho National Park, on the Alberta - British Columbia border. I had heard good things about Emerald Lake, and my row-mate on the flight into Calgary had heavily recommended the Kicking Horse falls, where "the river has actually cut through the rock, and flows through it". Sounded very interesting, so we headed out on the Trans-Canada highway towards Yoho.

Kicking Horse was admirable, but Emerald Lake proved to be scenic and idyllic. Maybe because it had rained most of the day, or maybe because of the failing light, the lake and the trails around it were deserted, and the entire detour seemed well worth the trip. Since the sun was peeking through the clouds, we wanted to stop by Lake Louise on our way back to Canmore just in case we got lucky with a spectacular sunset. No such luck, though I did get to capture the placid beauty of a lake without any canoes cutting through it.

Day Two showed promise with spectacular blue skies and a certain crispness in the air. As soon as we saw the sunlight streaming through our windows, we were in top gear. Given that we were expecting cloudy skies, this was too exciting to digest. The previous plan was to explore the local lakes and canyons near Banff, but with the change in weather, we decided to drive all the way to the Athabasca Glacier at the border of Banff and Jasper. If our bookings would have been flexible, I would have driven all the way to Jasper. But sadly, we were stuck with a Bed and Breakfast in Banff.

After the first couple of miles, the Icefields Parkway turned out to be a stop-and-go freeway, where you would disembark every few miles, ooh and aah for a while, compose and shoot furiously for the next few minutes, and then drive on. Highlights included Waterfowl Lake, Bow Lake, and Peyto Lake, made famous to Indians (Desis) via the E.T. rip-off Koi Mil Gaya.

It was during this Icefield Parkway trip that I realized the mightiness of the organized tour. Almost fifty percent of the traffic flowing on the Icefields Parkway between the town of Banff and Peyto Lake were buses. Buses mostly filled with Asian tourists. Their sheer number was staggering. And a good chunk of these buses carried tourists from the US; I know, since a good friend of mine took this package just 2 weeks before I landed up.

Nowhere was this more evident than at Peyto Lake. When we reached the viewing deck (which, by the way, is easier to access via guided tour buses, but requires a short walk for personal cars), it was relatively empty, and as expected, the vista completely floored us. Within five minutes, a total of 6 buses arrived at the scene, completely flooding the deck to the point of suffocation. People were holding their cameras up in the air, and jostling for the prime guardrail real estate to take their BTDT shots.

What looks like paradise (on the left), is actually a zoo (on the right).

Its amazing how little effort people expend in taking their pictures. Most individuals stand on the wooden platform, and take a straight out snapshot of the Lake. This is fine and dandy, but you get this ugly piece of brown real estate on the bottom left of your picture. A small wedge in the handrails, or, if you are tall enough, a quick jump over the handrails takes you to a large overlook without boundaries, from where your images are much less restricted.

It was near Peyto, that we spotted the dark clouds gathering on the horizon. Through the zoom, I could see the sky looking worse northwards, towards Jasper. We wanted to visit at least one glacier in bright sunlight, not realizing that the most beautiful sight we would ever witness would come in the form of the Angel Glacier appearing through thick fog.

Rushing northwards, we hit the tourist information center for the Athabasca Glacier at 4:00pm. Bus trips to the Glacier are organized by a private outfit and you can pay an arm and a leg for the ride, or waste the other arm and leg to walk up the slippery slope. Since Rachna was pregnant, we decided against either. For some reason, the entire outfit looked more like Las Vegas than a true National Park geological formation.. but being from close to the Valley, Yosemite Valley that is, who am I to complain about commercialism?

After watching the painfully unimpressive videos and using their facilities, it was time to head back to Banff. The road towards Jasper looked much more intriguing, and I cursed myself for not having booked a room in Jasper for that night. But, decisions had been made, and we sped back towards a darkening sky and ominous clouds to Banff.

Once we were near the town, we still had a few moments of rain-filled fading light. We took a small and quick detour to the Vermilion Lakes. Bad light coupled with a nagging drizzle meant that nobody was around, and we decided to head back to our B&B also. It was going to be gloomy for the rest of the trip towards Jasper and back