Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: E edge of Rocky Mountains

This is where seven of us spent the day yesterday, recording all flora and fauna that we saw. Bow Valley Provincial Park lies at the foot of the very first mountains when one drives westwards from Calgary for roughly 45 minutes. In other words, the Park lies at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. It's a very popular place with botanists, birders and photographers of any kind. We weren't sure just what we would find when we arrived, especially how much or little the Park had been affected by the recent flooding in Alberta. Parts of the Park were closed, so we didn't walk at Many Springs, but instead walked the Flowing Waters Trail and around Middle Lake (that you see in my photo above). The water level was high and the reeds around one part of the lake were lying on top of the water. I had seen two Common Loons out in the middle of the lake on 18 June, when I spent the day in the rain walking around this lake and Many Springs. Wonderfully, these Loons were still there yesterday and we saw and heard them calling. Such an amazing sound. They tend to stay in the middle of the lake, which makes it difficult or impossible to photograph them. My next photo shows one of them, 48x zoomed and heavily cropped : ) The weather was perfect yesterday and it felt so good to be out and to have no rain at all. I couldn't help but feel rather guilty, though, going out enjoying myself in such a beautiful place, knowing that there were so many people back in Calgary and so many other parts of southern Alberta, who were dealing with flooded basements and other damage. The person who was going to be leading this trip lives in nearby Exshaw and he was unable to come because of dealing with the bad flooding there. In fact, sadly, it's most likely that he has lost his house completely. It's so frustrating to me that a painful back, hips, etc. won't let me help with any clean-up. All I can do is donate to the Red Cross, and carry on with my usual volunteers shifts. I was expecting to hear from many flood victims, but only had a call from one family who had had to come to Calgary from High River, where everyone was so badly affected by the floods. We are expecing a lot more calls from flood victims in perhaps another couple of weeks. Lol, I'm not sure if I slept for 12 or 13 hours last night!!! Haven't done that for years - I usually get between 2 and maybe five hours of sleep a night. Only got about an hour and a half of sleep befere I went on this trip yesterday, partly because I was busy posting the rest of my Flickr photos on another site, but mainly because of emotional tiredness from seeing all the devastation form the "Flood of the Century" in Calgary and the rest of the southern part of the province. I was so tired when I got home late afternoon and was falling asleep at my computer, so by 4:00 p.m. I had no choice but to lie down for maybe "an hour", ha.

Yesterday, 18 June 2013, a few of us spent the day out at Bow Valley Provincial Park, west of Calgary, on the very eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. This area is a well-known location for birds and especially wildflowers. Unfortunately, it rained for almost the whole time we were out there, while we walked all round Middle Lake (seen in my photo above), then walked to and around Many Springs and then back to the cars at Middle Lake. From there, we drove down to the River and, as the sun was now out, we did just a short walk through the trees along the river's edge. Lol, I was totally exhausted by the time I got home - I'm used to slow-paced walks/hikes, stopping all the time to take photos. Yesterday was (for me) a fast-paced hike, which my body can't cope with, ha. Managed to get this photo of a view across Middle Lake taken when we were almost back to the cars and the weather brightened. During our walk round this lake, we saw two Loons, which was a treat. Needless to say, they were right out in the middle of the water, much too far to get even a half-decent shot. Posting my "daily three" late morning, as I needed to sleep as long as I could after yesterday's exercise : ) We have a Weather Alert in place at the moment - heavy rainfall warning. Just before 10:00 p.m. - wow, thunder, lightning, torrential rain! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An old photo from my archives, taken on 27 June 2011, when I went to Bow Valley Provincial Park for a day's outing. This is just one of the beautiful views. This park lies at the foot of the very eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, overlooked by Mt. Yamnuska. A great place, especially for wildflowers.

We were puzzled when we came across some of these plants while botanizing the Yamnuska Valley, eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, on 2nd July. These tiny orchids were very pale and the "tongue" (?) of the flowers was more pointed than in the Striped Coralroot we were used to. The closest I can come to for an ID is Corallorhiza striata var. vreelandii or Vreeland's Striped Coralroot. When I first saw these paler plants, I thought they were just dead/dying Striped Coralroot. This is what our "usual" Striped Coralroot looks like. farm5.static.flickr.com/4005/4671681619_8c69deb97a_z.jpg