On a recent hike from Moraine lake in Banff National Park to Lake O’Hara in Yoho National Park myself and some friends descended into a valley where there was an usual rock called Eagles Eryie (photo to come later) jutting out of the ground. This and several other Hoary marmots were using the rock formation as their home.
Wall lake is in British Columbia and easily accessed from Waterton along the Akamina pass trail. It is a spectacular lake with the turquoise waters surrounded by wildflowers and a large glacier at the very tip of the lake. The eastern section of the lake is surrounded by a very steep mountain which is how the lake got it’s name
Thousands of these barnacles line the rocks along the beaches of the Pacific Rim National Park
Can you identify these flowers? I found these along the inner harbor in Victoria, B.C. just as the sun was setting which gave me the soft light to bring out the details in the flowers.
Update: May 2013
Thanks to Beth for ID’ing this plant as a Campanula sp. (possibly portenschlagiana)
I took this photo on the trip back to Victoria harbor after seeing the killer whales. The light was perfect and to get such calm water is apparently not very common. The lighthouse is made of bricks transported all the way from Scotland.
This is an ochre starfish, which will hang out beneath the mussels until the tide comes back in and then climb up and start feeding on them. Not a bad life eating mussels everyday if you ask me.
Our guide had positioned the zodiac several hundred meters in front of a group of killer whales and turned the engine off. We waited several minutes and were just about to leave when this orca surfaced right in front of the boat and swam underneath us.
With a week left of holidays I decided to head out to the west coast. I headed over to Vancouver Island and went down to Victoria as I had heard from a friend that the killer whales were in the area. There are 3 groups of resident killer whales in this area totally about 95 animals and they feed exclusively on fish, specifically salmon. Transient killer whales, which I didn’t see, roam up and down the coast in small groups or as individuals and feed on marine mammals, mainly seals.
I took this picture outside my tent when I was camping in Ucluelet, a small fishing town located on the west side of Vancouver Island and next to the Pacific Rim National Park. The campground was next to the harbor and the eagles had a nest in a tree overlooking the campground and the harbor.
All around the inner harbor in Victoria there are numerous gardens which is where I found this Japanese maple tree.
Owen Slater Photography 