Rocking the Rockies

I finally took a break from work and scampered to see the Canadian Rockies. A long long weekend aided by a floater at work and a day that I took off blended perfectly. It was a long standing "To-do" thing in my list, right from the day I landed in Canada some 5+ years ago. It only took me 5 years to accomplish that one.

From the east, the standard thing to do is to fly to Calgary and rent a car to drive to Banff, Lake Louise and further on to Jasper. The route encompasses two of Canada's largest and most famous National Parks. I did just that.

The Rocky mountains at Banff were not that spectacular, if you ask me the photographer. If the tourist in me speaks though, then it was great. Jasper was truly beautiful nature-wise. All the picture postcards, the National Geographic scenes floated right in front of my eyes and there came many a moment when I gasped, held on to my breath and even forgot to focus and click on my Canon EOS-3. I wish I was gifted enough to capture the beauty of the mounts in Jasper in words and convey that in a paragraph here, but something from within tells me I should not even attempt that one.

Ah, well, since nothing can be perfect, let me tell you it rained during this trip of mine. Not that it is the worst thing that could happen when you visit the Rockies. The rains never last that long and produce various concoctions of light and shade (thanks to the variety of clouds that tickle and play with the peaks) that are too fascinating for the naked eye and yet, too awesome to be captured by a digital photograher. As they say, there is indeed a silver lining to every cloud. That saying came true when I saw the clouds floating by and flirting with the peaks - Mt Rundle in Banff, Pyramid Mountain in Jasper, Castle Mountain etc.

And somehow the man felt closer to Nature than he ever had before. Somehow he felt "One with the Universe". Ok, surely our planet at least. And somehow - cover your ears, close your eyes : he felt humbled.