"Beautiful rockies" Province of Alberta by kokoryko

Province of Alberta Travel Guide: 4,836 reviews and 10,030 photos

Rocks, oil, geology and more

Some landscapes from the Rocky mountains.
The Alberta and British Columbia Rockies are really spectacular mountains, with very wide valleys enabling broad views over a big pat of the chain; in other mountains where valleys are narrow, you cannot see so wide sceneries or landscapes, except you climb on the highest peaks. I will not bother you with Natural Sciences , just tell you that these mountains are a world-class example of thin-skinned tectonics, where the thrust sheets involve "thin" sedimentary layers overrinding younger sedimentary formations. The tectonic features, here, are the consequences of continental drift (Plate tectonics is a more accurate wording), the sedimentary layers being folded (and thrusted) as a consequence of shortening, due to the collision of microcontinental blocks , carried by a subducting paleo-Pacific plate , with the North American plate. I stop with geology, just look at the rocks, the landscapes, they tell stories, beautiful stories, and if you are not interested in the stories, just look, dream, fill your eyes and your heart with the sceneries.
This mountain was build up from End Jurassic (150 Million Years) to Mid-Tertiary ( 30million years) , and it's foreland and foothills contain big oil and gas reserves which made Calgary the Canadian oil city. The beautiful landscapes have mostly been carved by the recent (500.000 to 30.000 years) glaciers erosion and the rivers.

Meet some nice locals!

mouflons

If you are a driver , leave your vehicle and walk a bit on the trails marked on the roadside: enjoy!
No strenuous hikes generally, few walks to enjoy the sceneries are a good thing, and in the car, on some roads you may even make nice encounters!

The names of places

View from Haistone butte

I loved a lot the names of the localities and mountains, they are strange but there is always a meaning; imagine what people endured when they decided to call this place Hailstone butte.. . . . .
Other names are among a lot :

Crowsnest pass and crowsnest mountain
Old man river
Three sisters
Castle mountain
Broken Bow
etc. etc. In Europe we are not used to so explicit names, or they have changed and been altered with time, we do not know what they designate.

Pros and Cons

Pros:Wide breathtaking
Cons:nothing against

Last visit to Province of Alberta: Jul 2004
Intro Updated Jan 21, 2006
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Reviews (11)

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Comments (11)

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Bwana_Brown Dec 12, 2007 at 5:37 PM

Hermann, an amazing page on your Alberta experiences! Your thoughts on how the Rockies looked to you were quite revealing to me - never thought of it like that before. You were very observant to see even a Black bear!!
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Tijavi Aug 2, 2007 at 2:32 PM

Oh, another oil boomtown. I hope the extraction of oil does little damage to Alberta's pristine environment. OK, now I understand - you're a geologist!
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robertgaz Jul 10, 2007 at 11:44 PM

Who needs voter rated wonders of the world when you can chill out in the Rockies ;~)
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MalenaN May 11, 2007 at 11:30 PM

What a beautiful place with mountains and animals. It looks like a place I would like to do some trekking in.
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tiabunna Mar 12, 2007 at 4:11 PM

Great reading and great photos, Hermann. We're travelling through there soon, so the geological background is most interesting.
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windsorgirl Nov 20, 2006 at 2:27 PM

Wow, your photos are stunning! I'm so glad that you enjoyed your visit to Canada. Thank you for visiting my Baffin Island pages.
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Nemorino Jul 4, 2006 at 1:06 PM

Great scenery over there. Thanks for the geological explanation. I've been through Alberta on the train, but that was all. Glad you were able to do a bit of hiking.
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pepples46 May 31, 2006 at 12:38 AM

..and KD Lang, she's from Alberta too :-))interesting mix, don't you think? tks for all the infos and pix, job well done!
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scottishvisitor Feb 14, 2006 at 2:06 PM

Nice updates The lakes are very beautiful!!
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hunterV Jan 24, 2006 at 9:30 PM

Great views!