Copyright 2006 Lydia Hinshaw

JASPER, AB -- The Icefields Parkway is about 150 miles long and not one inch of it is boring. Think scenery on steroids.
Thursday was cloudy for the most part, and not as picture-postcard spectacular as some of my previous 14 trips up or down the road. But there still isn't a camera format big enough to do the road justice. I take photographs whenever I travel the road, but I'm always disappointed when I look at them later.
Thursday's Icefields stars were bighorn sheep, like the venerable fellow above, who undoubtedly has survived many a winter along this road. He was sitting with three other oldtimers within 10 feet of the pavement. None of them showed more than mild interest in the busload of Japanese tourists who stopped to photograph them, or the two Florida travelers following the bus. None of us got out of our vehicles.
A few miles farther on, down a steep hill below an overlook, was a family group, including this little bighorn sheep, who darted away after his (her?) mom shortly after I snapped this picture.
During the tourist season, bighorns like to hang around parking lots like pelicans around a fishing pier, panhandling tourists for food. Feeding them, or any other wildlife, is prohibited, but nobody's explained that to the sheep.