Banff and Jasper in Photos: A Hard-to-Beat Vacation

My brother Tim with Jackson, overlooking Banff from Tunnel Mountain

I guess one thing we know about starting a new job (which was actually about four months ago) is that it makes your personal blogging suffer.

My hundreds of blog posts per year have dwindled to more like dozens in 2012. But, alas, that's OK. Half the battle of running a blog is updating it at least semi-regularly and not letting it die, as happens to 99 percent of blogs.

Jackson scampered up a steep rockpile at the start of Moraine Lake, near the famed Lake Louise

Moral of the story: Better late than never. I just realized tonight that I never posted part two of my Canadian Rockies blogs. It was a great family trip to celebrate my brother's 50th birthday. And I reported on my afternoon in Calgary, but I never wrote about the actual best part of the trip, which was a week in and around the beautiful ski town of Banff.

A surprisingly impressive, but very crowded, hike up Johnston Falls, not far outside of Banff

Taking a long hike up near the glaciers of Jasper on Wilcox Pass

Here are some of my photo highlights.

The drive from Banff to Jasper was beautiful the whole way

Heading up Sentinel Pass, which took us up terrain that was Kilimanjaro-like at times and ended with steep switchbacks and a view of "10 peaks"