Alberta’s badlands

Three years ago today we visited the badlands east of Drumheller, Alberta.

We stopped there once near the beginning of our trip, and now again near the end.

If you’re looking for a great place to visit, this it it.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

Dinosaur Provincial Park revisited

On this date three years ago we visited Dinosaur Provincial Park in the southern part of the Canadian province of Alberta. (Oh, if only we could travel again now!)

In today’s post you’re seeing some more views of that scenic place.

Below, how about what looks like a petrified whirlpool?

And speaking of the country that stretches across the top of the United States, here are two quotations by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield:

“You don’t sit around and not know stuff.”  “To me, science is just formalized curiosity.”

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

More from South Dakota’s Badlands National Park

On May 31, 2017, I took over 600 photographs at South Dakota’s Badlands National Park. I showed several of them that year and others on the one-year anniversary. Now here are six more pictures of that scenic place.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Not humdrum

A year ago today we headed northeast from Calgary, driving almost two hours across the great Alberta prairie.

That was our third and last visit to the area around Drumheller.

We reconfirmed that the Canadian badlands near Drumheller are anything but humdrum.

©2018 Steven Schwartzman

Dinosaur Provincial Park

A year ago today we visited Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta.

Past posts about the place have shown strange cloud shadows in the sky and a panorama that includes a hoodoo with a head-like shadow.

Now you’re seeing some more views of that ruggedly scenic place.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Horseshoe Canyon

On the afternoon of August 24th last year we flew from Houston to Calgary, arriving shortly before twilight. By late the next morning we’d already driven two hours northeast out onto the prairie for our first encounter with the badlands of Alberta, which took place in Horseshoe Canyon.

On parts of the ground nothing grew.

Yet even on seemingly barren ground some badlands plants did thrive. Take the scattered bushes in the second photograph and the asters below.

Here’s a closer look at those asters:

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Badlands National Park

A year ago today we spent some scenic hours at Badlands National Park in South Dakota. After returning to Austin last year, I showed you maybe half a dozen of the more than 600 pictures I took. Here are five more.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

A hoodoo begets a head

Click for greater size.

This heady panorama is from the morning of September 3rd at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, where strange cloud shadows in the sky had greeted us a couple of hours earlier.

If you’re interested in the craft of photography, point 6 in About My Techniques is relevant to today’s picture.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Just tens of meters away

Just tens of meters away from the famous hoodoos located a few miles east of Drumheller, Alberta, are these that get less attention but are highly photo-worthy. On September 12th I obliged them with my attention and they repaid me with multiple pictures. In this one, notice the dark strata in the foreground, in the farther hills, and even across the middle of the lighter formations.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Red Deer River

Above is a pastel and some would say painterly view of the Red Deer River passing through Rosedale, Alberta, on August 26th. Below you see a cliff that’s on the same side of the river and that doesn’t hold on tightly to its future as a cliff. These two views tell you you’re looking at a part, more colorful than many others, of the Canadian Badlands.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman