Yoho National Park plus Lake Louise

Trip Start May 29, 2009
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Trip End Oct 03, 2009


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Where I stayed
Whispering Spruce Campground
(Golden hotels)

Flag of Canada  , British Columbia,
Sunday, July 5, 2009

We got up extra early this morning and left for a big day of sightseeing. We started at Lake Louise. We had skipped Lake Louise when we were in Banff a week ago, because the crowds were so bad. Lake Louise is actually just across the border (in Banff National Park, Alberta) from Yoho National Park in British Columbia. By getting to the lake early morning, we beat the crowds. It was everything that it is cracked up to be – a beautiful green lake, perfectly reflecting the glacier on the mountain above.

From there we headed back into Yoho to the viewpoint for the spiral railroad tunnel. When they built the Canadian Pacific Railroad through here, they had a 4.5% grade. It took 4 engines to push 15 freight cars up the mountain, and several trains were lost as runaways on the downhill direction. Eventually, they copied a Swiss design for two spiral tunnels, and lowered the slope to a 2.5% grade. You can actually watch a train coming out of the tunnel while the back end is still going in. The entry and exit are 15 meters above or below each other, depending on which way you are traveling.

Our next stop was Takakkaw Falls. At 254 meters (about 838 feet), it is one of the higher falls in Canada. Once again, the pictures do not do this falls justice. In the Cree native language Takakkaw means magnificent, and it really is. From just below the falls, we watched some kayakers put in to the Yoho River.

By the time we arrived at Emerald Lake, it was time for our picnic lunch. This is another beautiful, green lake, but there were too many tourists to really enjoy it. Besides, we had been at Lake Louise in the morning. On the same side road, however, we saw a natural bridge that was part of a truly interesting waterfall on the Kicking Horse River.

Our last stop for the day was Wapta Falls. It is a 2.4 km (1.5 miles) hike to the falls. This is a large, high volume waterfall, but the view from below the falls is blocked by a rock embankment. This is probably due to large rocks breaking off as the waterfall works its way upstream – part of the natural erosion process. The real treat of the day was the hike back to the parking lot. We saw a black bear just a few yards from the trail. Fortunately, it was busy eating, had no cubs, and was totally uninterested in us and others on the trail.

We stopped in Golden for some groceries, but all of Golden was shut down. The power was out as far south as Radium Hot Springs and Invermere, and northeast into Yoho National Park. We have no power in the RV park, so we ran the generator to fix dinner. The story is that a transformer and some lines are out. They expect us to have power by 11:00 pm, but we will probably not wait up to see.
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