Emerald Lake, Moraine Lake, Banff

Another early morning wake up call to get to Emerald Lake in Yoho national Park before parking filled up. We arrived at 6:30 and by 6:45 the parking lot was full. We enjoyed the last of the sunrise colors above the beautiful glassy lake reflection. Glacial silt reflects blue spectrum colors more than any other, which is why it’s such a bright turquoise color along with many lakes in this area of the world. We hiked around the lake and were rewarded with views of a bald eagle and a few loons with a baby (sound on for the video to hear it’s beautiful call). Then it was time to hop in line for the canoes rental which opened at 10am. Canoeing on any of these lakes requires a lot of patience and waiting but is well worth the effort and cost with the peacefulness and beauty found in the middle and far ends of the lake. You cannot bring your own watercraft to this lake since the national park system is trying to decrease invasive species from entering different lakes. We loved the canoe experience we had and headed out before the area became too crowded.

We stopped at Morants Curve on the way home, a famous stretch of the CPR (Canada pacific railway) that features a S curve along the turquoise bow river with the mountains in the background. When the CPR was trying to entice visitors to come to the area, a photographer by the name of Nicholas Morant was hired to take beautiful photos. His capture of the freight trains at this spot was one of his most successful and the site is named after him. The trains run in either direction along this part of the single track every 15-20 minutes or sometimes every few hours.

We had our most brutal early wake up call. I don’t know if I’ve set my alarm for a number beginning with “1” much in my life, and I don’t really intend to anytime soon. Moraine lake sunrise shuttles are really hard to secure so we felt we should at least try since we had a second shuttle secured through Parks Canada. It stormed most of the night and as we were getting ready for the day, but we forged ahead hoping the weather would clear enough for some sunrise light. It cleared to the point of not raining (which we were thankful for), but not enough for any pictures of the mountains lighting up like they did Friday. It just made us more thankful for our Friday experience. We originally planned on hiking Sentinel Pass at Moraine Lake while we were there, but with how much it rained I was nervous what the steep terrain would be like so we nixed it and headed to Lake Louise via the connector shuttle. On the way we spotted our 12th black bear along the road! We love seeing all the wildlife here.

We arrived to Lake Louise at 7:30 to blue skies and after dropping off our permit and inflating our kayak, we headed down to the lakeshore for her maiden voyage. As we walked down to the lake it was clouding up a bit, and by the time we arrived at the lakeshore again at 8:15 it was foggy. No big deal for us, we had witnessed the majesty of the mountains already and really just wanted to kayak. As we set her in the water, a peal of thunder sounded. We paused and discussed what we should do, and decided to at least get on the water for a little while as maybe it was a stray thunder. Within the first few minutes we quickly realized a severe storm was cresting the mountains with frequent lightning so we turned back. We quickly returned to the dock and were able to get out of the water as the lightning grew near continuous and sheets of rain came through. We were prepared with our rain jackets on and phone in the ziplock bag but so many other people were not. So we headed back to the truck with the kayak to reassess the weather and realized the storm was only growing as it hit the mountains. Our maiden voyage lasted approximately 4 minutes but we had a good time while it lasted 😂 the storm was also hitting Moraine Lake, and if we had decided to go ahead with the hike we would have been in a very dangerous situation. We were very thankful we stayed safe overall.

After cleaning up and drying off we headed to Banff with Mickey. We left Lake Louise to 50 degree weather and still raining. We should have checked the weather in Banff because it was almost 80 and sunny. This is why you should always have layers in the mountains. We made our way to Park Distillery since we knew they were big dog friendly, but didn’t realize only a few tables were allowed to have dogs at them. They had issues with servers tripping over dogs in the past, so it made sense that they designated certain tables to avoid that. It made for a perfect spot once one opened up, and Mickey received lots of attention and love as always. He also really enjoyed sniffing out the window along the Bow Valley parkway, an area labeled as a “wildlife corridor” so I’m sure he encountered lots of virgin smells. Overall, not the day or activities we originally planned but a great day nonetheless.

Another day we headed to Johnston canyon by 6:30am and saw a beautiful bull elk on the way. We were only one of a few vehicles in the parking lot and the entire way to the lower and upper falls we only saw 2 other people. This is one of the busiest areas in all of Banff and for good reason. A series of cat walks takes you along a river through a gorge and past several cascades along with the falls. By the time we finished enjoying the serenity and beauty and started making our way back, there was a steady flow of people coming in. Hundreds arrive by 8 and as we left the parking lot was full and cars were lining up on the road by the dozens. Thank goodness we are good with the early alarms to really enjoy the natural beauty in peace and quiet.

From there we headed towards Banff again and were lucky enough to see 2 more elk in a field of wild flowers. They kept their eyes on a deer at the edge of the forest as well and we enjoyed watching all 3 for several minutes. Then we drove along Vermillion Lakes and up to Mount Norquay. As soon as we pulled up to the top of the mountain Dave spotted another bear. At first since we were so far away we thought it was a grizzly based on color and size. After analyzing the photos however it seems to be a cinnamon black bear (black bears can actually come in a variety of colors including several shades of brown). This makes it our 13th black bear of this trip!

After enjoying some food and souvenir shopping at Banff we headed back to our campground at Lake Louise and spotted our 4th elk of the day, another bull! This one was at the crest of a hill so we didn’t get to watch it for long as it moved along to the far side.

We stopped again at Morant’s curve and waited for the train to come by. The first train was heading the “wrong” direction again and was about 25 minutes after we pulled in. We waited for the next train hoping it would be from the other direction and this one took almost 50 minutes! But it was heading the right direction for a beautiful site and was worth the wait. We chatted with a few people during our times at the pullout and it really was a beautiful day to pass the time. When we returned to our campground we found that a hail storm had come through and dumped a good amount of it. Luckily we didn’t have any major damage to the camper or solar panel, phew! Czytaj więcej