Canadian Rockies National Parks, What a Week

We arrived on a Sunday, and we leave on a Sunday.  What we have seen leaves us in awe…and tomorrow when we depart Banff, we have one of the most gorgeous drives there is, from Banff to Jasper.  What will it be like?  Well, it might be raining when we leave Banff…we “might” wake up to some snow, but it is too warm to stick around long…and the further north we go, the better the weather is suppose to be.  But I think we all have experienced the weather person’s “suppose to be” before.  Either way, we should make it to Hinton without problems, and we will enjoy the drive even if every mountain is shrouded in clouds.

We came to the area without any expectations.  We leave with many memories. Memories of Black Bears.  Memories of glacier waters which display the most extraordinary colors of blue and green – like turquoise and emeralds.  Memories of mountains that reach out all around, of forests full of wildlife, and some forests ravaged by fires fighting to regain their glory and life.  Memories of people from all over the world, most very polite, a few how are ignorant to those around them, most who are tourist as ourselves, in awe of that which abounds, busy taking pictures to share with those back home.

We will always have kind reflections of this place…even though something is telling us that we have many more memories that lay before us as we travel north to Alaska.  In two days this trip hits a new plateau…if all goes well, we will be at Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek.  There we will stay for a few days to savor the moment, to further plan our trip northward, and explore the town.  It has been 22 days since we left Sacramento…we have seen so much, and there is so much more that is before us.  As many others who have made this journey before us, we feel honored, we appreciate all that we have seen, we anticipate that which is ahead of us, and we have a gratitude to the almighty which neither words nor pictures can fully describe.

Cubs 2, Giant Bears 3 -- Yoho National Park

What does a family do when two GREAT baseball teams meet each other, and one spouse LOVES the Cubs, and the other spouse LOVES the Giants?  This weekend, there’s going to be one happy winner, and one unhappy looser in this household.  I am hoping that today's BEAR sightings are a good omen…we saw three VERY LARGE, kind of GIANT like bears, and only two itsy little cubs.  Hence, I predict the Giants will beat the Cubs 3-2…at least tonight.  All bear sightings were very far away…but hey, they were still bear sightings…all black bears.

    

Today took us northwest to Yoho National Park, named for a Cree expression of awe and wonder.  We traveled north up the Trans-Canadian Highway 1 to the Lake Louise area, then the highway turns west and quickly enters the Yoho National Park. It was at this border of the Banff National Park and Yoho National Park that the bears are spotted along the railroad tracks.  The one of the left was closer to us, and after I got four or five shots of it, I see the other bear (on right) about 200 feet further down the tracks.  Well, at least we won’t be shut out on bears today (although at this point it looks like the Giants are up 2-0 over the Cubs).

Our first stop in Yoho is Emerald Lake.  We left Banff around 8 am, stopping at a Tim Hortons for the first time for breakfast on our way out of town.  By the time we get to Emerald Lake, it is probably 10 am, and this is a three day Canadian weekend…but there are only around 40 people that we have to deal with, so it is not bad.  The lake is lovely.  You are able to walk along a bridge, which we and most of the others do, to get more views.

There are a group of people who have rented some canoes, and this activity is taking away the mirroring of the lake…but it also adds some character to the picture of the lake.

But on the other side of the bridge, there is a portion of the lake which remains undisturbed, and the Emerald River runs away from the lake in this area.

Here you can see that one of the canoes is way off to the left side of the lake.  Hard to see?  Well, I will blow that up just a bit…

There you go…and if you look real close up in that dirt area at the top of the picture, well, I think the Giants have just gone up 3-0, as I spot another bear.  I start spreading the word, and everyone tries to get a picture of this bear, way up there…but most don’t have cameras which can capture it…but we all see it.

Thank goodness our camera can just capture an ok shot of the bear. Definitely a big Giant bear…yep, Giants 3, Cubs 0.

And off mom goes into the woods…but hey, we are only in the 7th inning…

WHAT???  Hey Marcia, look..there is a CUB!   Score, Giants 3, Cubs 1.  Everyone is looking up at the mom which has quickly come back out of the woods with a little one in tow.

OH NO!!  Another one comes out of the woods.  I sure hope this momma bear didn’t have triplets!   Giants 3, Cubs 2.   That was the end of our bear sightings.  I can only hope that the game, being held in San Francisco tonight…starting in about 30 minutes from my writing this…turns out the same. 

Our next stop is at Natural Bridge, where the Kicking Horse River shoots through this natural bridge of a rock formation.

But my favorite view is a look down the river the other way.  I wish we had that much blue sky all day, but it was nice to have what we had.  The Emerald River runs into the Kicking Horse River just down stream from here.

We had passed by the Visitor Center on our way to Emerald Lake and Natural Bridges, so I went back to get a map and see what roads were open and closed.  Yoho road is closed until sometime in June.  The lady with a heavy French accent suggested a drive around the town of Field nearby, and then just a drive through the main road (Highway 1) of the park since we cannot do any hiking.  First thing we see as we enter the town is the welcoming crowd…a bunch of Columbian Ground Squirrels, and what a racket these guy make.

    

Field is located in British Columbia, and has a population of around 200 people who, they claim, come from all parts of Canada. 

    

These five pictures gives you a good idea of the type of structures in Field.  The town dates back to the late 1800’s, an avalanche wiped out much of the town and it moved to the safer south side of the river, and structures that survived were moved, new ones were built.  The many buildings that make up Field today date back as late as the early 1900’s.  The railroad water tower dates back to the 1930’s.

         

This is another area where the highway crosses over the Kicking Horse River.  A small part of the Yoho road is open and also crosses the river, and it is easy to get a good shot on the bridge since there is essentially no traffic with most of Yoho Road closed.

As we got back to Banff we could tell that the 3-day weekend had begun…the town was a buzz with tourist.  The RV park is filling up, but they have a restriction on the holding and use of Alcohol inside the park, so we expect it to be a quiet holiday weekend.  Not sure we will do much tomorrow as we plan to leave early on Sunday and have a nice drive through Jasper to the town of Hinton.