Canadian Rockies Trip: Day 8 (Yoho National Park)

Friday: July 30th

I woke up at sunrise to go shoot the alpenglow on Mt Lawrence Grassi
which is right next to Canmore.  The light was beautiful that morning
and I got some interesting pictures. 

The plan for the day was to go to Yoho national park, see some of the
sights and then do a hike there.  We had heard a lot about the iceline
trail and we were hoping to do it.


Spiral Tunnels: The Canadian pacific railways routes their trains
through Kicking horse pass in Yoho national park.  Since the grade on
the pass is very steep and trains can not really do switchbacks the
railway has built a pair of spiral tunnels which are like spiral ramps
that you see in parking lots except that the tunnels are built into
the mountain side.  We saw the tunnels from Highway 1, but did not get
to see trains taking the tunnel.

Takakkaw Falls

Takakkaw Falls: This is one of the highest waterfalls in Canada and is
a beautifu sight from below.  Unfortunately for us, it began to rain
once we were at the falls.  We decided to cancel our hiking plans and
instead move don to see the Emerald Lake.

Flower Pot Next to Emerald Lake

Emerald Lake lived up to its name in its color.  It is a beautiful
lake with a lot of similarity to the Maligne lake in that there are
boat houses and resorts on its shore including a restaurant named Cilantro.
From the shore of the lake you can look up to the Burgess Shale quarry which
is a world famous fossil site.  Since reading Stephen Jay Gould's book 'Wonderful Life'
about the Burgess Shale fossils, I had always wanted to go and see the
quarry.  But on this visit, we did not make the guided trip to the
quarry; nevertheless the names of the landmarks in Yoho reminded me of
the famous fossils (Opabinia, Yohoia, Odaraia, Wiwaxia etc.) from the
shale.

Mt Rundle and Vermilion Lake at Sunset

We returned from Yoho and then spent some time in Banff townsite.
Banff is a pretty town which has been heavily commercialized.  The
main street through Banff (Banff Ave) is a great place to people watch
and just hang out.  Afterwards we went out to Vermilion lakes to
photograph the sunset.  The sunset was very pretty and a few other
people joined us there as well.