We bid farewell to the hummingbirds at the Canyon Hot Springs this morning around 8am and had to hit the road heading for Banff. And wouldn’t you know it – it was raining all day. We only had about a four hour drive but there was lots to stop and see on the way and we didn’t want to let the weather literally rain on our parade/road trip… you get the drift.
First stop was the Hemlock Grove in Glacier National Park that we missed yesterday. Now at the risk of sounding completely challenged at biology, I am prepared to fess up that I thought Hemlock was a plant or a shrub or even a moss… not a big fuck off tree! The Hemlock Grove looked a lot like most of the other rainforest areas that we had seen but with one slightly different fir looking tree in amongst it. Nice to wander around the rainforest in the rain though and very thankful I bought my soft shell with me… it’s bloody cold up in these mountains.
Next stop was in Yoho National Park where we drove in to see Emerald Lake, again in the rain 🙂 The Lake is very pretty and I imagine when the sun is out that it would be a very bright deep green colour. Today for us though, one of the prettiest bits was watching the rain make drops and ripples in the smooth surface of the lake. The clouds were down low over mountains and there was no sign of the rain letting up any time soon so we stood around in the rain for a while admiring the view and wondering if people ever went swimming there, as there was lots of canoes lined up available for hire, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine anyone wanting to actually get in the freezing cold alpine lakes.
As we were heading back from Emerald Lake, I saw a sign for Yoho’s Natural Bridge hike. It would have been a good little hike, two hours and relatively flat apparently but we decided we weren’t going to attempt it give it was raining pretty steadily and it was sooo cold outside the car. But just on spec, I decided to pull into the trail departure area to see if you could get a view of Kicking Horse River… and I am so glad I did. There was a few look out areas where you got a great view of the river, the glacial waters were crashing through the rocks and down a huge waterfall that came out under a natural stone archway into a pool that had huge LOGS eddying around at the bottom of the waterfall. I mean these weren’t twigs floating around in the water, they were full on trees that were swirling at the bottom of the falls showing you just how much water was coming over and how strong it was. The noise was fantastic and the deep blue/grey water off the glaciers was impressive. Again reminded me of the glacier areas I have travelled in New Zealand in fact the entire river looked like the braided rivers of the Canterbury Plains… love this place and it’s natural beauty. The rain can piss off though 😉 Anyway, it was a gorgeous altogether.
After that we head onwards towards Banff with only one more stop – Lake Louise. You know I think that might be one of the benefits of being a royal princess, the shit they name after you. This one was named after some Princess Louise (can’t remember the period, late 1800s when the area was being originally explored I think), and is a huge big mountain lake with lovey snow capped peaks surrounding it. I imagine it too is fucking freezing but that is neither here nor there as I had no intentions of getting into it. Took a few photos, very briefly wished for a wider angle lens, and had a look at the famous Fairmont Hotel which is right on the edge of the lake.
Didn’t take a photo of the hotel, but here is one the internet prepared earlier…
After Lake Louise we headed towards Banff. The highways out this way are in good nick considering the horrid weather conditions they have to endure half the year. We had a pretty quick drive with only one distraction… a whole pile of cars stopped on the side of the road in either direction. At first I thought there must have been an accident but it seems everyone was stopped to gawk at a bear on the other side of the wildlife fence. We tried to find somewhere to turn around so we could gawk at him too 😉 but there were no opportunities for turning around on the highway for about 3kms. So we shall have to keep our eyes peeled for bears at a later stage.