Monday 7th September – Yoho National Park

Well, it was just as well we didn’t plan to walk to Lake Agnes Tea House today. It has been raining for much of the day and has turned quite cold. The higher peaks have a new dusting of snow on them but there is none where we are. It has been 5 degrees for most of the day which is quite different to the 32 we had in Vancouver 10 days ago.

Our drive this morning was on The Trans Canadian Highway 1, past Lake Louise and on to Field, a cute little railway town just across the British Columbian border and near Yoho National Park. We called into Field for a coffee and then went on to Emerald Lake – another beautiful highland lake being fed by glaciers. The rain stopped long enough for us to take a short walk around the lake edge. On our way out from the lake, the rain got heavier and we got a little wet when we called into Natural Bridge where the river actually runs through a tunnel of rock across the river.

When we got to Takakkaw Falls it was really raining. By the time we had walked the 0.5 km to the falls, we were quite wet. I guess it was worth it though as the falls were pretty spectacular and some of the highest in Canada – again being fed by a glacier (the Daly Glacier).

We called into the viewpoint of the spiral tunnels on the way back to Lake Louise. We had gone through the tunnels in the Rocky Mountaineer last week. They are a pretty impressive engineering fete considering they were built in 1909. There are two spirals where the trains cross over themselves. We could see one of the spirals from our vantage spot. We sat in the car and had crackers and cheese for lunch waiting for the rain to stop and a train to come along. Amazingly both happened and we were able to see the train crossing over itself. They have very long trains here – well over 100 trucks. The back end of the train was still going into the bottom tunnel as the front of the train was coming out of the top tunnel and crossing over the train going in – amazing!!

We are now at HI-Lake Louise. Our room is quite small but more than adequate and we are in the lounge at the moment relaxing – well I’m typing this and Jill is doing her journal. Sun is just coming out so hopefully a fine day tomorrow.