Yoho National Park

We drove from Cobble Hill, BC, via the Nanaimo ferry to Vancouver and to Kamloops, beating the forest fires that are presently ravishing Kalona and the Okanagan Valley. The route went up the Fraser River canyon and once we got to Kamloops Bob played disc golf on the longest course in B.C. We got up early headed east on Canada 1 (the TransCanada highway). All day the scenery was spectacular; starting with Shuswap Lake, Revelstoke National Park (where we crossed the Columbia River for the second time on the trip), Glaciar National Park, on our way to Golden where we crossed the Columbia River for the third time. We ended up at Chancellor Peak Camp Ground, just inside Yoho National Park on the banks of the Kicking Horse River, which runs fast, wide and green and under Chancellor Peak (3280 m). We decided to take a short 4.8 km hike to Wapta Falls on the Kicking Horse River. While we were hiking it started to thunder and pour, and although we had our waterproof jackets, our pants and shoes got soaking wet. The view above is of Wapta Falls (which means river in the Nadoka language of the Stoney people) in the pouring rain. The structure in front of the falls is a large piece of rock. We ended up hanging our wet clothes inside Snoopy, not leaving much room for us. However, we were grateful for the dry space to cook, eat and sleep as it continued to rain most of the night.

The next morning promised better weather and we headed to Emerald Lake and the 11 km hike (with 850 m of vertical rise) to Hamilton Lake. We started out flat and then switch-backed up and up through the forest. Finally we came out to this view and many other wonderful views over the Kicking Horse Valley and the snow covered peaks surrounding it. The mountain wild flowers were fabulous. Darwin got to chase sticks and we felt pretty good at making the ascent in 2 hours. When we got to the top, we ate lunch on the edge of Hamilton Lake.

This is a portion of Hamilton Lake which is on the dividing line between two different rock forms. On the left are the softer shale strata which but up to the horizonal strata of harder quartzite, limestone and dolomite of Mt. Carnahan. In the center is an anticline, the semi-circular strata. The lake really was this blue.

When we got down to Emerald Lake, aptly named as the above picture illustrates, we had a beer at a lovely patio on the lake while Darwin collapsed and attracted the photo journalists. The place was crawling with Japanese and German tourists. Our campground is also filled with quite an assortment of rental RVs filled with mainly Germans. Yoho is a Cree word meaning aw and wonder and it is an amazing place. There are 28 peaks over 3,000 meters and was the second national park in Canada. Yoho is also the location of the Burgess Shale which is a very important fossil site because the soft animals were burried in silt and thus werent scavenged and didn't decay, so the number of new species is amazing.