We have beautiful views of the mountains and water around us on this short drive.
The signage is different than on most four-lane highways, as even here we should be bear-aware. We did see a black bear on the side of the road (besides the one pictured on the sign below), but didn't have time to snap a picture of the real one.
A tall fence tries to keep the wildlife off this highway that runs through the national park. But in order for the animals to roam freely through the park, they have built animal crossing bridges over the highway. These bridges were an experiment in Banff, and they have found that the animals do use them to walk over the highway to relocate to other areas on the other side safely. They are landscaped nicely and make lovely additions to the freeway.
We read that there are six different animal bridges here in Banff, but more surprisingly we found out there were more than thirty underground tunnels for wildlife crossings. They are harder to see, but we finally got used to spotting these tunnels that are preferred by smaller animals and bears.
We arrived at Lake Louise campground where we'll be staying for a week. In this electric-only site we are glad that once again Mark got the power to work with our ailing electric transfer switch. We soon found out that the train tracks are very close. We also found that the speeding trains love to blow their whistles loud and long all day and night as they cross the busy intersection nearby. It might be a long week here at our new campground. The good news is that the long-stemmed daisy wildflowers are at peak bloom right beside those train tracks.
The camp sites here are unique in that the RVs are side-by-side between rows of trees.
Only hard-sided RVs are allowed in this campground as we are in a grizzly-bear corridor. They enforce a no-food-left-unattended rule in our campground. The tent sites are down the road, inside an electric fence and across an electrified cattle guard to discourage the bears from visiting their sites. The sign warns that this is an electrified fence, or in French that would be "cloture electrifiee." We're working on our foreign language skills, as most signs are posted in both English and French.
We have sunshine for the first time in several days. So even though it's a moving day we have to take advantage of the weather and do some exploring. When we stop by the ranger station in the village we notice that they greet us with "Hello, Bonjour!" Again we're working on our French skills. We found that everyone else was out trying to enjoy the nice weather too. The parking lots are all full, and the park shuttles are backed up with wait times over two hours. So we decided to get out of the Lake Louise area and head west in the car to Yoho National Park about 30 minutes away. Even though they have crowds, at least we can find a parking place to see Emerald Lake.
We took a stroll near the lake to take in the nice weather and the beautiful emerald waters of Emerald Lake.
After wearing sweatshirts and jackets the last couple days, it is interesting to see people swimming in the water today.
We saw a hike to Hamilton Waterfall was just 0.7 kilometers, (but of course we walked further than that just looking for the trail head). We headed up the trail, and we are finding that it is pretty easy to get away from the crowds if you start a trail with some elevation gain. We were glad to see a family coming around a curve that pointed the way to the hidden waterfall. It was quite a scramble to get back to it, and we were glad to have their advice. The water falls through the mountain and pours out of a rock wall at an odd angle that doesn't make much sense in the pictures we took at the Hamilton Waterfall.
Another good stop in Yoho National Park is the natural bridge, formed by the turbulent waters of Kicking Horse River. You can barely see Mark with his arms raised far behind the rock bridge.
The water swirls from the river into a toilet-bowl-like cauldron before it sweeps under that natural bridge.
The mint green water is colored from the glacial silt that also lends the color to Emerald Lake.
We have noticed a good amount of train traffic in our area, even though we wish those tracks were further away from our bedroom. The railroad has been an important part of life for this region for many years. When building the Canadian railroad over Kicking Horse Pass, the engineers couldn't keep the slope to the recommended 2% grade that trains prefer. After too many train crashes going too fast down-hill, and delays from trains going too slow up-hill, they knew something had to be done. Instead of blasting straight tunnels through the mountains, they actually built spiral tunnels inside the mountain. So the train entered into the mountain and made a complete circle at a 2% grade down until it exited out of the mountain just below. That's happening inside the huge Cathedral mountain in front of us.
That's hard to explain and even harder to take a picture. But if we zoom in closer, you can see the colored train cars on the left entering the tunnel. The long train is mostly inside that mountain, and you can barely see the black oil cars in the same train exiting from the lower tunnel. So the train is going downhill inside the mountain and therefore keeping the grade through the pass at the 2% that is safe.
Our last stop of the day was at the bakery in Lake Louise Village. At our first Canadian campground (about three weeks ago) our neighbors helped us with a list of local foods we had to try before we left their country. Something called "namaino" was on our list. We finally found this yummy coconut/custard/chocolate dessert today. It was as good as they described.
We visited Lake Louise for a few hours with our guests last week, but today we checked with the very busy national park personnel to get some advice on how best to see all that this area has to offer over the next week while we're looking forward to seeing more of Banff National Park. On this beautiful day, the Lake Louise area has too many guests from all over the world. We're going to bed early, as it looks like we will need to be up before dawn to beat the crowds!
I will never make a trip such as yours so thank you very much for sharing it with us readers. What a great time. Thanks!no
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