The park ranger advised us to take a kayak paddle on Emerald Lake in Yoto National Park. He told us it was a typical mountain lake about 40 minute drive from Lake Louise.
Along this drive, we saw a train appear at 3 different levels in a Spiral Train Tunnel going up a mountain pass. The pictures didn’t turn out at all. We also visited a place called Natural Bridge where the Kicking Horse river had cut a path through the rocks but left such a small opening on top that it appeared to be a bridge over the river.
Lake Louise was just beginning to thaw. We hiked around the length of it to the other end and back. Then, we drove to still frozen Lake Moraine where we found the level of the lake low and the periphery cluttered with logs and rocks left from last years high water period.
We were surprised by how small the village was compared to Banff.
After our unexpected paddle in the morning, we had a snack for lunch at Johnson Lake rather that the feast we had planned back at our camper. We hiked around Johnson Lake. It was an interesting habitat. We got some great pictures of a squirrel, a couple of trout in a stream and a deer.
We were pretty much exhausted. Fred took an hour nap when we got back to the camper about 3 pm.
After a wake up call, we went to the Upper Banff Hot Springs to relax. Then, we visited the Bow River Falls area – very nice when out of wind.
Banff is a great visit. The village is quaint and upscale much like Edgertown or Aspen. Looks like shoppers would love it. We came during a shoulder season between Skiers and Summer tourists. There were people around but it wasn’t crowded. Mostly for tents, the camping at Two Jacks Lake Campground looked wonderfull. We really liked the Tunnel Mountain campground for campering.
Milly has defined camping for tents, RVing for motor homes and trailers and campering for in between rigs like ours.
Tommorrow morning we will go to Lake Louise.
We were just notified by Alaskan Ferry officials that our departure from Prince Rupert has been delayed from June 2nd to June 4th. They also adjusted our inside passage itinerary to reduce our stays in Ketchikan and Wrangell by a day each. I changed our camping reservations accordingly. They asked if change was ok with us? We understand that these ferry schedules are subject to change and do change quite a bit. Yet, we didn’t expect shifts of days like this. Fortunately, this does impact picking up our daughter, Kim, at Ketchikan airport on June 5th. She is joining us for 3 weeks.
Fred’s plan for the morning called for us to paddle Johnson Lake, drive to Two Jacks Lake and the paddle up to Lake Minnewanka and then hike a trail before going back to camp for lunch. We took a scenic drive up to planned paddling areas. We decided to take the “short” paddle from Two Jakes Lake to Minnewanka. The wind was blowing fiercely toward Minnewanka. As Fred got upstream, he discovered a dam blocking our passage. Now he knows what is like to be a frustrated salmon.
We decided to return back via other side of Two Jacks Lake to keep out of wind. As we got down the lake, we decided to continue to the end of the lake. There we found a wide stream. We went down the stream. This trip down the steam was fantastic.
We failed to load water or food for this short paddle which turned out to be over 2 and a half hours.
We decided to hike around Johnson Lake when we got back from paddle.
It took about 2 hours to drive from Calgary to Banff. We are staying at the Mountain Tunnel Campground. After we set up our camper, we had lunch and went to the Banff Information Center. We discussed various possible kayaking and hiking locations as well as other activities at Banff/Lake Louise/Jasper with the park rangers. We found out that Lake Louise was still frozen as were the lakes north of there.
We decided to stay in Banff an extra day and limit our stay in Jasper to one night. Since the weather looked a bit threatening, we decided to take in the museums that were suggested by walking the village. The most intersting by far was the “Cave and Basin Historical Site”. This was the place where the sulfer hot springs were found that caused the creation of the first Canadian National Park here.
The pictures we are posting below show the views from the campsite that we were assigned. This was an unbeleiveably beautiful location from all sides. We are also showing views of the inside accomodations of our camper. Its small but sufficient for our needs. We feel blessed to be on this trip!
The weather did turn stormy by the time we got back to camp. We waited about 45 minutes and it was sunny. After we had dinner, the wind and rain came. We were told the weather was suppose to be good tomorrow. We’ll see.
