Blue, Green, and Beautiful on the Lakes of Banff and Yoho!

Nicholson, BC → Lake Louise, AB
278.7 km (173.2 mi)

More 2024 Adventures

Let’s paddle, everyone!

This morning, we got up and hit the road directly, since none of us wanted to spend too much more time in this den of mosquitoes than we had to. We motored up into Golden and eastward along the Trans-Canada Highway toward our next destination, Moraine Lake, one of the most picturesque and popular places in Banff National Park! It was so popular, in fact, that the lake’s parking lot is completely closed off for the summer and only accessible by shuttle bus! Ours was set for 10:40 AM, which gave us time to park dubiously in a spot behind the Lake Louise Lodge, eat breakfast, and head into the mountains!

We had two hours to make the most of our visit to Moraine Lake, and so we, like practically every other visitor there, trudged our way to the top of the Éboulement, or Rockpile, for the views. It was a short jaunt made long by the narrow trail and hundreds of visitors of all ages and nationalities squeezing past each other to get those perfect photos! Luckily, no one seemed to be aware that the entire trail was lined with Northern gooseberry bushes, so I had myself a very nice snack while waiting my turn to pass up the trail.

Once atop the Rockpile, it was clear why so many folks were practically doing battle for a glimpse. The view was just spectacular! The early afternoon light made this glacier-fed lake, named for the glacial deposits all around it, absolutely radiant! There wasn’t enough space to really enjoy it, though. It was a nightmare crowd, and so after taking some photos of Ross and Terri to match their last visit here, ten years ago, we headed down to get away from the throngs and connect with that crystal blue water!

And we were in luck! There were canoes galore ready to rent by the hour. Despite the hundreds of folks mobbing the trails up, down, and around the lake, there were not many of them pushing out onto that water. This was our chance!

Wow! Our entrance into the Valley of the Ten Peaks was like entering a magnificent natural cathedral, with Mount Bowlen, Tonsa Peak, and Mount Perren making up the backdrop! It was this view that Samuel Allen recorded in 1894, spreading like wildfire and making what he called Lake Heejee the massive tourist draw it is today. Out on the water, though, with neither wind nor bugs nor tourists to impede us, we glided along effortlessly with uninterrupted natural beauty on all sides.

Reaching the end of the lake, we stopped paddling and drifted a while, soaking in the warm patches of sun and enjoying the dappled colors, the blues of the glacial flour and the greens of the forest creeping up on the edges of the lake’s namesake moraines! Up at the very tops of the peaks, the glaciers that feed his lake were still visible, barely, though it’s anyone’s guess for how much longer! On this afternoon, though, we got to feel that we were stuck in a time bubble, where the chaos of the world could run free all around us, and i was just lovely. But our rental was only an hour, which meant we had to return to the dock, and catch our shuttle bus back to the Lake Louise Lodge.

We weren’t going to visit Lake Louise today, even though it was close by, choosing instead to head out of town and visit our third national park in the Canadian Rockies, called Yoho! Not in any way affiliated with pirates, Yoho National Park is named for the Cree word meaning amazement! We were going to finish up our afternoon on the shores of its crown jewel, Emerald Lake!

Like Moraine Lake, Emerald Lake is fed by glaciers whose water trickles down from the surrounding peaks, made up of the famous Burgess Shale! We could see the shale deposits way up high, but to reach them would have required a guided tour lasting seven and a half to eleven hours! We just didn’t have time for it on this trip, but gosh, it would be so cool to explore these 505 million year old rocks, containing evidence of an event called the Cambrian Explosion, the “sudden” (millions of years long) appearance of all the major animal body plans still around today, which left behind the very first fossils! With even soft-bodied animals like worms preserved here, this UNESCO-honored site paints an amazing picture of all of our collected ancestors!

We did a quarter circuit of Emerald Lake, enjoying the bright colors of the water and the late-bloom fireweed along the shores before enjoying a late afternoon poutine snack in the Emerald Lake Lodge. Despite all the crowds we fought to make it happen, today turned out to be an easygoing, low-impact day of enjoying pure beauty, with simple strolls and fine snacks, including an abundance of thimbleberries along the edge of the trail!

With snack time finished, we headed north, out of cell phone range, to the Rampart Creek Campground, where we had to navigate to our spot from memory since all the booking information was still on everyone’s phones! Luckily, the campground had a bulletin board confirming which space was reserved by which group, so our memories had served us well! We were also surprised so see so many campfires burning in this campground. Fires are banned right now because of a major wildfire up north, which has devastated the town of Jasper! I didn’t see anyone enforcing the rules, though, and the smoke kept rising.

We camped right next to Rampart Creek, and so once we’d gotten settled, I strolled down past the caterpillar-covered willows to listen to the burbling water. As I did, I spotted some really whimsical looking plants growing on the banks! Whispy and puffy, they looked just like dandelions, but are a completely different flower in the rose family called a mountain-avens (genus Dryas)! Apart from looking super cool, they’re really important to the ecosystem because of how they bond with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, enriching the soil where they grow so other plants can grow too! Like dandelions, their seeds use their wispy achenes to spread on the wind, making new growth patches wherever they land!

Really, these Canadian Rockies are full of wonders, from gorgeous glacial lakes to the tiny wind-blown plant pioneers! As the sun set over the campground, we got ready to pay a visit to one of the features that fuels them all: the Columbia Ice Field! I better get to sleep, because there’s snow way I’m missing that!

See ya later, icy glacier!