WATERTON NP
The weather cleared up and the park looked as beautiful as ever. This park is a continuation of Glacier NP and is merged with it in the united International Peace Park. We went to Waterton Village and climbed up the steep but short Bear’s Hump trail (the start of this trail is to the right of the visitor’s centre), enjoyed seeing the Prince of Wales Hotel, which is scenically located between the upper and middle Waterton lakes, and went further towards Fairmont Hot Springs, Kootenai NP and Yoho NP.
MARBLE CANYON
On the way to Yoho NP we stopped off in Marble Canyon.
YOHO NP
In my opinion, one of the most beautiful and unspoiled places in the Rocky mountains.
Takakkaw Falls
Emerald lake
This is our hotel, The Great Divide Lodge, next to Field (Yoho NP).
Well, this was actually our view of the old barn from the window.
And this is the view from the other window of a passing train.
LAKE LOUISE
On of the disappointments about this trip was the fact that the really beautiful places listed as ‘must see’s’ in the guidebooks were swarming with people. The presence of hectic crowds and all the infrastructure that goes along with that – tourist shops, jam-packed parking lots that stretch for kilometres on end, food huts and the rental of everything on earth completely kills the beauty of these places. This phenomenon of Lake Louise and other tourist hotspots in the Rocky Mountains lies in the fact that these places had already begun to develop due to Canadian railway marketers at the end of the 19th century. Laying the railway tracks to strongholds and having built hotels like the Chateau Lake Louise and Banff Springs Hotel, the promoters of that time had to ensure returns on their investment. The marketing campaigns work to this day, although in the national parks of British Columbia there are a lot of quiet lakes – all twins – with the same coloured water and the same mountains in the background.
LAKE O` HARA
One of the least busy places is Lake O’Hara in Yoho NP. It’s not simple to get there, but it’s possible. There are 3 routes: firstly, you can get there by foot from the parking lot (11 km one way, the same on the way back, staying the night is forbidden). Secondly, you can book the sinfully expensive Lake O’Hara Lodge right on the lakeshore (reserve a year ahead in summer and autumn). Thirdly, you can get a day-use or camping permit for the lake, and then a shuttle bus will take you directly to the lake in the morning and take you back at the end of the day.
The shuttle leaves for the lake at 8.30 and 10.30, and takes people back at 9.30, 11.30, 16.30 and 18.30 (the latter only in summer).
You can only get a permit exactly 3 months before the date you plan to visit and ONLY by telephone +1 (250) 343-64-33. So, in order to get a permit to visit the lake on the 2nd of September you should call this number on the 2nd of June at 8 o’clock in the morning, local time. By 9 in the morning the permits have usually all already been handed out. And of course, the phone is always busy. We miraculously got through at 8.40 and only managed to get a place on the second bus at 10.30 (the first bus at 8.30 was already completely full up). On the phone you have to give information about the number of people, your email and credit card info. The cost of the permit is 15 Canadian dollars per person plus a small service fee. More detailed information can be found here: http://www.pc.gc.ca/yoho
There is one other way: get to the parking lot about 15 minutes before the bus leaves and ask the ranger if anyone has failed to show up. If so, you have to pay for a permit and take their place on the bus. In high season there’s often a queue of people waiting for an extra ticket for the 8.30 bus, so you have a better chance of getting on the one at 10.30.
So, we ended up going to Lake O’Hara twice. The first time was with a permit that we got 3 months before. To our disdain we got very unlucky with the weather, and it was rainy, snowy, foggy and bad visibility the whole day with just a few breaks, which made for a miserable landscape.
A couple of days later, passing parking lots of shuttles at about 10 a.m., we spontaneously decided to go and talk to the ranger. It turns out that she had two free places and we managed to get to the lake in beautiful, bright, sunny weather.
Feel the difference.
A lot of trails start from Lake O’hara. You can loop round some of them and in 5-6 hours do one of the prettiest hikes in the whole of the Rocky Mountains region. Most of the trails are in good condition and look like paths in a park. But there is the so-called Alpine Route (designated with special yellow and blue signs), up which only experienced hikers are recommended to go (but not in wet or windy weather).
This is what the Alpine route looks like.
We did one of the routes: Lake Oesa, Yukness – Ledges (Alpine Route) – Opabin Lake – Mary Lake.
In the beginning, having gone up from the lake along the path, we passed a small nameless lake.
We walked around Oesa lake.
We got to Opabin Plateau along the Alpine Route.
And from up there we could see two lakes: turquoise O’Hara and green Mary.
Leaving British Columbia without driving down the famous Icefields Highway between Banff and Jasper would have been simply impossible.
The beginning of the road from Banff.
Bow Lake
Peyto Lake Viewpoint
Parker Ridge trail – a small hike (5.6 km uphill to the glacier):
Somewhere halfway down the road is a place that is the border between the Banff and Jasper parks, the provinces of Alberta and BC, and also the continental divide between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
If you look carefully, behind the lake on the right third of the photo you can see a dark spot – that’s a grizzly, busily dragging his paws, presumable having seen something to eat.
Here he is close-up.
Starts to gallop.
Then freezes, tracking someone.
Then the bear hid away back into the forest and we didn’t get to see the end of the story.
Somewhere in the middle, Icefields Highway intersects with Route 11.
We took the 11 for about 50km towards Abraham lake and only met a few oncoming vehicles. The landscapes along the road were great, too.
After the mountains I always feel like going to the sea, so we included a short trip to Vancouver Island in our programme. From the Rocky Mountains with one night in Revelstoke we got to the Tsawwassen – Nanaimo ferry crossing and in 2 hours we were on the island.
Because we had 2 days left in total, we decided not to rush around the island, and went up to Tofino and stopped there.
The road that goes from one coast across to the other is very beautiful.
This is the place where the local youth hang out, chasing adrenalin by jumping in the water in very dangerous places.
There are deep mud holes on the riverbed – pools, filled with water, into which you have to accurately jump.
UCLULET
A small fishing hamlet.
The Wild Pacific Trail starts from the lighthouse for 2.6km, going through the bush of the tropical forest and along the shore around a small peninsula. For the first kilometre from the coast the sun shone brightly, but from hereon there was a kingdom of clouds, wind and the depressing call of the lighthouse with its identical intervals.
TOFINO
The mist closed in on this town, too. It clearly reflected the state of mind of the local inhabitants.
But not all of them.
What is there to do here? Well, you can walk along the city beach, Tonquin, for example.
Surely that’s the Dad from the Simpsons? No, seems it’s just a fire hydrant.
You can grab lunch in the restaurant of the same name, recently opened in the Ice House (a commercial refrigerator, providing the trawler fishermen with ice). The local oysters, halibut and wild salmon were outstanding.
In spite of the tourists nowadays, the town has continued to be a working fishing port.
View of the port from the hotel (Tofino Motel Habourview).
In the morning the mist cleared and we woke up in a different world. This is what the coast looks like on a sunny morning.
We decided to take a boat around the bay in search of whales and other sea mammals. We saw a whale (one), but not that many other sea creatures or birds.
It’s a sharp contrast with Alaska, let alone Spitzbergen, where the sea is teaming with life, like a fish soup. Although it might have just not been the right season.
After our trip around the bay, we went back to Nanaimo Departure Bay and on the ferry (reservations are recommended for vehicles, even on weekdays) we sailed into Horseshoe Bay (Western Vancouver), and from there straight to the airport.
Although I already spoilt the end of the trip at the very beginning, the rules of the genre of the mini-essay dictate that I have to do this again at the end.
So, because of this I’ll let you down: we enjoyed it here, we flew home, but promised to return.
