Anniversary Trip: Yoho National Park

Finally!  The last post from our trip to the Canadian Rockies for our first anniversary!!  Let's just forget the fact that in two months exactly we'll be celebrating our 2nd anniversary.  It'll be our secret that it took me 10 months to get these photos edited and organized, okay?

For this last post I'll share photos from Yoho National Park, which I think is the lesser known of the Candian Rocky Mountain parks surrounding Banff.  Banff and Jasper are definitely the big two.  Whereas Banff and Jasper National Parks are located in Alberta, CA, Yoho National Park is actually in British Columbia, CA.

One attraction in Yoho is the spiral train tunnels which loop, out and around the mountains.  We checked it out, though neither Antoine and myself are really into trains so we were a little underwhelmed. 

Right near the spiral tunnels and along the main highway that runs through Yoho are the Takakkaw Falls, so we decided to check them out.  Unfortunately the higher road that led to the falls was closed due to a rock slide, but we still enjoyed the drive halfway up, especially since the weather was so lovely.

The milky color of the river is caused by glacial silt from the Yoho River. 

Here's where I learned that little fun fact about the glacial silt...

Where Yoho River (on the left) and Kicking Horse River (right) meet.

Next we decided to head further south in Yoho and check out the Wapta Falls.  Unfortunately, this is pretty much the only time during our trip where the weather turned dreary.  But we armed ourselves with our raincoats and went off to explore the falls...

The hike to the falls was a little long and soggy, but it made for some really nice photos of the greenery and fungus along the trail.

By the time we made it to the falls it was pretty much full on gloomy, but waterfalls are still cool, even if the weather is lousy, right?!

Luckily by the time we made it back to Field, BC, which is right near Emerald Lake (where we were staying) the pretty weather had returned so we took advantage and checked out Natural Bridge.  Natural Bridge is located right next to Emerald Lake and is literally a bridge of rock that's been carved out by the river and falls.

You can kind of see where the bridge is in this photo (though I apologize that it's not the best angle).  The bridge kind of forms the shape of an N with the river flowing quite vigorously out from underneath it.

And that's pretty much the end of our first anniversary trip!  We spent our last full day in CA in Banff getting souvenirs and eating Beaver Tails, obviously.  It was an incredible trip and a perfect way for us to spend our first anniversary as two married folks! 

Sadly, this year we don't have a fabulous trip in the works for our anniversary, instead we're saving up money to remodel our bathroom!  That will be a very different but equally awesome anniversary present to ourselves.  But we've got something special in the works for our third anniversary that I'm super excited about....but more on that later!

Anniversary Trip: Emerald Lake

We're almost done with anniversary trip posts.  Yay!  Just this one and then one more to go and you don't have to see anymore pictures of the Canadian Rockies...until the next time we go back, because we seriously love us some Canada!  In fact, I'm actually traveling to Montreal in May for work, which I am super stoked about.

Anyway, back to our anniversary trip...  The last place we stayed at during our trip (besides the awesome Hotel Clique near the airport, seriously so nice that I wish there were more of these hotels throughout Canada and the US!) was the Emerald Lake Lodge in Yoho National Park.  I really wanted to stay in a lodge within one of the parks, and I was especially drawn to Emerald Lake Lodge because it kind of reminded me of Lake Crescent Lodge in Olympic National Park (which Antoine and I loved and you can read more about here).   When I was reading reviews from Emerald Lake Lodge I was surprised that they were very mixed.  People raved about the surrounding area and the beauty of the lake, but said that everything else was kind of lack luster.  Antoine and I decided to give it a shot and see what we thought...

To say that the lake was gorgeous would be a gigantic understatement!  A pristine, tranquil lake, surrounded by mountains, what's not to like?  We had absolutely no complaints about the lake itself.  The lodge on the other hand did leave a little to be desired.

The fact that the lodge and cabins sit on a little piece of land in the middle of the lake that isn't really even accessible by car, except for the lodge's shuttle?  Cool as hell!  The run-down nature of the cabins themselves and the fact that none of the cabins had tv or wifi...not as cool.  I get the idea that when you're surrounded by nature you should enjoy it and not need a tv.  But Antoine and I are the type of people, who after a long day of hiking and exploring like to veg out and take load off (in front of a tv)...especially near the end of our trip.  But that was poor planning on my part.

Our cabin was on the left and upstairs and overlooked the more secluded side of the lake.  A little run down, but not horrible.  It did have a nice little balcony to sit on and enjoy the lake, however the bugs were pretty horrendous, so we didn't use it to its full potential!

The side of the lake that our cabin looked out on, though this is not our view.

There were canoe rentals, but they weren't available just yet as it was too early in the season.

Would I recommend the lodge/cabins to people?  Eh.  The cabins were definitely run down, the food was ok (though expensive, just like all park lodges like that), and the no tv/no wifi was kind of a killjoy for us.  But the lake itself...beautiful and totally worth a visit and a little hike around it (or canoe rental, if it's in season)!