Bow Valley and Yoho National Park, Canada

The Lake Louise Campground was a perfect location to continue exploring the area. Day 2 and 3 we headed along the Bow Valley Parkway to Castle Junction and Yoho National Park in British Columbia.

If you’re a train enthusiast, then the Rocky Mountains are for you! Morant’s Curve is a scenic viewpoint of a dramatic bend along the Bow River where trains pass through the Rockies. Nicolas Morant, a photographer working for the Canadian Pacific Railway in the mid 20^th century, captured a picture of the train in the winter that was used to promote tourism to Western Canada. We could hear and see trains from our campsite and it seemed they came by quite regularly. The railroad doesn’t post a schedule of when the train comes by for security reasons, so you hang out with all the others waiting to get that iconic picture. Sometimes there isn’t much of a wait and sometimes, like Thursday you wait and wait and wait. Finally, we heard the train coming and everyone was ready…click, click, click, everyone was taking pictures. This particular train was coming from the east, everyone wanted one from the west. We went back the next day, waited for a short time with no luck and headed out. At the end of the day, after our time at Yoho we passed a train heading west, so instead of heading back to the campground we got to Morant’s Curve just moments before the train and got the picture we wanted.

The most intriguing train area has to be in Yoho National Park at Spiral Tunnels. Kicking Horse Pass was chosen because of its proximity to the US and its shorter distance to the Pacific Coast. Due to a grade of 4.5% engineers had to come up with a better solution as the first train derailed in 1884 and they had many safety issues. A solution modeled after Spiral Tunnels in Switzerland was completed 25 years later in 1909 with gradual grades. The train climbs a moderate hill, goes through two short tunnels, across the river, under the highway and into a lower spiral tunnel. We were lucky to catch a train going through the spirals and it looks like the train comes out of the tunnel and goes over the top of itself. It really is an engineering delight.

In Yoho we also stopped at Takkakaw Falls, Emerald Lake and Natural Bridge. We saw a black bear and her cub on our way back, unfortunately we were on the highway and I was unable to get any pictures. The funny thing was we had just commented that we didn’t see much wildlife. We know they are around because as we hike, we see scat all over the place.

As we were waiting for the train at Morant's Curve,

we saw this group of 4 kayakers making their way down the 

Bow River. We had talked to one of them before their 

departure and they were going on a 3-day trip to Canmore.

The train heading west along Morant's Curve.

The train heading east.

One of the tunnels at Spiral Tunnel.

Up in the left you can see the train coming through the

tunnel. Bottom right is the rest of the train heading into the tunnel.

Information of the upper tunnel.

One of the upper spiral tunnel portals.

Mark standing by the "Meeting of the Waters" to get

the next picture.

The confluence of the Yoho River and the Kicking

Horse River, known as the "Meeting of the Waters".

Getting ready to hike to Takakkaw Falls.

It was misting at the falls, partly because

of the weather and partly because of

the mist from the falls.

Lunch at Cilantro on the Lake at Emerald Lake.

Our waiter was from Australia. Many of the seasonal

help in the area is from Australia due to the ease

of getting a visa to work in Canada. 

The loon was entertaining the patrons

at the restaurant.

We walked around Emerald Lake. It's about 3.5 miles.

Natural Bridge, the rain finally stopped

and the weather warmed up in the afternoon.

Here I am working on the blog at 10pm.

You can see how light it is out. Sunset is at 9:58.