Beginning from Calgary, the town of Banff is less than 80 miles west on the Trans Canada Highway, and Lake Louise, the most famous attraction in Banff National Park, is just 35 miles more, still on the TCH. Banff and Lake Louise get four million visitors in an average year, and a large part of the appeal is the close proximity to the largest city in Alberta. What many of those four million people don’t seem to appreciate is the fact that if they were to keep going on Highway 1, just 7 miles beyond Lake Louise and its legendary crowds, they would enter a Wonderland known only to the adventurous, to the curious, to the fortunate few. I’m talking about:
YOHO NATIONAL PARK
Yoho National Park is to British Columbia what Banff National Park is to Alberta: the crown jewel in a dazzling system of protected splendor that draws visitors from every corner of the globe, although Yoho receives just a fraction of the crowds that clog the roads at better-known Banff. Yoho is easy to find, situated due west of the central section of Banff, and just north of Kootenay. When you travel from Lake Louise to the town of Golden on the Trans-Canada Highway, you drive straight through the middle of the park.
The name Yoho comes from a Cree Indian word that expresses awe, or amazement. I know that feeling well, and it’s one of the main reasons why I love to travel. When I come upon a place, a viewpoint, a landscape that really and truly stuns me, especially if it’s unexpected, there will be a sharp intake of breath, followed by a brief interlude of dumbstruck silence, when everything just—-stops. I call those my “Oh, Wow!” moments, and Yoho National Park, the place with the odd but resoundingly appropriate name, inspired an abundance of good ones.
Here’s how that works: a sign off the TCH pointed to a place called Emerald Lake, 8 km distant on a paved road. I’d never heard of Emerald Lake, but I was pretty darned sure I wanted to see it, so off down that road we went. Less than five miles along, the first break in the trees offered a glimpse, a flash of improbable color followed by a larger break in the trees that brought me screeching to a halt. There, beyond the spread of roadside wildflowers and a verge of spindly pines was the most extraordinary lake I had ever seen, backed by an ice-clad mountain. I let out an audible gasp, followed by an interlude of dumbstruck silence. “Oh, Wow!” I said at last. Awe and amazement, indeed.
Emerald lake is an ideal spot for canoeing, fishing, and swimming (brrr!), but I’d have to say that the best use for a location this stunning simply has to be romance! The Emerald Lake Lodge is situated in a cove on the lake shore, and the top tier cottages, the rooms with an unimpeded view of that Yoho! jewel of a lake? Beauty of that magnitude breaks down barriers. Bring along the great love of your life, and see what happens next!
Just as with Banff and Lake Louise, there’s a lot more to Yoho than a single beautiful lake. You can drive to Takakkaw Falls, one of Canada’s highest, along the Yoho Valley Road, just off the TCH near Field (open seasonally). From there, you can hike to Twin Falls and Laughing Falls, both on the Yoho River, or to a number of other stunning destinations. At the south end of the park, you can hike to Wapta Falls, on the Kicking Horse River, following an easy trail that begins quite close to the Hoo Doo Creek campground. There are several popular hikes near Lake O’Hara, a magical region of colorful lakes and beautiful alpine valleys in a fragile, protected ecosystem; to keep it pristine, access to the area is strictly limited, so reservations are required.
There is another attraction in Yoho National Park that has nothing to do with the scenery. The Burgess Shale is a layer of rock exposed in the mountains around Yoho that contains vast deposits of some of the world’s oldest fossils, an array of long-extinct marine life from a sea that covered this part of the world more than 500 million years ago. Their bones, and even the soft parts of their bodies are preserved in stone, down to the smallest detail. The Burgess Shale is fossilized perfection, and has tremendous scientific importance, so much so that the fossil beds have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in their own right, a protected site within a protected site, one of the many amazing things to be found in this extraordinary region. There are guided hikes to the fossil beds, one of the only places in the world where visitors can hold a thing in their hands that dates back more than half a billion years–older than the oldest of the dinosaurs!
Stop in at the Visitor’s Center, right on the Trans-Canada Highway in the tiny town of Field, which is quite close to the geographic center of the 507 square mile National Park.
When you leave Yoho, driving west on Canada Highway One, you leave the main grouping of contiguous National Parks that makes up the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks. You’ll pass through the town of Golden, where you’ll find a variety of options for lodging and dining, and another 35 miles or so beyond Golden, you’ll come to Glacier National Park, and then Mt. Revelstoke National Park, both of which will be covered in more detail (with some great photos!) in a seperate post. Check out the rest of my Canadian Road Trip Series for more information–and a ton of great photographs!
If you live in Calgary or Edmonton, or even Vancouver, a road trip in the Canadian Rockies is simple to arrange. For the rest of us, it takes a bit of planning, but it’s well worth the trouble. You’ll come away with memories that will last a lifetime!
(Unless otherwise noted, all of the images in these posts are my original work, and are protected by copyright. They may not be duplicated for commercial purposes.)
CANADIAN ROAD TRIPS
This is an interactive Table of Contents. Click the pictures to open the pages.
Canadian Road Trips
Canadian Road Trips: Rolling through the Rockies
The goal here is to get you thinking about the different ways to tie these iconic parks together, and the distances involved, in order to get the most out of a visit to one of the most wonderfully scenic areas on the entire planet.
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Canadian Road Trips: Banff and Kootenay National Parks
Banff gets four million visitors in an average year, and even though the park covers more than 1.6 million acres, 90% of those four million visitors head straight to the same spot, to Lake Louise, and the Fairmont Chateau.
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Canadian Road Trips: Jasper and the Icefields Parkway
You'll see glaciers, waterfalls, rushing rivers and turquoise lakes surrounded by wildflowers, all of it fed by steadily melting ice. Snowclad peaks with vibrant green flanks line the road on both sides, and every turnout, every wide spot in the road offers a new and dramatic perspective.
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Canadian Road Trips: Yoho National Park
Less than five miles along, the first break in the trees offered a glimpse, a flash of improbable color followed by a larger clearing that brought me screeching to a halt. There, beyond the spread of roadside wildflowers and a verge of spindly pines was the most extraordinary lake I had ever seen, backed by an ice-clad mountain.
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Canadian Road Trips: Glacier and Mt. Revelstoke National Parks
The centerpiece of Revelstoke is it’s namesake mountain, and the most popular activity is the drive up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway, a twisting, turning roller coaster of a road that climbs all the way to the top of the mountain. It’s only 16 miles long, and it’s paved the whole distance, but you’ll gain more than 4,000 feet in elevation, and there are enough hairpins to satisfy the needs of an old-fashioned beauty pageant.
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Follow the Fireweed
Visualize a summertime journey through that part of the world, a world filled with mountains and glaciers and boreal forests, ice blue rivers, turquoise lakes, and billowing clouds that fill the sky. Imagine your vision as a beautiful piece of music. The fundamental, underlying theme of that symphony would be a gently rising swell of perfect harmony, pinkish lavender in its hue.
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There's nothing like a good road trip. Whether you're flying solo or with your family, on a motorcycle or in an RV, across your state or across the country, the important thing is that you're out there, away from your town, your work, your routine, meeting new people, seeing new sights, building the best kind of memories while living your life to the fullest.
Are you a veteran road tripper who loves grand vistas, or someone who's never done it, but would love to give it a try? Either way, you should consider making the Southwestern U.S. the scene of your own next adventure.
A few years ago I wrote a book about road trips in Arizona and New Mexico that's a lot like this website, packed with interesting information, and illustrated with beautiful photographs. Check it out! You can find it on Amazon, and at all other major booksellers.
This is an interactive Table of Contents. Click the pictures to open the pages.
Alaska Road Trip
The Alaska Highway: Prelude: The Road to Dawson Creek
Even if you start in Seattle, the closest American city, it’s still more than 800 miles to Dawson Creek, wending your way that much further north, so far north that there will be a noticeable change in the hours of daylight. It’s the latitude that distinguishes the north country, including every bit of Alaska. Dawson Creek is where it all begins.
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The Alaska Highway: Day 1: Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson
Past Fort St. John, the terrain got a lot wilder. No more towns, very few people, and very little traffic. Saw a few U.S. license plates, Michigan, California, Oregon, South Carolina; people that were obviously headed to Alaska!
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The Alaska Highway: Day 2: Fort Nelson to Whitehorse
Every time I rounded a curve in the road there was another stupendous vista; it was nothing short of astonishing! I was literally yipping out loud, and a couple of times I actually pulled over and stopped while I pounded on my chest to “re-start” my heart!
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The Alaska Highway: Day 3: Whitehorse to Beaver Creek
Approaching the mountains, I started pulling over with serious frequency, taking LOTS of photos! Mountains, clouds, lakes, flowers—I was pretty sure I must have died and gone to heaven, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the fiery crash.
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The Alaska Highway: Day 4: Beaver Creek to Fairbanks
Delta Junction, the end of the Al-Can, was only 200 miles away, and the border? Twenty miles, maybe half an hour, and I was finally going to cross into Alaska! I’d been on the road more than three weeks, and in just half a day more, I’d be in Fairbanks.
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Chena Hot Springs: A Fairbanks Original
The Chena hot spring puts out steaming water at a temperature of 150 degrees, producing enough power to meet all the needs of the resort, as well as filling the hot springs pools used by the guests. In addition to the lodge and restaurant, they offer camping and horseback riding, and they have exhibits featuring sled dogs, greenhouses, ice sculptures, and geothermal energy.
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Two-Foot High Kick: World Eskimo Indian Olympics
Contestants take a running leap, then they make this crazy jackknife move, touch the ball suspended high above the floor with both feet, then come back down and stick the landing. If that sounds difficult? You have no idea.
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Dreaming of Denali
When I drove my Jeep to Alaska that first summer after I retired, my main goal, the single most important thing I wanted to do, was to see Denali, the biggest mountain in North America.
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Follow the Fireweed
Visualize a summertime journey through that part of the world, a world filled with mountains and glaciers and boreal forests, ice blue rivers, turquoise lakes, and billowing clouds that fill the sky. Imagine your vision as a beautiful piece of music. The fundamental, underlying theme of that symphony would be a gently rising swell of perfect harmony, pinkish lavender in its hue.
<<CLICK to Read More>>
Kenai Fjords National Park: Seabirds, Glaciers, and Whales on the Wild Coast of Alaska
At this latitude, during the summer months, the sun stays low in the sky all day, and never really goes down. The traditional “golden hour” when the light is best for landscape photos is extended accordingly, and there are more opportunities for great shots than you’ll know what to do with.
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Kenai Fjords National Park: Exit Glacier: Up Close and Personal
Compared to the huge tidewater glaciers that flow directly into the sea along the coast of Kenai Fjords, Exit Glacier is just a baby–a baby that’s getting smaller every year–but it’s still big enough to permanently alter the landscape through which it passes.
<<CLICK to Read More>>
There’s nothing like a good road trip. Whether you’re flying solo or with your family, on a motorcycle or in an RV, across your state or across the country, the important thing is that you’re out there, away from your town, your work, your routine, meeting new people, seeing new sights, building the best kind of memories while living your life to the fullest.
Are you a veteran road tripper who loves grand vistas, or someone who’s never done it, but would love to give it a try? Either way, you should consider making the Southwestern U.S. the scene of your own next adventure.
A few years ago I wrote a book about road trips in that area that’s a lot like this website, packed with interesting information, and heavily illustrated with beautiful photographs. Check it out! You can find it on Amazon, and at all other major booksellers.
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