We took a very enjoyable day trip from our Banff Tunnel Mountain campground to Yoho National Park to check out the area and do some hiking. We were very impressed by the Kicking Horse River. We enjoyed the Natural Bridge area and our hikes at Emerald Lake and to the Wapta Falls.We were unable to visit the Takakkaw Falls, the second highest in Canada at 836 feet, as the road had not opened for the season due to avalanche hazard. This will be at the top of our list for our next trip to the region.
Kicking Horse River in Yoho National Park
Natural Bridge in Yoho National Park
The Natural Bridge is found off of the Emerald Lake Road, southwest of the town of Field. It is a natural rock bridge over the Kicking Horse River. There is a large parking lot and good access for viewing the bridge.
Natural Bridge
Emerald Lake Trail
Emerald Lake
Next we continued down the Emerald Lake Road for 6.2 miles to the end of the road at Emerald Lake. We chose to hike the perimeter trail which is a little over 3 miles (5.3 km) and about 270 feet elevation gain. The first part is accessible to wheelchairs/strollers. The trail heads past an avalanche area that is clear of trees and an alluvial fan. The lake is enclosed by the mountains of the President Range, Mount Burgess and the Wapta Mountain. The basin traps storms causing frequent rain in the summer and heavy winter snowfall. This has resulted in a unique selection of flora more consistent with British Columbia’s wet interior forests: western red cedar, western yew, western hemlock and western white pine. The lake is a vivid turquoise color from powdered limestone runoff. The Emerald Lake Lodge is located on the edge of the lake and offers canoe rentals. According to hikers who were slightly ahead of us, we just missed seeing a moose near the avalanche area.
Emerald Lake
Lush vegetation on the Emerald Lake Trail
Wapta Falls in Yoho National Park
Wapta Falls Trail is a little further down the Trans-Canada Hwy. The trailhead road is not very well marked and if heading west, may require you to travel past the turn off to a point where you can turn around and return east bound to the road, depending on traffic. The trail is about 2.5km in length and has about 210 feet elevation change. This hike is fairly easy until the very end, at which point there is a very steep hill down to view the falls. While the falls are not as tall as the Takakkaw falls, they are the largest set of falls on the Kicking Horse River, measuring 490 feet across and 98 feet high.
Wapta Falls Trail
The end of the trail is quite steep
Wapta Falls in Yoho National Park
