Sunday, June 29

We learned from our hosts Everit and Allison that in order to live in the tidy little town of Field, one has to be employed by some establishment within the Yoho National Park . Allison works as a sommeliere at the Emerald Lake Lodge, and since the park ranger had suggested we visit Emerald Lake, we decided to check it out. Another gorgeous lake in the Canadian Rockies! There is one frustrating element about all these lakes, however; they are too cold for swimming. But if the Emerald Lake Lodge has a swimming pool hidden away somewhere, we would love to come back and stay there some time.



On the way back to Lake Louise, we stopped again at the Upper Spiral Tunnel Viewpoint, and this time we could see a train coming through. The many photographs I took of it are worthless visually, but they document the fact that two minutes and twenty seconds after the engine enters the lower tunnel, it emerges from the upper tunnel, and for about two minutes you can watch it crossing itself, until the last car has entered the lower tunnel. The CPR has long freight trains!


At Lake Louise we turned north onto the "Icelands Parkway," which bills itself as "the most beautiful road in the world:" 230 km of World-Heritage-Site scenery from Lake Louise to Jasper. In all our travels, we have seen nothing that could contest that statement. Many more glaciers than our own Glacier Park, for instance. At about its midpoint we stopped at the Columbia Icefield and viewed the enormous Athabasca glacier. The tiny black spots at the bottom of my picture are people walking up its lower portion. This glacier is the source for the Athabasca River, which we would follow all the way to Jasper. Along the way it plummets down a steep canyon that it has carved at Athabasca Falls. Arriving in Jasper, we had dinner beside it at Becker's Gourmet Restaurant, not far from our Wapiti Campground.