A walk around Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park

The alarm goes at 6am and by ten past we are on the road, half awake and unwashed with the bed still warm in the back of the van. All is quiet as we drive out of Lake Louise Campground through the sleepy town and out onto the Trans Canada One heading west. The sun is breaking through but clouds still cover the higher peaks and mist floats over the Bow river as we head up Kicking Horse Pass and back into British Columbia and Yoho National Park. The only other vehicles on the road are gigantic trucks, engines labouring up the incline.

The reason for our early start is my desire to get to Emerald Lake before the car park fills up. If the last two days in Lake Louise has taught us anything it’s that the honey pots of the Canadian Rockies are busy, I mean full to bursting busy and I don’t want to miss out on my walk because I can’t find a space.

Just before seven we arrive at Emerald Lake. There is not a soul around and the car park is deserted. We have the place to ourselves and I drive up to the front of the RV line where we can see over the lake. I wonder whether I had to get up quite so early but we are here now and the joy of an RV is that we have our home with us and can now wash, dress and enjoy breakfast at our leisure.

I wander down to the lakeshore to have a look around. The lake is almost, but not quite flat calm and the impressive peaks of the President mountains and the white streak of the Emerald river tumbling down the mountainside from its unseen glacier reflect nicely off its surface.

I stand in silence for a while absorbing the stillness and beauty of the early morning and marveling at the sheer ’emeraldness’ of Emerald Lake. The cafe and gift shop are still shuttered and red canoes lie in rows on the landing stage like sardines in a tin awaiting their customers.

Normally, back home, I would have set off straight away on my walk, glad for the solitude and happy to be the first on the trail on such a lovely morning. Canada though is not the U.K. and two factors make me wait for the company of other people… Bears and Cougars. This is no abstract concern. We saw a cougar (which is very rare) crossing the Yellowhead Highway near Smithers the day after one attacked a man nearby, (here) possibly the same animal.

And our bear tally so far on the trip is five, two from a boat in Khutzeymateen Bear Sanctuary but three again on the Yellowhead Highway, two black bears and we got within twenty feet of a huge Grizzly that was ambling across the highway without a care in the world. And though part of me would love to see a bear (certainly not a Cougar) in the open, far enough away, without water or windscreen between us, having watched The Revenant the desire to keep on living with all my limbs is far greater. 

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By ten o’clock the car park is full, the canoes are being snapped up like hot cakes and we are washed dressed and have enjoyed a leisurely breakfast looking out over the lake from our pole position. I decide to walk anticlockwise round the lake which, for reasons that will become apparent turns out to be a good choice.

The causway is now full of people enjoying the views, warmth and sunshine and the cafe is open for takeaways. As I walk up the narrow pathways through Emerald Lake Lodge, rooms are being cleaned and linen baskets filled outside the wooden chalets.

Just before the last lodges there is a viewpoint giving a nice elevated view across the lake to the mountains and soon afterwards the trail enters the pine forest.

I continue slightly uphill leaving the last of the lodges behind me and enter the pine forest crossing the remnants of the glacial moraine, left by the last ice age. I’m a little surprised by the wet and muddy condition of the path and I bump into an American guy coming the other way who has obviously had a hard time of it. He says the first half of the walk was great but the path on this side of the lake is essentially a mud bath and not worth doing. I have a look at at the map but I don’t like the look or the idea of only walking half way around a lake. I’m from England after all where walking in mud with wet feet is practically a right of passage so I carry on.

The path now heads downhill towards the lake and then generally follows along the shoreline, sometimes directly by the lake but occasionally contouring back into the forest where glimpses of green water are seen between the pines.

The path is certainly a mix of quagmire and dangerous trippy tree roots which could send you flying but some efforts have been made to mitigate against the mud with sections of boardwalk and wood planks crossing particularly swampy bits.

The reward however is well worth the muddy boots. There are a number of spots where the path drops right to the waters edge and the view over the tourqoise lake to the jagged rock towers, and vertical walls of the awesome President range is superb. Emerald Glacier can also be seen to good effect here, sitting high up on the mountainside.

The distinctive colour of the lake comes from finely grained glacial silt called ‘rock flour’. The grains are so light they’re suspended in the water of the lake and refract only the blue and green wavelengths of light back to our eyes. This phenomenon is replicated in glacial water fed lakes across the Rockies and elsewhere.

At the northern end of the lake the trees are left behind for a while as I reach the Alluvial Fan of deposited rocks and gravel caused by the Emerald river. I cross the river on a solid wooden bridge onto Emerald basin and wander down to the lake shore.

The sense of space and light after the forest walking is marked. Ahead of me lies the whole length of Emerald Lake back to the lodges scattered among the trees and I’m surrounded by mountains, vertical grey, craggy rock faces rising high above the tree line. It’s a huge natural amphitheater with the lake as the flat green stage.

The walk along the western shore is pleasant, more open and with more people. There is a satisfactory view across the lake to Mount Burgess and Walcott Peak but it doesn’t compare, in my opinion with the view from the eastern shoreline.

Just before I arrive back at the car park I come across a poignant and moving memorial in English and French and the words immediately take me back to a visit to Beaumont Hamel on the Somme some years ago.

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On 1st July 1916 the British and Canadians (Newfoundlanders to be precise as it was not part of Canada then) attacked Beaumont-Hamel and tried to capture it from the Germans. Out of 800 Canadians that attacked 700 were killed or injured and only 68 of them were able to answer the roll call the next day. (here)

I sit for a while looking out over gorgeous Emerald Lake and offer my own small and silent token of thanks to those Canadians who lie buried in a cemetery far away from home near a small pretty village in the middle of France.

‘They will never know the beauty of this place, see the seasons change, enjoy natures chorus. All we enjoy we owe to them, men and women who lie buried in the earth of foreign lands and in the seven seas. Dedicated to the memory of Canadians who died overseas in the service of their country and so preserved our heritage’.

Route Map, Walk Stats, Geolocated Pictures and 3D Flyover Video Below.

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