Emerald Lake

There was a nice week long break in the fitness workouts after Miquelon. Sure, I went for some walks around the neighbourhood, but no, like, workouts. Till Sunday. I'll get there. But I want to say how much I enjoyed readying the stories about IMC! You guys are all champs! Enjoy your rest!

Yoga a week ago was really good, stretching things that needed stretching. There was one balancing pose I didn't do. The massage on Tuesday was really good, mostly working on my back, but included a bit of everything. The massager-seat-thingie as I think of it, has been installed in my office chair, and hums and whirs periodically. It's been helping a lot.

Overall, I feel way better after this half, with only light twinges every now and then. There's been some discussion about my next race, and I'm being encouraged to go into the the Last Chance Half marathon on Nov 9. That's only a month after getting back from a month in Europe, pigging out on pasta. hmmmm.

Linda's birthday present this year was to be a weekend stay down at Kilmoray Lodge in Waterton, but it was full full full for all our possible dates. Then I remembered people talking about Emeral Lake Lodge, and checked it out. Wow! It turned out the Labour Day weekend was a good time for us. It's beautiful. That's all there is to say.

Saturday morning, after a buffet breakfast that couldn't be beat, we started around the lake, counter clockwise. Linda had expressed the desired to hike to Takakkaw Falls. This side of the lake is the BC vegetation side. It's a Susi happy place on steroids. Once out on the alluvial fan at the far end of the lake, we found the trail for Yoho Lake, and the falls. It said 10.8 K to the falls. That's not bad, said Linda. I didn't point out there was a mountain pass between it and us.

Up we went, and up and up and up and up and up. I soon had my rain jacket off, and then my fleece jacket. It turned into a nice, sunny day. The trail is mostly heavy gravel winding between rocks and trees. And up, don't forget that. We stopped a few times to enjoy the view of the lake and down the valley, as well as the two smaller waterfalls. We got back into the trees again for what we thought was the last bit of up. We didn't think we were very far from the top of the pass, but it's hard to tell and we were getting pretty tired. We enjoyed the view some more and went back down, then around the rest of the lake.

Back at the lodge we found a map with elevations on it, and it looks like we were up about 500 m, and we walked maybe 14 Km over 4 hours or so.

Sunday turned out to be a nice day as well, so we strolled around the lake again, enjoying the peace and quiet of the morning. On the way back, we drove up to Takakka Falls, to see what we missed. Very impressive! But just as well we didn't try to walk there and back. That side of the pass looks much steeper. No wonder the Manager's Tour is a hike to the falls, and a ride in the shuttle bus back. Snow in Banff on the way back, wet and rainy. Today is looking nice here, maybe I'll go for a ride.