Falling...With Style

July 25, 2016

Today started early. We had breakfast in our room and made our sandwiches. First, we went to get gas. We weren't sure we'd get through the day on what was in the car. Our next stop was Lake Louise in Banff National Park. Can I just saw, "Wow!"

The lake was almost an emerald green color. We were told the the green color comes from what is called "rock flour." They are tiny particles of rock that are as fine as flour and are suspended in the water, too light to settle on the bottom. The water comes from the melting glaciers high above in the mountains. We could even see some of the glaciers from where we stood.

While at the lake, we searched for and almost gave up on finding a geocache. We had the coordinates and tried to find the most logical place for it. In fact, just as we were ready to give up I said, "I don't get it. I mean the most logical place to put it would be in this hollowed out tree stump. I mean, you wouldn't want it to get washed away by rain fall or snow fall, but I've looked in there a couple of times already." That's when I looked down and saw the small box hidden under some fallen pieces of wood at the base of the stump. Brilliant.

So, we knew that we were running a little late for our appointment to do the zip line and still had a bit of a drive ahead of us, but we stopped at a bench lake side and ate our sandwiches. It was so serene. When we were done, we made our way back to the car and drove toward our next destination. But after about an hour later and we still weren't there, we got worried that we had missed our turn off. So we stopped at a visitor canter at Yoho National Park to ask someone who knew the area. She said we still needed to go another 20 minutes or so, then turn off. Well, it was already 25 minutes to 2:00 and we were supposed to be there by 1:45. Great.

We got there right at 2:00 and nobody was there to greet us. So we lingered a little while, then the guy running the operation showed up. He said we were just fine being late since they were running a bit behind schedule anyway. So, we ended up on the 3:00 zip line tour with a family of 4. It was sooooo much fun! We did 2 short lines, and then the long one that traversed the Kicking Horse River. You'll have to see the pictures  and videos below. Sherry Ann had a little difficulty getting over how high the platform was for the final line. I'm pretty sure A.J. would not have gone up that catwalk.

After doing the zip lines, we began driving back toward Banff. We saw a sign for a "short" hike to Wapta Falls, so we decided to give it a try. It was a huge waterfall! Well worth the hike in. Sherry Ann and Mattina Ann stayed at the top lookout of the falls while I hiked farther down the trail to the base of the falls. It was just amazing. I'm probably going to use that small phrase many times, because all of the falls we saw tonight were amazing.

After that hike, we made our way back toward Banff (again). On our way, we discovered that we had actually crossed over into British Columbia on our way to the zip line. So, we visited 2 Canadian national parks, and 2 provinces. Cool. We finally got to Johnston Canyon and began hiking to the lower and upper falls. Actually there were 7 falls along the "creek." It was more like a raging river in our opinion. The trail was paved...with several cliff-side catwalks along the way. The falls were...inspiring (there, I used a different adjective). I am amazed at the beautiful creations of our Heavenly Father. We took 180+ pictures.

On the way back to the hotel, there was a lot of lightning to the North and to the South. Somehow we missed the rain storms that came through. That's okay, though. We got back to the hotel at 11:15 tonight, and are now eating some of our snacks for our "dinner." Good night.