Burgess Pass - Leaders Hike

This started out to be a hike to Takakkaw Falls in Yoho. Once we arrived at the Yoho visitor centre in Field BC, we were advised the road up to the falls was still closed. Needed to wait another 2 weeks at least. The trails also were only partially free of snow in this area. So we opted to try hike in and see how far we could get. 

We got to the parking lot ok and started the hike up. We were in a Cedar and Spruce forest as we switched back up the trail. After about 2.5 hours we got into snow as they said we would. We persevered a bit more, with Pavel lagging behind taking time to scoop ice crystals out of his hiking shoes.  At this point we could no longer tell what was trail and what was just low lying snow patches. 

Craig indicated he had an option to download the complete GPS trail but decided at $25.00 it wasn't worth it. Had we had it, I'm sure we could have got the the falls. Pavel though, would of had some very wet feet if we did decide to make a go of it.

Instead we decided to see if we could scramble up over the saddle and down to Emerald Lake. The scree was mostly brick sized chunks so going up wasn't too bad. Once at the top the view was quite spectacular of Emerald Lake below. I descended the scree slope on the other side and found the steepness was a bit too excessive for our capabilities. We had an option to go along the ridge to where we assumed the original trail would have gone over but this was a heavily snow packed trek as well. 

So we headed back. It was 4.5 hours in and 2.5 hours out. Once out as hopped over to the Natural Bridge waterfall and then over to Emerald Lake and toured around. Nice places for a mere $300 - $1200 a night for a cozy looking cabin. The main lodge was quite fancy and had a wedding going on as we were strolling through. 

Had dinner there and at about 6:30 we started for home. The closer we got to Calgary the worse the weather got, except for the rainbow we saw as we were coming up to Pavel's Cranston home.