Rockies Day 2

Today we would be crossing different national parks to reach Banff. The drive from Chase started with the sight of the mighty Shuswap Lake , a tributary of Frazer River. We passed many mountain towns like Salmon Arm, Craigellachie and reached Revelstoke.

Revelstoke Mountain Resort is famous for most skiable veritical in North America and it has the best Snowmobile trails. There is Revelstoke Canyon Dam much like the Hoover Dam . We continued our journey and then the landscape changed completely when we entered Rogers Pass. There were snow flakes everywhere . The pass is a shortcut across the "Big Bend" of the Columbia River from Revelstoke. Rogers Pass is in the heart of Glacier National Park, in the midst of mountains popular for ski mountaineering, camping, hiking and mountain climbing. Rogers Pass is commemorated as a National Historic Site of Canada. There are Howitzer missiles which are fired on purpose to create artificial avalanche. We stopped to take photos here.

We passed Glacier National Park, Yoho National Park along towns like Golden, Field and reached Emerald lake. The lake was almost frozen and even could walk over it. But was cut shorted by the park rangers. The view was brilliant and we walked on the marked trails to reach vantage point for good photo opportunities.

Next was the famous Lake Louise and like emerald lake, it was frozen too. Here we could walk over it and we covered considerable distance on the lake. Quite an experience . There was already a snowman, so took some photos with him and went to The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise which is luxury mountain resort. We had snacks there and it was getting dark. We left to Banff town and reached our stay Canalta Lodge. The hotel was far from the downtown, but had in house hot springs. There are many restaurants in the downtown and equally different cuisine. Anyone for Rattle Snake fondue ? I walked around the downtown for sometime and returned to stay. I started watching Cast away and not sure when I dozed off.