Hiking in Yoho: Day 1 (Burgess Shale)

Last weekend was a long one for me so Tom and I went hiking in Yoho National Park, B.C. It all started when a friend of mine from work decided to organize a trip to the Burgess Shale, but we decided to tack on an extra night there. We drove out to Lake Louise on Thursday night (stayed in the campground there Thurs & Fri nights), hiked the Burgess Shale on Friday, then backpacked into Yoho on Saturday and out on Sunday.

The hike started from Takkakaw Falls, North America's second highest waterfall. The hike was something like 24.7 km and an elevation gain of 740 m (I have a track and profile that I'll add later).

The morning was quite cool (about 5 C or less...) but we warmed up fairly quickly heading up this slope, although since it was a guided hike there were many stops so the whole thing was fairly leisurely. Lake Yoho:

Beyond Yoho Lake we entered Yoho pass where we saw this sign warning people they aren't allowed in the Burgess Shale quarry unless they have a guide with them (although everyone is allowed to hike along the trail that goes past it, just not the turn-off up to the quarry).

Panorama of the area... The falls to the right are Hamilton Falls on Hamilton Mountain (Emerald glacier on top and behind that mountain), and you can just see the tip of Emerald Lake in the centre.

Pan of Emerald Lake:

We stopped for lunch at what must have been a popular lunch spot because the chipmunks were obviously used to people - here's one munching up some crumbs that Tom had dropped from his lunch:

Probably a common shot for people hiking here... this is the turn-off to the Burgess Shale quarry... although the quarry isn't up at this mountain, just around the far right of photo.

The quarry! The guides have a bunch of representative fossils they keep in the green cabinet so they can whip them out to show people... of course the fun part is sifting through the scree to find your own (not that you get to keep them). Unfortunately we didn't get to spend too much time here because the hike was kind of leisurely and then we had to get back for a specific dinner reservation that Tom and I ended up missing anyway.

Of course we saw some neat fossils, some of which would definitely not been obvious to me me so I'm just showing a few that actually look like something people might recognize... like this trilobite!This is the jaw of the critter shown to the left... the name of which is completely escaping me at the moment (starts with an O anyone?)... I'll update this once I remember.

This is a crab-like critter named Waptia:

Marella, the lace crab: The group, mostly consisting of co-workers, co-worker spouses, and a couple friends of co-workers:

From here we got to descend at our own pace (Tom and I were in the lead and didn't really see many people from the time we left the switchback out of the quarry until we got to the parking lot). When we were about 15-20 minutes from the parking lot it started to pour, but after a bit of debate since the car was so close we pulled out our rain gear (not wanting to have to dry stuff in a tent).