Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park

In July, we took a trip to visit the kid (who was working in Banff) and had a chance to paddle Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park. The main parking lot is small and fills quickly so Emerald is easiest to access early in the day or late. The canoe rental place opens at 10 am ($90/hour) and closes around 5. The lake gets very busy with rentals during the day.

The best put in spot is a small beach about 300 feet west of the parking lots. Go past the bathrooms to the picnic area and you're there. I don't believe they allow private boats to load off the main dock of the rental place.

The lake is spectacular, especially if the water is smooth. A deep green-blue with great reflections. The perimeter is maybe 5km around and takes 90ish minutes and a leisurely pace.

There is also a walking trail around the lake.

At the north end of the lake there is a creek the flows in. The water was high this year so I paddled about 150m upstream before it got to0 shallow and too fast for me to make progress. In the photo below you can see the silt that the creek is dumping out into the lake (the water there is very shallow).

Emerald is perhaps the prettiest lake in the Banff area and is well worth the hour drive west to Field.

The wind came up about 10 am and made for a choppier paddle (no pictures as I was too busy paddling).

After two circults and lunch, we packed up and and headed into Field to get ice cream at the hotel. Overall, a great day.  

Emerald Lake, Yoho Park

We had a chance to paddle Emerald Lake this summer. It is located just inside the BC border along Highway 1, maybe an hour west of Banff. Best paddle of the year so far and definitely one of my top 5 paddles ever.

Emerald gets busy, so we arrived at about 7:30 local time (gaining an hour because we crossed the border from Alberta). The parking lot was almost empty. By the time we left (about 11 am), the lot was full and people were parking down the highway and walking in.

You can rent canoes there (see picture below). If you bring your own boats, you can launch off a small beach about 200 feet west of the parking lot (keep walking past the bathrooms). The parking area also has pit toilets and picnic tables and is the trail head for a hike around the lake. There is also a lodge here (just across the bridge).

The lake itself is a beautiful glacial green and was dead calm when were there. This year Yoho and Banff have imposed some restrictions on private boats (self-check in and a 48-hour drying period between lakes) to control aquatic diseases and pests. Emerald is a part of this project and it is worth reading ahead of time so as to not be disappointed.

It took us about 90 minutes to paddle the shoreline (at a modest pace) and the lake was so pretty we did it twice, once each way.

Wildlife was a bit thin but we did have a nice time with two loons and a chick. The loons were pretty calm as long as we kept our distance.

The far end of the lake has a number of creeks dumping into it. The one below was small. Further to the east there is a larger creek with a silty delta. I managed to get about 40 or 50 feet up this creek (which is moving pretty fast) before the channel got too shallow to continue.

The lake started to get busy with other boaters by about 9 am. Every picture at Emerald looks like a magazine cover so I'll just let you scroll down.

On our way back, we stopped in at the natural bridge and then went into Field. Field is an old railway town and looks like a model train set up. We had ice cream at the Truffle pIds Bistro and Lodge.