Wapta Falls

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love Yoho National Park.  After a delicious brunch at the Big Bend Cafe in Golden on New Year's Day, James and I drove East on Highway 1 towards the town of Field.  About 5km into the national park we pulled off onto the access road to Wapta Falls.  While James had been to Wapta in the summer a few years ago (it was his first ever hike in the mountains that got him started on summits I can only dream of reaching) I chose to skip the popular trek when I visited Yoho this past summer.  It's a simple, enjoyable family hike year-round but the view in the winter is far more unique.

The seasonal road from the highway to the trailhead is closed for the winter but there are a few cleared spaces for cars to park at the turn off.  There we strapped on our snowshoes and began on our way. The 2km long road was covered in fresh powder which was lots of fun but also very exhausting to snowshoe in.  Luckily there was also a path of packed snow down the middle which made our lives a bit easier when we got tired making our own tracks.  This path allowed others to walk it in boots and we could see that some before us had come on ski's as well.  James had bought me new snowshoes for Christmas so it was nice to test them out on various terrain and he was using a rented MSR pair from Higher Ground Sports in Golden.  

After about a half hour the uncleared road turned into a parking lot with a picnic area and outhouses.  The 2.5km trail to the falls began here.  The forest was beautiful to see with so much snow and occasionally on our left we could see neighbouring mountaintops through the trees.  This trail had a few more hills than the road, along with the odd fallen tree, but it was still a fairly novice hike.  It wasn't long before the trees opened to a river valley and we could see the steam of Wapta Falls below.

We followed the winding trail down to the clearing and marvelled at the frozen falls.  Though we could have done the hike in boots up to this point, it was very helpful to have the built in crampons on our snowshoes giving us some extra grip on the ice around the falls.  We followed tracks closer but definitely got nervous at times thinking of the rushing water below us.  

We took some time to explore and take pictures around the base of the falls.  It was no warmer than -20 degrees celsius that day so we got cold quickly when we weren't moving so much.  With the desire to keep warm, we made our way back to the trail, opting for the shorter but steeper route up from the riverbed (the heel lift on my snowshoes came in handy at this point).  While we had had the trail to ourselves up to this point, we passed at least 3 other groups between the falls and the trailhead.  It made me smile to think about the views they were about to take in and I was so pleased to have started the New Year with such a fun little adventure.  

Most of these photos were captured by me on my Canon 6D with 24-70 USM II lens while some are by James on his Olympus OM-D E-M10.