Day 7: Laughing Falls

Out of bed around 08:30 and the temperature in Field was -1 degrees Celsius! The forecast is for clouds in the morning and 40% chance of rain in the afternoon with a high up to 10 degrees. Our plan is to stay within Yoho National Park and Lana is looking for a simpler hike with not much elevation. Our choice is Laughing Falls hike advertised:
Laughing Falls

Length: 8.8 km
Hiking time: 3 hours
Elevation: 125 m
Trailhead: Takakkaw Falls parking lot, 17 km east of Field via the Trans-Canada Highway and Yoho Valley Road. Note: Yoho Valley Road is open seasonally from mid-June through mid-October. Due to tight switchbacks, RVs and trailers are not permitted. (map)
Habitat: Typical Yoho forest with moist groundcover. Watch for the very large fallen tree en route.

Description: A forested trail to a waterfall at the confluence of the Yoho and Little Yoho Rivers. 

Backpacking: This trail leads to the Laughing Falls backcountry campround and is an access point for popular multiday backpacking routes.

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Fairly easy drive along Trans Canada Highway and then turnoff towards Cathedral Mountain Lodge. Then a drive through the forest and valley and some interesting switchbacks which result in traffic stopping to negotiate one of the hairpin turns. I have to say Alberta drivers are uniquely careful when it comes to the 'speed limit'. By this I mean, 50 kms/hour is an alert to drive 30 to 40 kms per hour along a perfect road. OK, enough said. 

Our first stop was the "Spiral Tunnels" viewpoint. We parked and then tried to find where the railroad spiral tunnels were located on the side of the mountain? Some more tourists showed up and one guy found them up the mountain across the river. Very much hidden by the surrounding forest. Pretty cool history though. Check the link on the name above. 

Signage at the parking lot.

The other side of the same sign.

Our picture of the spiral tunnels located on the side of the mountain. 

We park in an area which has easy access to famous Takakkaw Falls and good signage for the trailhead. Courtesy of Wikipedia: Takakkaw Falls is a waterfall located in Yoho National Park, near Field, British Columbia in Canada. Its highest point is 380 metres from its base, making it the 2nd tallest waterfall in Canada. However its true "free-fall" is only 254 metres. 

Our picture of Takakkaw Falls!

We are out of our vehicle around 10:25 and beginning the walk to the start of the Laughing Falls hike.  The beginning part before the official trail is a packed dirt road probably for Fire and Park vehicles. 

Sign at Parking Lot so you know which direction to start heading in. 

Another valuable sign at the Parking Lot. 

OK, we are finally at the official start to the trail taking us to Laughing Falls. Very easy trail start as it is hard packed with no tree roots or stones. More of a stroll at the beginning than the usual hiking trails. 

This sign marks the official start of the trail. 

Along the way we found food lockers in order to keep the black bears and grizzly bears from staying in the area and feeding off human's food. Lana wearing her mitts as it is still somewhat of a chill in the air. 

Example of the beginning trail being so easy to walk on. Rocky peaks in the background. No snow at this point. 

OK, follow the signs! Go right hikers! Around here is where the ascent starts to cover most of the 125 metres of elevation. Long ascent and good for the heart and warming both of us. 

Yup, this is a small part of the ascent. Lana is negotiating the trail using her zig zag technique. The pic doesn't do justice for the steepness. 

This is the Yoho River and its beautiful milky greenish blue colours. 

The river starts its run through a very narrow gorge. 

Laughing Falls! We speculate it is called "Laughing Falls" because of the roar from the water cascading and then hitting the pool below? This section of Yoho river runs through a small crack in the rock. We arrived here around 11:30ish so around one (1) hour to get here. Different from the advertising of a three hour round trip. By this time there is a light sprinkle of rain falling. 

Yup, an outhouse in the middle of the wilderness. Not really... There is a campsite area very close by. Campsite is a little misleading as you simply pitch your tent on a spot that is flat. No toilet paper as you need to bring your own toilet paper when hiking/camping. 

We find a trail leading away from Laughing Falls and it takes us to this sign. Problem is the sign has zero indication of mileage. We have the urge for more hiking/exploring so decide to find Yoho Glacier. Decent trail with some more elevation although minimal. Continues to sprinkle rain and the temperature has dropped. We hike 1.3 kms and find a spot along the Yoho River to eat our lunch. We create a path down to the water's edge and find a log to sit on. Good we have our rainproof gear as it is raining harder now. 

Lana is getting cold and wet. As she is waiting on the trail while I finish my lunch a couple of hikers come along. They indicate the Yoho Glacier is quite a distance. Easy decision to return to our car. Continues to lightly rain. As we are hiking though the sun comes out while the rain is falling. This picture tried to capture the rain drops with the sun behind. Hmmm, didn't work!

On arrival back in Field, it was a beautiful sunny and warmish day! Quite a surprise given there was light rain where we were hiking east of the town. We decided to finally visit the Tourist Information Centre in town located beside the Trans Canada Highway. Mostly for tourists visiting Alberta though. There was a great exhibit on the Burgess Shale and we got some more pictures. As you can tell I love this fossil stuff. 

For an experiment, Randy carried Lana's iPhone as well as his own cellphone to compare our hiking stats.

Randy  11.5 kms  19000 steps   41 floors

Lana    15 kms     19000 steps

As we can see in terms of steps we believe her app counts properly, but the mileage being recorded is really inflated. 

Out of curiosity, I wanted to know how my iPhone Health app measures "floors"? This is the answer:

Answer is BAROMETER

• Barometer has the role to measure air pressure. This reading is important because it helps your iPhone determine altitude, as well as relative elevation changes. This way your iOS device can track your vertical movement, without the need of GPS assistance. More, it transforms your iPhone in an actual barometer, because air pressure reading is used for weather forecasting!
• Step counters have already implemented iPhone’s barometer readings and are now able to keep track of your physical activity, even on the vertical. This was possible prior to iPhone 6 and iOS 8 only with the help of the GPS. But using this system around the clock, significantly reduces battery life and exposes the user to additional electromagnetic field radiation. Now, with the help of the barometer sensor, this extra load is removed from the A8 chip.
• So this is how it works.

The power in our basement suite apartment cuts out every now and then? Very weird...

Early dinner at Truffle Pigs Bistro. A very short walk. We got a table right beside the window looking westward towards the Rockies. Decent dinner which we finished with a piece of blueberry pie. Some blue sky and decent temperatures tonight. 

Tomorrow, we need to pack up as tonight is our last night in the Guesthouse. We have our window shield repair at 10:30 am in Golden.