Johnston Canyon

We took the very scenic Bow Valley Parkway to Johnston Canyon

Along the way, we saw the remnants of a prescribed burn of the forest from 1993. They are necessary for healthy forest growth!

The canyon was quite deep!

But at other times, not deep enough!

The catwalk extended for several kilometers (or miles, for you Americans)

There were waterfalls around every bend

The Lower Falls - we crawled through the tunnel on the right for a closer look!

A BEAR! Oh wait, that's just my husband. This photo makes the cave look much larger than it actually was.

A view from the cave - it was too wet to take the camera out on the cliff!

The path went through the forest

...where we found some very friendly creatures. Note how close this ground squirrel is to Pete's boot! He followed us for quite a while hoping for some free snacks.

We didn't let a little (or a lot) of rain slow us down!

The spectacular Upper Falls

Suspended over the Johnston Creek by a 12' cantilever sticking out of the canyon wall.

We're lucky to have such great views on our honeymoon!

The company isn't bad, either :)

Wednesday, July 20th

Johnston Canyon is about 45 minutes north of Banff, so we stopped there on our way to Lake Louise. The ride was beautiful - we opted to take the scenic Bow Valley Parkway instead of the Trans Canadian Highway. It seemed impossible that anything could be more scenic than the Trans Canadian, but Bow Valley was! It was similar to taking Route 17 through New York, but the Rockies were surrounding us, and we had to stop for a male elk! Of course, in all the excitement, I couldn't get the camera to focus, but we knew that wouldn't be the last wildlife we'd see!

Johnston Canyon is set in an evergreen forest, and it is very moist - it started to rain as soon as we got there, but we had lots of layers packed in our backpacks, so we kept on trekking! Every turn in the trail was different from the last, and we couldn't stop snapping pictures! About half of the time is spent on a trail, and the other half on a catwalk in the canyon.

The two main attractions are the Lower Falls and Upper Falls. At the lower falls, there is a tunnel cut into the rock (partly by nature, with the floor somewhat smoothed out by mining tools). If you crawl through the tunnel, you can stand on a small cliff wall and get soaked by the waterfall's spray! It's amazing.

The Upper Falls are quite tall, and we viewed them both from below, on a suspended catwalk over the creek, as well as above. It's a beautiful sight. The rain kept a lot of other tourists away as well, so it really worked in our favor.

If you continue 4km past the Upper Falls, you'll reach the Inkpots, which are worth Google-ing for a view. We can't show you any pictures, because we got lazy and decided it was time to turn around at the Upper Falls, and head for dinner in Lake Louise!!