Paradise Valley

The previous post in this series is here..

After taking in the beauty of Lake Louise and Lake Moraine, we had an hour. So we decided to hike the Paradise valley trail. 

This trail goes to a beautiful vista point after an approximately 3 mile hike and eventually connects at a fork to Lake Louise or Lake Moraine. The hike towards Moraine goes to an amazing ledge viewpoint after a few more miles. We did not have time to go there.. but we will definitely on a future trip. 

This trail was lush green along a boistrous creek.  Every now and then there is a path that goes to the rivers edge. We hiked up to the bridge, admired the river and walked back. 

The sun was just starting to come out..one side was bright and that made for interesting views..

Now we were late on our schedule, but at this point, San decided to go with a flexible approach.. "we see what we can see" was the new motto.

A short video of the creek and our drive back.. they have beautiful animal crossing bridges on this freeway to avoid animals and people losing their lives.. these overpasses have trees on them and the animals cross over safely.. hope the US also adopts this in places like Yosemite..

We had not had anything to eat till this point. So we decided to eat some snacks while driving slowly towards the next stop.. Johnston canyon. 

Johnston canyon gets us practically back to Banff town. We had covered the farther points and that meant not much driving left..just a lot of hiking!

LimeKiln State Park..

And now for the grand finale on the Route 1, Solvang series photo blogs..

Limekiln State park !!

We decided to go back on Route 1 (after stopping at several vista points along 101 and tossing and turning -- either go home before 6:00 to feed the kids or wing it and go back on Route 1 and catch some sites)

Finally route 1 it was.. the men pretty much voted for this. Balaji had already scoped out Limekiln, as a sure bet!

So, off we went without realizing that to get to the 100 foot falls, we had to cross the creek at four points, two of those without any sort of bridge.. just cross the rocks..


Needless to say, my shoes were wet after doing multiple trips across every crossing to ferrry the kids back and forth !


But it was all worth it..


There was this rock at the edge of the creek and baby wanted a break.. so I put her on the rock and stepped back to take a picture. I was reprimanded for the act (but it was deja vu for me...I had put Jr. on top of a wooden post at 8000 feet in Rainbow point, Bryce canyon two years ago). Luckily baby did not misbehave and was absorbed on some insect she found on the rock.

One "baby on the rocks" coming right up..


Finally, a picture of sunset on the way back ..


Being a metallurgist, I was disappointed that we never made it to the kilns, but that can always be done another day, when the kids can cross the creek on their own..

Here is a video of Dora the Explorer's at Limekiln state park..

I am working on a large video of the entire trip. Will post it later.