Cue the trumpets. This was gonna be good. Emerald Lake, darned beautiful, was dammed in the last ice age by a giant moraine of gravel and boulders. Ringed by an amphitheater of soaring mountains, the lake is brimming with frigid water from melted snow. As we set out to walk the 3-mile ring around the lake, the water was a steel cold mirror, reflecting what had now become a pale blue morning sky.
Fresh snow has a way of erasing smells and muffling sounds.
We were startled by the sweet, familiar scent of cedar in air that otherwise smelled nothing but cold. The crunch of our boots overwhelmed the otherwise complete quiet. It was tempting, but we wanted to see animals. I in a day filled with bright blue skies, stunning landscapes and amazing solitude. Later in the day, as we drove the 130-mile length of the extraordinary Icefields Parkway connecting Banff and Jasper National Parks, we'd go what seemed like forever without seeing another soul.