Christmas at Canmore, Post 3: Johnston Canyon

After our morning of dogsledding, we had lunch in Banff...









... and then drove half an hour to Johnston Canyon. This was a place Megan had come across in her online research - the site of a number of frozen waterfalls, which is what we all wanted to see! Even the long dirt road from the highway to the Canyon carpark was absolutely beautiful, lined with snow-laden pine trees.

Due to arriving mid afternoon, we only walked to the Lower Falls and back (a 1 mile round trip), but I can't even begin to describe how spectacular this was - even before we reached the large frozen waterfall at the halfway mark. We were walking above the river that ran through the base of the canyon, on a wood and metal boardwalk cantilevered (I asked Ben for the right word :P) out of the vertical rock face. The river below was totally frozen over, with layers of powdery, white, untouched snow coating the ice. In places there were holes in the ice and we could hear the water tinkling along under it. We had some fun shaking snow out of the trees...

















**The next 7 photos are Megan's**















These logs looked like they had just had a tonne of wedding cake icing dumped over them...



And all of that wasn't even what we'd come to see! THIS is what we'd come to see...

**The next 5 photos are Megan's**

So that's what a frozen waterfall looks like! Breathtaking, isn't it?!

The viewing platform that most of the waterfall photos were taken from was actually reached through a little tunnel, about 5m long. The third photo below shows the view from the path just above Lower Falls - the bridge leading to the tunnel, and the frozen waterfall visible through the gap in the rock...







And here are a few pics from the return trip...













For more Christmas in Canmore photos, see the links under "Our photo albums" in the sidebar, above right.