When we arrived at Yoho National Park, Ivan was particularly happy because he has been interested in a famous fossil bed located within the bounds of this park. The fossil area(s) is/are called the Burgess Shale. Fossils from 505,000,000 (no, I didn't type too many zeroes!) were accidentally discovered by a scientist and they have added to and changed much of the thinking about what lived in those far, far away times.
In the Visitor Center, we saw that they offer a guided walk to one of the sites and we signed up for the last walk of 2009! Now it is illegal for just anyone to hike up to these places because the fossils are still up there, many just lying on the ground all over the place.
The hike itself (take a second to think about what I'm about to write) is 3 km one way and there is an elevation gain on 750 meters. (For the metrically challenged, that's 1.8 miles one way and almost 2,500 feet elevation gain!). YIKES! We did this yesterday and surprisingly, we feel normal today! I'll post a couple of photos with only brief descriptions in the next 2 posts. The entire hike, start to finish, took 8 hours.
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