The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: May twenty-third, with a Yoho serenade.

"Yoho" is a Cree Indian word for awe or wonder. It's a fitting name for a strip of sublime wilderness in southeast British Columbia. Situated between two much larger and better known Canadian National Parks, Banff on the east and Kootenay to the south, Yoho packs plenty of stunning scenery into its 800 square miles. Bisected northeast to southwest by the Kicking Horse River and Trans-Canada Highway, the park embraces razor sharp Rocky peaks and grinding glaciers. Mist- tinged, evergreen valleys surround deep lakes. Wild-flowers abound, white camas, pink valerian, yellow arnica, heather and a wooly bloom known locally as "tow-headed baby."

Everywhere in Yoho there's the thunder of falling water. Takakkaw, at 800 feet, is one of Canada's highest falls. At Wapata, the Kicking Horse plunges over a rocky cliff. More than 250 miles of well-tended trails fan out in all directions. One leads across glacial moraine to the Burgess Shale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site rich with fossils half a billion years old. Iceline Trail skirts flume-braided streams along the base of Emerald Glacier, close enough to feel this awesome, natural bulldozer that ground towering cliffs into rocky rubble.

Though it is the very essence of a wilderness experience, Yoho offers more at day's end than freeze-dried food and a bedroll on the ground. The park's half dozen lodges and hostels provide accommodation and dining that ranges from rustic to gourmet. Enjoying Yoho's beauties takes effort, but it's an investment that brings rich rewards.

FMI

For info on Yoho National Park, call 250-343-6783 or visit www.worldweb.com/parkscanada-yoho

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