Hiking in the Canadian Rockies-2018

Bow Lake

This is from our second day of our hiking trip to Banff and Yoho parks in Alberta, Canada.  

This was my fourth Road Scholar trip and Susan's sixth.  Again, we had a great group of 18 other fellow travelers.  Our guides were very knowledgeable and helpful throughout the week.  I learned a good bit of Canadian history, geology, the history of this region of Canada and animal management.  

MONDAY

Our first day was in Sunshine Meadows.  We (meaning me) chose to do the "moderate" level of hiking on the first day.  It was a lot more than I expected.  From Tuesday on we did the "mellow" level and were better able to keep up with the mellow group.

We reached Sunshine Meadows by a long gondola ride up to just over an elevation of 7,000 ft.  The gondola ride took about 20 minutes.  This is most of our group getting ready to head out.

This was spring time here at this elevation in Banff.  We saw quite a few wildflowers in bloom.  I think that these are mainly "hippies on a stick."

I think that this is Mt. Assinboine.  This is on the way up to Rock Island Lake which is pictured below.

This is another picture of wildflowers in bloom.  

 I think that this is Grizzly Lake, but it could be Laryx Lake too (we circled Laryx and viewed Grizzly as we passed by it).  Both of these lakes are actually in British Columbia and not Alberta.  We passed into British Columbia sometime in the morning and stayed there for a good part of the afternoon.  Coming down back to our starting point, we walked back into Alberta.  

This is on our way back down the trail.  The last part of the day's hike was alongside a ski slope.  We went down several hundred feet to board our gondola back down to the bus.  

TUESDAY

Tuesday was one of my favorite days.  We hiked up to a view point of a glacial waterfall that is the source of the Bow River which runs through much of the region.  The cover picture for this blog post is at the start of our Tuesday hike.  

This is a picture of the Crowfoot Glacier.  We saw this as we approached the Bow Lake trail-head.  The glaciers in Banff were much more impressive than what we saw in Glacier National Park in 2016.  Below is a 1902 photo of Crowfoot Glacier.  It does show how much the Banff glaciers have shrunk over the last 100 years.

This is a picture of the Bow Glacier from the same time period.  The picture below (from Susan's phone) isn't precisely from the same viewpoint, but you can still see how much the glacier has shrunk.  

  This is the river coming from Bow Glacial Falls.  Notice the blue color.  We had to hike into the water, as part of the trail was a bit submerged.  Going up to the falls, I tried to straddle the side of the trail (not easy to do) and stay mainly out of the water (3" to 6" deep), but coming back, I walked mainly in the water.  My feet stayed dry. 

This is the lunch spot on Tuesday.  This is at the base of the "stairs" to the viewpoint of the falls.  The staircase was made up of timbers and rocks.  

These are pictures surrounding our lunch spot. 

Our crew going up the stairs after lunch.  I was the caboose most of the week.  

This is one of the more impressive pictures of one of the glaciers surrounding Bow Lake.  You can really see the depth of the snow.  

This waterfall viewpoint was our destination Tuesday.  The moderate group went past the mellow viewpoint for about another mile to be very near the base of the falls.  

This is a couple of our fellow travelers coming down the "stairs" from the viewpoint of the falls.  At this point we are most of the way down to the river.  

From nearly the same spot but looking further down river and into the mountains beyond.  

 This is more of our mellow group as we make our way back to our starting point.  We had mainly nice weather all week.  Monday was very warm but Tuesday was a little more comfortable temperatures.  

I really like the contrast in the colors in this picture.  A dull blue up close and a neon blue in the distance.  

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday was sort of break day.  The entire group did the paved trail up to the upper and lower falls at Johnston Canyon.  The hike was only a little bit more than 3 miles.  We didn't get all the way up to the upper falls, but most of the way. We both appreciated the half day and took advantage of the easier day.  

The trail up to the falls is a series of these catwalks and paved portions.  Going up it wasn't as crowded. By the time that we headed back down, it got more and more crowded.  Nearly all of our trails were fairly crowded.  I think that the month of July and early August are the best of the summer weather in Banff.  In June you might get some snow and by the middle of August, the temperatures are surely getting crisper.  I am guessing that the good weather is the reason for the crowded trails.  

Here is a catwalk that gives you an up close view of the lower falls.  We had to wait in line for about 5 minutes to do a modified duck walk through the tunnel to stand right next to the lower falls.  

This is a view of the lower falls from higher up and heading to the upper falls.  

 After our morning hike, we went to the town of Banff to spend the afternoon there.  We first took a tour of the Banff Springs Hotel.  The hotel was built by railroad (the Canadian Pacific Railway) to attract tourists to the area.  Banff's development reminded me of the story of Yellowstone.  This picture is from the 8th floor overlook.  Below is the Bow River.

This room is supposed to have been the inspiration for the dining hall at Hogwarts (Harry Potter).

This is just outside the hotel in a very pretty courtyard.

Same courtyard but from a slightly higher vantage point.

One of the flower boxes in the courtyard.

After the tour of the hotel, we had several hours in downtown Banff.  Susan and I walked around town a bit and then searched out a place for some ice cream.  

THURSDAY

Thursday was our day hiking around Emerald Lake.  The terrain around the lake was relatively flat.  

 From this picture you can understand the name of this lake.

I really liked the shadows and reflections in the water.  The angle of the sun was a little tough, but it still makes an interesting picture.  

This is about half way around the lake.  

This is from nearly the same location as above except it is facing away from the lake.  We had lunch near this spot. 

Even though it might not look like much, this is one of my favorite pictures.  The rocks in the water look like jewels against the green-blue water and the mountains.  

These two pictures are on the way back to the trail-head.  This side of the lake is the wet side, whereas we spent the morning on the dry side.  This side was much lusher.  The trail got wetter and had a lot more tree roots to side-step.  With the sun not directly in our faces, I could get a better picture of the water color.  

 Thursday evening we had dinner at the converted Lake Louise train station.  I enjoyed our meals on the trip.  Twice we had dinner at our hotel in Canmore but the rest of dinners were out at restaurants.  

A couple of our fellow travelers after dinner.  

FRIDAY

Friday was our last day of hiking.  Our destination was Moraine Lake.  It seemed like a popular stop because in a few minutes you could scramble up the "rock pile" to get a great view of the lake below.  

This is the view of the lake from the top of the rock pile.  Friday's weather was the kind that we had expected all week.  It was cooler and cloudier than it had been all week.  I wore my jacket most of the day.  I don't think that I had taken it out once before Friday.  Most of the other days I ended up in a short sleeve shirt by 10 or 11 in the morning. 

I took the picture of the canoe just to give a sense of how far up we were from the lake below.  Our guide for the day, Katrina, snapped the picture of Susan and me.  

Our hiking destination on Friday was Consolation Lake.  We had to hike around the perimeter of the rock pile where we were greeted by a rock field.  I guess it was technically a creek bed (there was water in between the rocks).  The rocks ranged between quite large to fairly small.  It called for some careful treading.  Fortunately, it was about 100 yards of this terrain.  

After that the trail was a gradual rise up to our destination.  

This is our guide for the day, Katrina, Susan and a couple of our fellow travelers, Ken and Ellen.  You can get a sense of the trail from this picture.  

Here's a picture of our view on the way up to our destination.  

This is our lunch spot.  

Here's part of our gang settling in for lunch.  

This is as close as I got to Consolation Lake.  I didn't want to climb over the rocks to get any closer.  

This is one of our lunch guests on Friday.  He stayed around for quite a while.  Compared to Yellowstone, we didn't see much wildlife.  We did see a bear from the bus on Monday, but no other larger animals that I remember.  It's not that I was disappointed, just curious about the difference between this area and Yellowstone.  

When we got back to the bus, we went to Lake Louise.  

Susan had been here when she was 18 but it was all fogged in so she didn't see too much.  Well, it wasn't clear and sunny when we arrived, but at least it was clear enough to view the Lake.  We also went up to the hotel (Chateau Lake Louise) in search of T-shirts.  I stepped into a bookshop inside the hotel and I asked where the nearest gift shop was.  The clerk told me that I needed to give her some better idea of what I was looking for since there were in fact 14 gift shops on the hotel grounds.  The hotel was like the Banff Springs Hotel (bait for wealthy guests to come west).  

Our one attempt at a selfie this trip.

These are a couple of pictures of the entire group.  Jack took the first one above and Katrina took the second one.  In both it looks like everyone is smiling.  It was a good group and a good week.  Thank you to our guides and fellow travelers for a nice trip to the Canadian Rockies.