Banff National Park
Another week in the Canadian Rockies, another Canadian blog post.
This one covers what we did in Banff National Park while staying at the Tunnel Mountain Village I campground, which is just outside the Banff townsite. The campsites we stayed at had something unique we'd never seen before -- you can choose sites with or without fire rings, and the ones with include unlimited firewood! They are $9CAD/day more expensive though. We always chose without since we don't use fires, except for at Lake Louise, where there were no other options available.
Day 13 - September 28th, 2021
Vitali's air mattress sprung a leak overnight and he ended up sleeping in Numa. Spirits were not high. We roused ourselves to a semi-alive state and headed over to Johnston Canyon (another recommendation by a friend) to see the canyon and the Ink Pots.
This was another big tourist destination and there was a little cafe at the trailhead that we stopped at for some hot beverages to warm up our morning walk.
Johnston Canyon has a walkway bolted to the canyon walls, allowing pedestrians to enjoy its splendor easily. It was waterfall heaven, and I was glad we were so early on the trail. No pesky people milling about ruining my pictures.
It was an amazing place, similar to Malign Canyon in Jasper, although the geology was different here. We went past the lower falls, and then the upper falls, and then continued beyond. As we went further and further there were even fewer people.
We reached the end of the trail and the ink pots -- a series of green, emerald, and turquoise pools, with bubbling springs coming up from the bedrock below. The springs created these beautiful rings in the sediment of the water, and they rippled and gurgled like a second surface.
Behind the ink pots the valley opened up and there was a beautiful view of the mountains beyond. I noticed that the mountains in this part of the Rockies all seemed to be very similar in geology: like thousand layer cake laying at an angle.
Day 14 - September 29th, 2021
We headed over to the Twin Lakes Trailhead early this morning but saw some weather threatening in the distance. We weren't feeling 12 miles either so we decided to do the shorter Sulphur Mountain in town.
Ahh, don't you just love endless switchbacks? I counted them as we approached the summit, and boy was it a big number. The trail follows the same slope as the gondola and we passed only a single person coming down on the way up.
There was a contemporary piece of architecture at the top that had a restaurant (closed) and could be rented out for events. Can you imagine having a wedding reception up here?
There was a long boardwalk that connected from the gondola/reception/restaurant building across a short saddle to Samson Peak.
At the summit of Samson Peak was a historic site -- a cosmic ray station, which quite unfortunately was covered in grafitti. What is wrong with people?
There were 360 degree views from the ray station, overlooking the townsite of Banff, and the adjacent valleys.
Tunnel Mountain is the tiny hill in the center of the panorama above. To the right is Rundle Mountain, to the left, Cascade Mountain. In the far distance, Lake Minnewanka.
It was freezing up top so we didn't stay too long and started back, where we passed quite a few groups coming up, including some wayward old people who were cutting through the switchbacks off-trail! SMH.
We stopped in Banff for lunch at the Park Distillery, and had AMAZING burgers outside under their heat lamps.
When we got back to camp, we were all alone in the campground again.
Day 15 - September 30th, 2021
We caught a beautiful sunrise the next morning and headed to Boom Lake. We passed a group immediately off of the trailhead who had just seen a bear on the trail. We decidedly did not want to see the bear, so we turned around.
We then went to visit Silverton Falls, which we missed the day before because the parking lot was full. Side note -- we saw hardly any US plates on our whole trip. A handful (less than 10) of Utah, Oregon, Washington, and NO Colorado plates. We supposed some Americans could be in rentals but we expected quite a bit more. Almost entirely Alberta and British Columbia.
We were early enough that the lot was not full this time and we saw a quite amusing parking job. The short trail lead to an overlook to a tall and sinewy pair of falls, which we had all to ourselves.
We headed down the Bow Valley Parkway, which parallels the main road, saw a few bikers getting some miles in, and headed over to Lake Minnewanka. I wanted to go up to the Aylmer Overlook but it was a long hike (listed at 14 miles, which meant it was probably 16 miles) and we didn't have any extra time. We were quickly discovering that every single hike we did over a certain distance -- say 8 miles, we always recorded additional mileage over and above what was listed in the hiking guide. The most egregious being a 12 mile hike clocking in near 15. We came to expect it.
Stewart Canyon was a short 2 mile RT walk along the shoreline of Lake Minnewanka, to a bridge that overlooked a narrow waterway. It looked kind of like a canal. It doesn't look very impressive in the photo but it was slightly more so in real life. We watched a log floating downstream narrowly avoid crashing in to rocks, which was pretty entertaining.
Interestingly, there is a whole town underwater of Lake Minnewanka. It's actually a reservoir and the original town was flooded when they filled it -- you can scuba dive there to see the old buildings, which seems like it would be a lot of fun to do.
Then we went over to the renamed Stoney Lookout (originally named Stoney Squaw, and even read as such in the hiking guide we had that was printed a few years back).
We saw some Bighorn Sheeps on the way doing sheep things.
The hike was short and sweet although we lost the trail for a minute when it made a sharp turn and switched back on itself. The view from the top was nice.
We got back to camp and the winds of fortune were changing -- we had been dealing with lukewarm showers in our shower building, but we discovered in the next loop over the showers had HOT water! On the way back we saw an albino squirrel, which was an auspicious end to the afternoon.
Day 16 - October 1st, 2021
I had read reviews on Alltrails that Healy Pass was far superior than Larch Valley in terms of larch viewing, so I convinced Vitali it would be a good hike and off we set.
It started at the Sunshine Village ski resort, where they were doing some road work. We had to park down the road a ways which added another mile or so. It was a very gradual hike the entire way, which was a nice change.
We passed by one other person and then we were all alone. This was our first encounter with winter in Canada -- the puddles of water were just barely iced over and the plants were covered in a layer of frost.
After traveling through the woods for quite some time the trail opened up into a subalpine valley. The final leg headed up and over a small hill and then up to the low pass. We looked over the other side first, which provided a view to the Pharaoh Peaks, and Egypt, Scarab, and Mummy Lakes.
Then we looked to the South, where we saw some very beautifully illuminated rock formations, and plenty of larches.
Then we headed back east over the pass, the way we had come. It was quite cold up here -- a dusting of snow was on the ground and the longer we stood still the colder we got.
Our eyes took in the view of the valley we had just walked through. All I can say is we were blown away. Peaks and valleys flowed away into the distance, all absolutely carpeted in these magnificent amber larches. It was the center of the universe.
We agreed with the reviews -- this was head and shoulders above Larch Valley, and had none of the crowds. It was this kind of mountain magic that we encountered in the Canadian Rockies that will be the mark from which all other future mountains will be measured against.
We reluctantly left the pass and headed back towards Numa, stopping at the ski resort on the way out to take a picture with their giant fiberglass bear.
This view will never fade from memory.
Day 17 - October 2nd, 2021
The next day we headed over to the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, which was in town, and included in our Annual Parks Pass. This was the site of the creation of the first Canadian National Park, Banff National Park.
Not the first discovery by any means, but two brothers came across a vent in the earth and descended into it on a felled tree, finding a beautiful thermal pool. They built a cabin just outside, with the intent of commercializing it. Other claims of the ownership of this pool arose and the government had to step in to protect it, creating the first National Park. We did see quite a bit of text of Parks Canada acknowledging that this land was originally territory of indigenous people, which we thought was a great first step in repairing those relationships.
So these were the Lower Hot Springs! We went inside to check out the cave pool, and then outside to the since infilled public pool, and the basin, which hosted an endemic snail. Mmmm, boiled eggs.
Inside a recreation of the original bathhouse (which had spectacular architecture!) were exhibits about this place, and the Parks program in general. There was an excellent movie playing across five large projection screens that was very well produced, highlighting the story behind this park, and an overview of all of the parks in the system.
The gift shop had very nice architecture too.
We headed over to the Cascade of Time Garden outside the Banff National Park Administration building, which was quite beautiful, and befitting the oldest park in their system.
Most of the plants were already asleep but we noticed again that some of the natural wood used in ornamental structures here had these outrageous burls. Apparently they can be caused by stress and/or fungus.
The administration building was perfectly sited with a view down the road that lead straight to Cascade Mountain.
We walked around town for a bit and bought a pound of fudge and a bunch of other chocolate. We stopped at four chocolate stores before finding one that was reasonably sure I could eat the chocolate without getting sick. Yes, there were that many chocolate stores in three blocks of the entirety of downtown Banff.
The weather was a bit windy, which seemed to be about the only part of the forecasts that the meteorologists ever got right. Generally the next day's weather was pretty accurate, but we encountered a handful of times where the weather was the complete opposite -- clear weather; totally overcast. Rain? Not a cloud in the sky. I'm sure it didn't help that parts of the parks, and even Jasper, didn't have any radar coverage.
We stopped by some hoodoos on the way back to camp, which were pretty tiny, especially compared to the hoodoos we had already seen this past summer.
Day 18 - October 3rd, 2021
We woke up early and headed for the Harvey Pass trailhead since I read the parking lot can be competitive. Our fears were unfounded -- there was only one other car there. We hung out in Numa until the sun was out and warming up the mountains before heading out. While we were waiting a ton of cars showed up and probably ten groups headed up the trail before us.
Once we were on the trail, we quickly caught up to everyone, and enjoyed the clearest weather we'd had so far -- it was maybe 80% clear.
Harvey Pass was meant to have good larch viewing too, which is why we selected the trail. This one was a bit harder than Healy Pass -- the grade was not as gradual, and up near the lakes there were some steep portions over scree.
We arrived at Bourgeau Lake first, which was nothing to write home about, travelled through some trees which offered protection from the wind, and then headed up into the alpine and a wicked gale.
We passed by the Harvey Lakes next, which were scattered across a cirque. We wound our way up towards Harvey Pass, over a bit of slush, and were greeted with another fantastic view. Notice the dark striped mountain in the distance -- that was the mountain in the foreground at Healy Pass. It was cool to see a different perspective.
Lots of beautiful larches here, although not as many as at Healy.
We didn't linger up at the pass for long. It was extraordinarily windy, it was clouding up, and we were cold. We watched two girls head up to a nearby peak and hoped they were warm enough.
By the time we were getting back close to the trailhead the sky was almost socked in.
Day 19 - October 4th, 2021
Today we were moving to an airbnb in Golden, so we packed up camp before heading out to hit one last trail in Banff. We were very excited to be heading indoors.
We would hike through Cory Pass, described as epic, and epic-ly steep. The pictures I saw greatly intrigued me, so I once again convinced Vitali that we should do this.
The route quickly gains a ridge and follows it up to an alpine pass and then descends into a forested valley below. All recommendations were to do this clockwise to avoid coming down the steep portions, and a short downclimb.
The day started with a low haze hanging in the Bow River Valley. At the trailhead, we watched a french couple smoke a cigarette before following us up the trail. We passed a group of older people who seemed put off that we were passing them too.
We turned to approach the infamously steep portion, which started climbing like getting cold water thrown on your face. It was SO STEEP! The average grade of mile 1-2 was about 40%, and we gained about 1,300' in a single mile. What was so crazy about this (and caused us to laugh hysterically as we ascended), was how long this steep portion was. It was unrelentless, and lasted for almost 2 miles. The french couple tried to keep up but we quickly lost them.
The sufferfest eventually ended and we found ourselves atop the ridge with a great view to the surrounding mountains.
We continued a ways until we reached a short scramble up, over, and down a rocky outcropping, and then continued on, hugging the mountain side on a scree slope. There were quite a few sections where the scree was washed out and there were very tenuous steps across a chute that dropped a thousand feet to the floor below. I could see why clockwise was recommended.
Right before the pass we turned around for the view down the valley, which was quite pretty. Sulphur Mountain in the center left distance. The weather was fantastic, and dare we say -- even warm.
And then we turned a corner and reached Cory Pass. Our first view was of this hulking, castellated rock. It was so close, and so big, its presence was felt in every movement we made.
As we continued around the corner, the main attraction came in to view. We were presented with an absolutely stunning vista. The valley funneled down to the east and a great spear of rock was thrust towards the heavens. This piece of buff colored rock was absolutely magnetic -- your eye was simply drawn to it.
This is another situation where the photograph doesn't do it justice.
We had a snack and met a nice Albertan who recommended a few other trails to us and then headed back down the way we came. Then we met a couple coming up counterclockwise and pitied what they had in store for them going down the other way...
We boot skiied down the steepest part of the scree slopes right below the pass and then turned around one last time to see the magnificent chunk of rock behind us.
And the side view of the buff colored rock beside us. Incredible. It was a long descent to get back down to the trees but eventually we made it.
The last little bit of the hike was through the aspen grove we had passed at the start, and boy did it seem long... our knees were sore!
We made it back to Numa and headed for Golden. Here's one stroke of luck -- Canada Highway 1, which crosses the Rockies near Lake Louise and connects to Golden, is undergoing a four-laning program along its length. The project is almost complete, with the final stages happening now within Kicking Horse Canyon, just east of Golden. The work results in intermittent closures, and the highway was closed today, when we were due to travel to Golden. We'd have to take the detour, which would add approximately two hours to the trip.
But, that upcoming weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving, and the highway would be open for four days, between noon on the 8th to noon on the 12th, before closing for the winter. I wasn't aware of this until we got here and thanked our lucky stars that the highway would be open for us to access Yoho National Park, which is to the east of Golden, past that highway closure.
And so we drove, passing south through Kootenay National Park, through Radium Hot Springs, and then back north, following the Columbia River and a broad valley lined with peaks on either side.
Stay tuned for our next post, when we really encounter winter!
Wonderful posts! Awesome pictures!