Situated on the edge of British Columbia & Alberta the Canadian Rockies are contained within 4 national parks - Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay. A beautiful day of driving got us from Kelowna to Lake Louise, probably the most famous attraction in Banff National park. Unfortunately, anything popular and easily accessible is inevitably swarmed by tourists.
Note the giant hotel sitting directly next to Lake Louise - rooms start at $400/night. It caters to the thousands of mostly Asian tourists who drive around the mountains, decked out in expensive hiking gear just in case they encounter a freak storm in the carpark.
Fortunately a few hundred meters of vertical gain sorts the tourists from the hikers. We set out from nearby Lake Moraine and headed steeply uphill to a point 400 meters above the lake before branching off towards Sentinel's Pass. This winter saw unseasonally heavy snow (reverse global warming?!?) and i think the trail was still technically closed, but we didn't let that stop us.
Almost immediately we encountered patches of snow and above the treeline it thickly covered most of the trail, making navigation tricky at times.
Although the snow makes it look cold, the air temperature was at least 8 or 9 degrees. I did go a couple of hours without being able to feel my toes though - a small price to pay for views this good!
The final ascent was about 150m of extremely steep, thick snow which we made more managable by plowing shallow switchbacks. We were just past the the halfway point when a mini-blizzard came in from nowhere. The wind it was howling and the snow was outrageous, reducing the temperature and visibility significantly. We decided to head back before our tracks got covered and a very cold slide got us to the base of the final climb real fast. After a few tense minutes we located our tracks and trudged back to the trail.
As quickly as it arrived, the blizzard gave way to beautiful blue skies, and we still had enough time and energy left to check out another great hike which branched from an earlier point on the trail. All up we covered just over 20km - A very strong effort from lil Jo!
Note the giant hotel sitting directly next to Lake Louise - rooms start at $400/night. It caters to the thousands of mostly Asian tourists who drive around the mountains, decked out in expensive hiking gear just in case they encounter a freak storm in the carpark.
Fortunately a few hundred meters of vertical gain sorts the tourists from the hikers. We set out from nearby Lake Moraine and headed steeply uphill to a point 400 meters above the lake before branching off towards Sentinel's Pass. This winter saw unseasonally heavy snow (reverse global warming?!?) and i think the trail was still technically closed, but we didn't let that stop us.
Almost immediately we encountered patches of snow and above the treeline it thickly covered most of the trail, making navigation tricky at times.
Although the snow makes it look cold, the air temperature was at least 8 or 9 degrees. I did go a couple of hours without being able to feel my toes though - a small price to pay for views this good!
The final ascent was about 150m of extremely steep, thick snow which we made more managable by plowing shallow switchbacks. We were just past the the halfway point when a mini-blizzard came in from nowhere. The wind it was howling and the snow was outrageous, reducing the temperature and visibility significantly. We decided to head back before our tracks got covered and a very cold slide got us to the base of the final climb real fast. After a few tense minutes we located our tracks and trudged back to the trail.
As quickly as it arrived, the blizzard gave way to beautiful blue skies, and we still had enough time and energy left to check out another great hike which branched from an earlier point on the trail. All up we covered just over 20km - A very strong effort from lil Jo!
3 comments:
Nice shorts you maniac!
Looks pretty sweet, although personally I'm disappointed you didn't do the sonw hike in mandals.
I'm going to be fucked for this Sweden hike - you've been hiking the Rockies while I've mostly been sitting on my arse drinking sweet, sweet Czech beer.
Wish I was going to NYC soon :(
Caught up on your blog finally.
What a work!
Feeling comparitively lazy here.. oh, I'll live
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