Finally!

Yes, FINALLY I made it out to Lake O'Hara! I've been wanting to go there for years, and I've made many attempts to book a bus ride and I've even stopped out there on the fly a few times to see if I could ride standby... and yesterday was my lucky day!

I could not believe how beautiful it was! And the day itself was stellar - not too hot, no clouds, and of course very few people! I did a big part of the Lake O'Hara Alpine Circuit, which I highly, highly recommend - I started on the Wiwaxy Gap trail, then took the Huber Ledges trail over to Lake Oesa, then went up to the Yukness Ledges trail and took it around to the Opabin Plateau, dropped down and went to Opabin Lake, then stayed on the West Opabin trail and hooked up with the All Souls Prospect trail, which dropped down to Schaffer Lake, then took the Big Larch trail back to the ACC hut / Le Relais day shelter area. This route takes you up high, and to say the views are spectacular is an understatement!! I had such a fantastic day!

Today T-Odd, B-Rad and myself are heading into Blackfeather Canyon for some sport climbing, then I have to go back to Red Deer for my final stretch of dayshifts before another two weeks off! At which time my sister will be visiting me!! Yeah!! I am excited to see her and get her out onto some of the trails in our amazing Rockies!

Life is great! Cheers!

Lake O'Hara Alpine Circuit (except for McArthur Pass)

Time (bus to bus): 6-1/4 hrs

Distance: ~11km

Elevation Gain: 825m

The Land Down Under

Yeah!! We're booked!! Todd and I are heading to Australia, we depart November 7th!! Can you tell I'm excited??!! We've been discussing ideas for our fall trip for a few months now; many destinations came up, and since we have some friends who will be there at the same time, we decided on Melbourne. Climbing and kiting are on the activity list - we'll be travelling between Melbourne and Adelaide, including Mt Arapales, in a camper van. How fun will that be!! Eeeek!!! I can hardly wait!!
Cheers!

Beehives and teahouses!

Quite the combination, hey! That's pretty much what yesterday amounted to... the morning started out a little less than sunny... but my friend Lynn and I headed out to Lake Louise anyhow, in hopes that the clouds would burn off and we could do some hiking. Our perseverence paid off (and I'm sure Lynn's sun dance helped out!) and by 9:30, we were on the trail.

I must say, the loop we followed turned out to be my new favorite scenic hike! The views were amazing pretty much every step of the way, and I highly recommend it! However, it really should be done in the order we did it - I noticed in a couple of guidebooks it is suggested to do the route (or part of it) starting at the opposite end. One word on that: ICK!! Anyway, here is what we did:

- Chateau Lake Louise to Mirror Lake

- Mirror Lake to Little Beehive (do not go to teahouse first)

- Little Beehive to Lake Agnes Teahouse

- Lake Agnes Teahouse to Big Beehive lookout

- Big Beehive lookout to Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse (via Highline Trail)

- Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse to Abbott Pass lookout

- Abbott Pass lookout to Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse

- Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse to Chateau Lake Louise (via Lakeshore Trail)

The only trail which required backtracking was between the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse and Abbott Pass lookout. The entire day was stellar!

Today we got rained out... we had aspirations of quickly zipping up Ha Ling Peak or West Wind Pass before we had to leave for Red Deer... but the Spray Lakes valley was filled with clouds and precipitation. So... they'll have to wait until the next time.

Back to work tomorrow for SEVEN... count 'em SEVEN... shifts! Eeek! Oh well. I'll survive. On the bright side, that means I have SEVEN days to plan for my next set of days off!! Yeah!

Cheers.

Lake Louise Teahouse / Beehive Loop

Time (car to car): 8-1/2 hrs

Distance: 20km

Elevation Gain: 800m (total - Little Beehive, Big Beehive, Abbott Pass lookout)

Rainy day fun!

My friend Lynn is in Canmore with me for the weekend, and we are bound and determined to get out and enjoy each and every minute of it... even if it means playing in the rain! Today, we woke up to heavy showers in Canmore, so we decided to drive west until we got out of it. Finally at Field, BC, the weather lightened up a bit, and that's how we ended up at Emerald Lake! It turned out to be a super day - we hiked the Emerald Lake loop and took a little side trip up to the base of the falls that are just below the pass heading over to Yoho Lake. Then we zipped up to Hamilton Falls, hopped back in the car and stopped over at Takakkaw Falls, drove back towards Castle Junction, and tripped up to Silverton Falls. I guess all the waterfalls were fitting... since it was raining anyhow! Oh yeah, and did I mention the SNOW!!?? All of the peaks between Field and Canmore are extremely white. ICK. Tomorrow we are hoping the clouds give way somewhat so we can do the Lake Agnes / Beehives / Plain of Six Glaciers loop out at Lake Louise. Although no matter what the skies bring, it will be awesome to be out in the mountains!
Cheers!

Emerald Lake Loop (with side trip to unnamed falls and Hamilton Falls)
Time (car to car): 3 hrs
Distance: ~9.5km
Elevation Gain: 150m

A fair view from Fairview!

D'OH!! I had intentions of getting up early and making it a full day of hiking today... set my alarm and everything... The weather forecast looked so stellar for the Banff/Lake Louise area and I had hoped take advantage of it. However, after rolling out of bed and fumbling around for about 15 minutes after my 5:30am alarm went off... I promptly crawled back in, went back to sleep, and didn't wake up until almost ten o'clock!! Needless to say, my day was cut a bit shorter... but that's okay. Aside from the fact that I felt (and still feel) like total shite (cover your ears kids!), I still managed to hike up to the top of amazing Fairview Mtn - which totally lived up to its name today!! And on my way out I took a quick jaunt up to the highly disappointing Fairview Lookout. It was a typical Saturday in the park... line-ups everywhere, many parties on the trails... but it was still better than being inside! Speaking of which, I'm spending an extra few days inside here coming up - I'm going back to work a day early. Work. Hmmph. A necessary evil I guess!! But next weekend, my friend Lynn will be joining me for some more excellent hiking adventures. Can't wait!!

Oh, I also saw my 6th bear of the season - this one was a little black guy, munching away on berries alongside the Bow Valley Parkway. That makes 4 grizzes and 2 blacks - what a summer! Yeah!

Cheers!

Mount Fairview

Time (car to car): 4-1/2 hrs

Distance: ~11km

Elevation Gain: 1000m

FIVE and counting!

After being stuck inside for a few days, thanks to some serious rain and gloomy conditions, it was awesome to get out into the sunshine on Thursday. It never did quite clear up in Canmore, but I went out to Lake Louise and rode the gondola, then wandered around mid-mountain for an hour or so. Due to the major grizzly activity recently, I was cautioned against hiking the ski-hill trails alone… so between that and the fact that the afternoon haze made for poor scenery/photography, the adventure itself wasn’t really blogworthy… However, the TWO grizzly bear sightings were very blogworthy… hence the post! That brings my count of bear sightings this summer to FIVE – which is probably more than I’ve seen in the last five years – and I’m excited about that! They are such beautiful, powerful creatures, and it makes me sad to know that they sometimes have to be destroyed because WE have imposed on THEIR space. That’s just not right. We humans can be frighteningly arrogant.
Anyway, enough of the deep stuff! I’m stoked that I get to enjoy nature in such a capacity on a regular basis, and even on the ‘worst’ days, the great outdoors are a bazillion times better than the indoors!!
Cheers!

Yoho ho, and a bottle of rum!

This weekend, a couple of my friends came to Canmore for a visit. And, being the great friend I am... I nearly killed them... Okay, perhaps that's an exaggeration! But I did work them over... and they both fared excellent, and I think they even had a good time...?

Saturday, Jynelle and I hiked up to the Ink Pots near Castle Junction. We took the Moose Meadows trail up (highly recommended - way less traffic!!) and then we returned via the Johnston Canyon trail.

Sunday, Toni joined us, and the three of us got up early and headed out to Yoho Nat'l Park. We started our day with a hike up to beautiful Sherbrooke Lake, then we took the other 'fork in the road' and wandered up to Paget Lookout - which, by the way, offers up SPECTACULAR views - where we ate our lunch and hung out for an hour or so. After we got back to the car, we decided to drive out to Emerald Lake and Takkakkaw Falls, since we were in the vicinity. It was quite the whirlwind tour!

Toni had to head back to Calgary, but Jynelle and I topped off our day with some Captain Morgan's, supper and visiting with fantastic peeps! So far, what an awesome weekend!!

Cheers!

Ink Pots via Moose Meadows ascent and Johnston Canyon return

Time (car to car): 4 hrs

Distance: ~ 12.5km (including hike along hwy 1A back to Moose Meadows trailhead parking area)

Elevation Gain: 215m

Sherbrooke Lake (North End) / Paget Lookout

Time (car to car): 5-1/2 hrs

Distance: ~11.5km (to far end of lake, back to junction, up to lookout, down to parking area)

Elevation Gain: 197m to lake, 520m to lookout