Banff National Park, Alberta Aug 1 - Aug 5, 2019

Banff National Park, Alberta Aug 1 - Aug 5, 2019

Thursday:
This year Matt and I decided to celebrate my 40th birthday and our 10 year wedding anniversary by doing a 3 day, 2 night backcountry camping hiking experience. Noelle and James stayed with their mom and Fuzzy was enrolled in her first Camp Luther overnight experience with cousin Vivian and two of her friends. We started our adventure flying out of O'Hare at 10am. We had a direct flight to Calgary. Once there we rented a compact car and headed 2 hrs to to Lake Louise Inn. We opted to do one night in a hotel to prepare for entering the backcountry. That gave us a time to purchase our fuel for our cooking and bear spray. In our drive to Lake Louis we stopped in Canamore. What a cute mountain town! It reminded us a lot of brekenridge. Once to our inn we changed clothes and went to the much visited Lake Louise. What a beautiful lake!! The turquoise waters were so pristine with glaciers in the background. Unfortunately the lake was crowded with people. The ease to get there somewhat lessened it's beauty. We still decided to hang there eating our cookie dough ice cream and tuna salad gluten free sandwiches by the fire as the sun began to set. We headed back to our inn to get the much needed rest before the real adventure began. Lake Loise Inn was a little of dump...but we didn't really care. At this point we were biting the bullet to get backcountry.

Friday:
This morning we got our last meal at a cute organic coffee and sand which shop. I let the wheels come off and ordered a real egg omelet, cheese, veggies, smoked salmon, avocado, toast, and bullet proof coffee. My body predicted the need for fuel! We decided to do a loop through The Skokie Valley of Banff National Park. Today we set in at Fishcreek Trailhead. The weather was roughly 45 degrees to start. We hiked up Boulder Pass to halfway hut. Once to Ptarmigan Lake we had our peanut butter honey and tortillas wraps for lunch, viewing the beautiful Alpine Lake with snow at our side. After throwing a couple snowballs we kept hiking up Skoki Valley Trail to the toughest climb through Deception pass at 8,117 feet. Off to our left we saw the alpine lakes of Zigademis and Myosotis. We descended into Skoki Valley ending, much to our surprise at Skoki Lodge. And we made it in time for "backpackers happy hour" 2-4pm! Four energy filled middle aged ladies greeted us. The log cabin was cute! The family running it flies in all their supplies and you can only access it by foot or horse! We refueled with green tea and beer, listening to the lady backpackers stories of prior adventures (Oregon rainforest and Brice Canyon) and then decided to make our final trek to our site at Merlin Meadows, Sk18. We set up our tent facing the glacier covered "wall of jericho" Mountains. The site was available to roughly 3-4 groups. There were designated spots for meal preparation, dumping of liquids, Bear poles, and only 100 yards away, a glacier feed stream for filtering out much needed water. As we were setting up, a deer decided to join us. I think he would have ate out of my hand!! Other campers I bet feed him. After dinner we were spent and decided to chill in our tent. 11 miles of hiking can do that do you! Only a few minutes after I climbed into the tent the storm started. It rained from 6pm until 3am!! It may have actually snowed due to the fact we had ice on our tent in the morning! Matt and I lied flat on our backs trying to invent a new product so we can retire. I know what our invention should be...a tinted waterproof fly cover for our tent. I would have loved to have the warmth, rainproof, and view of the night sky without other looking in. I still cannot believe we lied flat on our backs from 6pm until 7:30 the next morning! Minus one trip to go to the bathroom at 3:30Am. I wish I could have captured the view of the clear sky with stars so bright I needed sunglasses!!

Saturday:
This morning we piled on every layer of clothing we had to prepare our breakfast. I downed coffee like a man woman!! Eventually the shivering stopped. We packed up, said our goodbyes to the backpacking ladies who greeted us at Skoki lodge who happened to also stay at our site, and hit the trail towards deer lake. The terrain started in lush woods with tall pines & grounds covered in moss. Quickly we approach a meadow with open views of Skoki Mountain. We decided to stop for lunch at Sk19, Red deer lakes. I devoured my coconut oil and honey white four tortilla wraps and sun dried tomato olive oil tuna in a pouch. Stopping here for lunch was probably a mistake. I ended up pacing the campsite to avoid the mosiquitos from attacking. Had we done it over we may have skipped doing to deer lake and gone through Jones pass trail to get to Cotton Grass pass trail. We accidentally missed our turn and nearly headed to baker lake. Fortunately it only added a mile or so. The Baker Creek Trail that took us to our site at Wildflower creek Ba15 was a new landscape with much variety. We had open meadows, dense forest with steep cliff drop offs, creek crossings, views of glacier feed waterfalls off in the distance, and marsh tromping. My highlight of the afternoon was my husband carrying me over muddy marsh to avoid saturating my poor selection of foot wear...brooks running shoes. Next time...I'm bringing hiking boots! Another highlight was my insistence of crossing a creek 3 times instead of once to get the easiest route, ie. least chance of falling in. I managed to avoid getting wet! Our final stretch was roughly 2 miles downhill. All Matt could think about was how we needed to come out the next morning. I kept reminding him...we need to get through today. What sense does it make to worry about it!! Once to our site we were greeted by two other groups. One group, the more talkative of the groups was from Vancouver and England. A father who resembled "Phil" on Modern Family brought along his two teenage children and their male cousin from England with his girlfriend. "Phil" was a talker!!! Matt hit it off right away with him. The other couple didn't say anything to us. They quietly prepared their meals and ate in silence. They appeared roughly in their late 60's. Phil and his group were impressed by our food selection and efficiency. I'm still not sure it we did it right...we went with quick and easy and with minimal storage space. I loved my instant Quaker oatmeal with coconut oil and pork epic jerkey bar. Matt gobbled up instant butter potatoes and spam. I think he later regretted that...forgot to consider the sodium content and how much water he would need to consume. Tonight's trek to the stream was right behind our tent...nice and easy and wonderfully serving as our natural sound machine. No scary dreams of bears approaching that night...all I could here was the nearby stream. I did however start dreaming of chocolate. I guess 4 days without my chocolate bone broth protein powder in my morning drink has me hooked!! That day we ended up hiking 12 miles. We were sore! My hips and shins were the worst!

Sunday:
Fortunately we had a rain free night. We awoke earlier this morning...around 6:30AM. We piled on all our warmest gear, ate oatmeal and coffee, packed up and headed out. We started a pretty good pace. I taught Matt a different way to climb using longer strides to avoid calf burnout. We stopped a couple times along the way to stretch and hydrate. Before we new it we were up and out. We passed a nice young couple likely in their 20's who shared some amazing hiking experiences...Jasper and Sky is all I remember. My brain couldn't convert to memory at that point. We made our way to Baker Lake for lunch. Off in the distance we saw two gals who first looked like their were walking away from us...then we heard some yelling...followed by them returning towards us! They had spotted a grizzly mom and her cubs. Fortunately they didn't need to use their bear spray. After yelling, the bears ran off into our narrowed path into the woods. The gals were afraid to go into the woods alone so they asked if we could go with them. Three other young local gals from Calgary also joined us. The group of 7 of us, all carrying our beer spray proceeded down our trail yelling..."go away bear" at the top of our lungs. Luckily we didn't see any paw prints or any sign of them. We soon met a divide in our pathways where the ladies headed one way and us the other. The 3 gals from Calgary were day hiking to fossil mountain....at 9,665 feet!! What a challenge! Matt and I passed by Ptarmigan lake, watched a fly fisherman catch fresh fish and the proceeded down boulder pass - Skoki trail to our trailhead. We stopped for a mid afternoon snack at a creek crossing and chatted with locals from Edmongton. They had done 7 days backcountry...10 miles a day!! They were newly empty nesters, likely in their 60's. Their one word of advice was do Badger pass! They called themselves "mountain snobs" and said that is the most beautiful they have ever seen!!! Our final stretch seemed unending!! My shoulder blades were killing me and Matt's toes were painful. Even the picturesque viewing of the horse farm on the way down with Lipalian Mountain in the distance didn't bump up the dopamine. Once we got to our trailhead were were feeling the "high". We covered 35 miles in 3 days...not to mention a lot of altitude gains and losses. Matt had started recording on his apple watch but unfortunately it lost battery. What we did decide to modify from this trip...bring more socks, Matt wants more flavored food, I want flavored coffee with chocolate more than once per day. After our backpacking experience ended we went back to our same inn to shower up and go out to eat. We were so hungry that the natural coffee and sandwich shop only 3 blocks from our inn was calling our name. Matt had the best stake sandwich and I had an amazing salmon and avocado sandwich. We topped off diner with ice cream. I was happy to find coconut Carmel (dairy free) and Matt got rolo and vanilla. We headed back to our inn and chilled. Matt talked with his mom and kids while I edited photos. Lights were out at 9pm this night!!

Monday:
I really wanted to run this morning. My lovely husband was afraid to have me go alone so I ran the one street we stayed on while he walked always keeping an eye on me. After 30 min we showered, packed up, and headed to Banff for breakfast. We ate at Juniper Bistro right off hwy 1 with beautiful views of Mount Rundle. Matt's steak and refried bean tostado dish topped with spicy salsa was amazing. My avocado and poached egg atop fresh kale hit the spot...oh and not to mention fruity green tea. We had a little bit more time to kill so we headed to Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel....."wow!!" I had almost gone to a conference here...but changed venues to a backcountry trip. Matt kicks himself after viewing this 1888 build hotel that is one of the worlds most stunning mountain hotels. This was our final stop other than donating our bear spray and gas at the Banff visitors center...can't pass airport security with that!! We drove through downtown Calgary on our way to the airport. Seems like a beautiful, clean, and active destination. Once to the airport we bought our Mountain chocolate soulinveers and lunch for the plane.

All in all, this was an amazing trip. Just the right amount of time. I would gladly do more backpacking trips like this!!! Next year...jasper? Oregon? Or maybe glacier mountain biking backcountry??

Until next time....






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