July 21st - To the Scariest Canyon Yet
24.4km; 926m ascent
Relatively breezy hike to Turbine Canyon Camp. Named after a 50mish tall 50cmish wide canyon that’s still being carved even deeper by the fast flowing glacial water. The upstream water molecules have no idea whats coming! Vivian really wanted to straddle it until
She peered down the crack and lost all intentions. Even though the jump across the canyon is non technical, it took us several minutes to pump up the nerves to make the leap. I should mention that this leap is not on trail, and thus not mandatory for hikers.
Viv checking out Turbine Canyon.
July 22nd - Into Banff National Park!
25.9 km; 866 ascent
The hike began with ascending the absolutely stunning Kananaskis pass. It’s funny because the ascent was lovely graded switchbacks because it is in a provincial park, while the descend was a gnarly steep dirt and rocks hell because the park boundary ended at the pass and thus no trails were officially built. The next pass, the Palliser, involved a very overgrown trail until we entered the famous Banff National Park where a thunderstorm storm seemed to circled around us but not over - thanks thunder storm! It was very clean, nobody ever really comes to this part of Banff.
Kananaskis Pass.
Entering Banff National Park (Palliser Pass).
Entering Banff National Park.
July 23rd - Into Assiniboine
32.3km; 769 ascent
We woke up with half the tent’s condensation frozen, as well as Bill’s shoes and backpack. This was our first cold breakfast day because we had over 40km planned (we couldn’t get any bookings in the popular Assiniboine area). Started hiking at dusk and the low elevation gain + maintained trails of the parks allowed for fairly quick pace. Seeing so many people in the Assiniboine area was honestly a bit bewildering at first, but it’s also great to see people of various experiences enjoying the outdoors, and Mt Assiniboine is a real treat. With a random stroke of luck, we ran into a ranger who gave us a cancellation site at Lake Og, saving us 7kms!
Mount Assiniboine is epic.
July 24th - Long Haul to Egypt Lake
37.0km; 1547m ascent
This was when 13 hr hiking days become the norm. Lunch on the go. Grind up the ascents, take in the views, and push on. It’s hard to describe how spoiled we are with views though. The mountains just have so much character.
Beauty everywhere.
The short trek from the campsite to the lake was difficult in our exhausted state, but very worth it.
July 25th - Another Long Haul to Floe Lake
32.8km; 1580m ascent
Bill slept really poorly so we allowed ourselves to sleep in one extra hour to 6am. This, plus slow trails led us to not make our intended site. Nonetheless, it was still a great day. The second pass was called Ball Pass and the ascent entailed some more fun (more technical) trail. Vivian calls it fancy footwork.
Fancy footwork up Ball Pass.
The descent sucked though!! 10km of a trail in a previous burnt forest- absolutely no shade. We started the last 700m gain to Floe Lake at 5PM and received many weird looks from day hikers who probably wondered why we smelled so bad even though we just left the parking lot.
Long descent with no shade.
Floe lake was gorg, and very cold with icebergs floating in it. But we needed to jump in even though the sun was setting to end the day on a refreshing note, and because we really stunk.
Cold but beautiful lake.
July 26th - The Rockwall
30.6km; 1624m ascent
This section of the trail is very popular for short overnights and day hikes because it skirts the western shoulders of a 80km long 1km tall near-vertical rock wall. Honestly the most in-your-face incredible vistas yet. We missed the more technical fun hiking outside of national parks but appreciated the graded switchbacks. Incredible how geology forms such shocking towers. Bill reckons the rock wall is the fin of a very very large sleeping fish.
Awesome view of the rockwall, with Floe Lake at the base of the wall.
Numa Pass.
Turns out the wall isn’t continuous, there is one pass. Bill updates his theory that it must thus be the fins of two slightly smaller giant sleeping fish. Viv ponders whether they’re facing each other or looking opposite directions.
Helmet Falls - the campground near here had zero bugs!
July 27th - One pass till a zero!
28.6km; 645m ascent
We hiked as fast as we could! Said bye bye to the giant fish and arrived at the highway several hours later planning to hitch the 6km highway stretch to Field where we booked a hotel. Amazingly, we were picked up by a friend we met at our last resupply!
Real food is so good. So is a real bed. And real flush. And Vivian just so appreciates being horizontal.
Next is section D, 4 days to Saskatchewan Crossing, then straight into section E which is 7 days to Jasper, where we have our next (and last) zero day of the trip!