Ok, so I stole the title from the excellent photo book by Banff-based photographer Paul Ziska. He is a master of nighttime shots in the Canadian Rockies, and a good portion of them are at night. While my equipment and certainly my skills are far behind his, Sarah and I have been inspired by his work to return to the Banff area, this time in the winter. Our trip to this part of the world in 2015 was one of our favorite backpacking trips yet, and since we hadn't gotten in a trip together this year, we pulled the trigger and fit in an excursion in December, 2017.
Since our backpacking skills only extend through three seasons, we are fortunate that the Alpine Club of Canada maintains a series of backcountry huts in the Rockies, much like the 10th Mountain Division Huts of Colorado. We were able to squeeze in a 3 night reservation at the Elizabeth Parker Hut near Lake O'Hara in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. Lake O'Hara in the winter was on my ever expanding list of vacation goals, so it was great to get just where we wanted on short notice.
After flying in to Calgary and spending the night in a much-less-crowded-than-in-the-summer Banff, we drove into BC to the trailhead for the 11km hike to Lake O'Hara. I say hike because it's a dirt forest road in the summer, and lots of ski traffic and no recent snowfall made our snowshoes unnecessary. It turned out to be useful that we brought them, because our subsequent treks had us slogging through feet of untouched powder on the way up to hanging lakes high above our hut.
Since in our last hut excursion, we had watched with jealously as others made 4 course gourmet meals in well-supplied kitchens while we ate Mountain House meals, our pendulum swung the other way, and we each headed out with 50lb packs stuffed with pastas, stir fry, sauces, spices, s'more-makings, and Canadian whiskey.
A beautiful day to start
Almost at the solstice, and at these latitudes, the sun doesn't trace across much of the sky
The view from the frozen surface of Lake O'Hara is every bit as breathtaking as we had hoped. Seven Veil Falls is visible from all the way across the lake.
Sarah sits and takes it all in
Yep, life is pretty good
On the walk from the lake to the cabin we saw some cool flaky patterns to the snow
Elizabeth Parker Hut consists of a two room log cabin and a second one room cabin. The main building has two tiers bunks sleeping 12, communal tables, and the kitchen with propane stoves. The second hut sleeps 8. Both have remarkably efficient wood stoves and suspended clothes drying racks. We were a little peeved that on the second and third nights there, an extended family with two infants (yes, infants!) skied in and sort of took over the place, but we retreated to the smaller cabin with the other millennials.
Cozy cabin, great views
Upping my man-cred. I was quickly told by an alarmed woman that I needed to space my feet out to reduce the risk of planting the ax in my foot. Lesson learned: Man-cred is stupid.
The next day we strapped on snowshoes and headed up the East Opabin trail up to the Moor Lakes. It involved a steep climb up through the trees overlooking Lake O'Hara to a hanging valley. When we entered the valley we have to make our own trail, as there were no tracks to follow. We took our time meandering up to Hungabee Lake, and took in the cliff-steep sides of Schaffer Ridge, and the stillness of a place that had only been visited by deer, elk, and the occasional snowshoe hare.
Sarah has a Disney moment when this little birdie landed on her hand
Hungabee Lake
Decent back toward Lake O'Hara
We had enough daylight to head across O'Hara to Seven Veils Fall, which is probably the coolest frozen waterfall I've seen in person.
After dinner and warming up (temps had been in the teens all day), a group of 8 of us headed down to the lake around 10p to take in the night sky. There was an active meteor shower that night, and we all laid on our backs and called out shooting stars. I had to set my ISO higher than I would have liked, and my camera wouldn't autofocus to infinity, so my shots are weak compared to masters like Ziska and Callum Snape, but I got something to sort-of show the amazing night sky out in the wilderness.
The next day, we headed up to McArthur Lake, in another hanging valley. Most of this arduous trek was breaking trail, and with the actual trail under several feet of snow, we got to practice our topo map navigation. We made our way up to a pass, then had to traverse laterally across a slope that was just a bit sketchy before heading up a steep couloir to the broad valley leading to the lake. This trip afforded us even more isolation, and a view of the mists clinging to the valley beyond the first pass.
View from McArthur Pass southwest to the valley beyond
From a bluff overlooking Lake McArthur
Sarah was appropriately cautious heading down the couloir. I bombed it down with big leaps like an idiot.
My feet were thoroughly frozen by the end of the hike. With temps near single digits, and the sun visible above the peaks for about 20 minutes, some toe warmers might have been a good idea. We beat feet back to the hut before we got frostbite, and fired up the wood stove. The small cabin was toasty warm in 30 minutes. We happily consumed all our remaining dinner food and whiskey that night.
The next day was the only one that wasn't crystal clear. Clouds moved in overnight, and we had some snow on the way out, but this just gave a new perspective on Lake O'Hara before moving out.
Our cozy cabin
One last visit to the lake. For those not willing to share a cabin with 7-12 other people, the cabins you see on the right are part of a swanky backcountry lodge with gourmet meals. The lodge wasn't open for the season yet, and the communal huts offer lots of fun interaction, but however you want experience this, just get there.
But even after an amazing four days in the backcountry of Yoho NP, our trip wasn't over! We still had three days of skiing in Banff National Park, to split between Banff Sunshine and Lake Louise resorts. Parks Canada administers their national parks sort of like a cross between U.S. NPS and Forest Service land. Backcountry travel requires permits and there are entrance fees, but there are also townships inside the park boundaries (like Banff and Lake Louise), and they permit ski operations in certain places. We chose to stay just outside park boundaries in Canmore, as we actually like the town better than Banff. (See my comments on our blog of our last visit to this area--I want to live in Canmore!)
After getting to our hotel and showering, we weren't up for much but sleep, but we had to pick up our ski rentals, and we figured we outta do the Sarah-and-Dan thing and visit the local brewery. We had been to Grizzly Paw Brewing on the last trip (not bad), but since then Canmore Brewing Company had opened up. They had a great core 4 or 5 beers, but were out of the new NE IPA we had heard some locals rave about at the cabin. However, the owner and brewer scrounged up a can of it for us, gratis, and talked beer and brewing with us! It's a great place, and you should stop by.
Our new favorite beer style - New England IPAs
The next day we headed to Banff Sunshine Resort for some skiing. It's an interesting set up--you have to park in the lot, then take a gondola up into the mountains for half an hour to get to all the lifts. Many of the runs go to the top of one of the 4 peaks in the resort, and this gives you some amazing views. However, we had made a grave miscalculation on the weather. We only had one set of hand and toe warmers each, and I had my lighter puffy on. We learned that the temps were in the single digits, and the wind chill was below zero. Frequent hot chocolate breaks were needed.
Cold!
We spent the next two days skiing at Lake Louise, where I braved the back double black bowl a couple times. On the third day the temps hit 20s and it felt positively balmy. We finished things off by stopping by the actual Lake Louise, site of one of our summer hikes 2.5 years prior.
We love this area, from the backcountry to the skiing to the hospitable towns. If you're like us and you're making a list of destinations, put the Bow Valley area on it.
Looking down into the Bow Valley
Lake Louise. It has lots of people on it because the giant Fairmont hotel is right on its shores.