Early fall is an absolutely amazing time here in the Canadian Rockies. The mosquitoes have gone, as have most of the tourists; the temperatures are not sweltering hot anymore but range from freezing at night to a balmy warm, perfect hiking temperature during the day.
But best of all are the colors!!!
In early fall the colors just explode...and whenever I can find a willing hiking companion, I'm
'gone hiking'.
Here a few of my favorites:
Bugaboo National Park is always a gorgeous hike , but the fall colors just give it that extra touch.
The glacier and spire up close
Looking through fireweed
Path through the larches
Konrad Kain Hut
When my friend Monika arrived for her this years journey to the Canadian Rockies we just lucked out on the weather and the fall colors...as hot and dry as the summer might have been, this fall was unprecedented in regards to color!
We headed up to Banff National Park for the larches and were not disappointed.
Coming from the Plain of the Six Glaciers we descended to Lake Agnes via the Big Honeycomb.
What a view...
On the short hike down from Lake Agnes to Lake Louise you get a peek of the glacial moraine leading into Lake Louise.
Not yet completely discouraged by the totally insane amount of tourists this year in the park, we headed out to hike Larch Valley the following day.
Well, if we had known what to expect just to get there, we might have decided otherwise....
Since the parking lot at Moraine Lake, where the trail head for Larch Valley is located, only holds about 120 cars, the park administration closed it for anyone coming after 7 am. One has to park at the Lake Louise overflow parking lot and then take a (school)bus up to Moraine Lake. The bus runs every 15 min, so that alone didn't sound too bad. BUT what we hadn't counted on was that we had to stand in line for 45 min to get on the bus....well, I had always wanted to ride a school bus.
Once we were there though and tried our best to ignore the hundreds of other hikers, we were rewarded by a beautiful hike, stunning views and unbelievable fall colors.
View from Sentinel Pass
After all, it was worth braving the masses!
Please feel free to click on the images for a bigger view
After this near traumatic tourist overload experience Monika and I craved for a more serene, quiet hike. Following a recommendation from Janice Strong, we checked out Brewer Creek the following week; a beautiful hike in the Purcell Mountains.
Parts of the trail were already snow covered, but this just added to the beauty!
After the fist incline, a wide meadow opens and a 360 view of the area rewards the hiker.
One more incline and one reaches a plateau with three tarns, about 1km from each other.
Narrow 'yellow' trails lead from tarn to tarn.
Can it get any more picturesque?
And, except for two other hikers, nobody else on the trails! For next fall I will go with what Goethe recommended:
Warum in die Ferne schweifen, wenn das Gute liegt so nah!
Gorgeous images!
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