Heather Trail Backpacking Trip: Kicking Horse

October 3, 2026September 25, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

E.C. Manning Provincial Park is my favourite park in BC, so I’ve written about it a lot. I first day hiked to 3 Brothers Mountain in 2016, after which I backpacked the entire Heather Trail from Blackwall Road to Cayuse Flats. In 2022, I camped for two nights at Buckhorn Campsite with my Girl Guides and in 2026, I returned to spend one night at Kicking Horse Campground with my friends.

These campsites used to be first-come, first-served, but the trail has gotten so popular in the last few years that BC Parks introduced a reservation system. I think this was a good decision, given how crowded it can get, but I do wish they didn’t release all the sites so far in advance. In this case, we did not pre-reserve our campsites, but when another trip got interrupted by wildfires, we were able to snag two sites at Kicking Horse Campground at the last minute.

3 Brothers Mountain is located on the first half of the Heather Trail. Most people only hike as far as 3 Brothers, but if you continue on, you’ll arrive at both Kicking Horse and Nicomen Lake. The trail officially ends at Nicomen Lake, where you can turn around and hike back, or if you have two cars, continue on to Grainger Creek and Cayuse Flats (which is what I did on my 2018 trip). The most popular option for overnight trips is to camp at Buckhorn and day hike to 3 Brothers. There’s an impressive display of wildflowers in late July and early August along this section of the trail.

The trailhead starts at the top of Blackwall Road, so hikers can skip most of the elevation gain in the car. If you just want to see the wildflowers, you can do a short loop hike on the Paintbrush Trail, or you can hike downhill to Buckhorn Camp, followed by a short uphill through the forest to reach some truly breaktaking sub-alpine meadows. Like I said, I first hiked this trail in 2016, but I keep returning every couple of years because it’s just so damn scenic!

On this visit, I hiked with my girlfriends, Adriana and Amy. We arrived at the trailhead in time to eat lunch and then started the 13km hike to Kicking Horse Camp. The first 5km are mostly in the trees, but even in the forest, there are tons of wildflowers to steal your attention. It didn’t take us long to get to Buckhorn Camp, which is a huge site with a gorgeous cooking shelter and lots of tent pads. It is a bit of a slog through the forest after Buckhorn, but it’s quickly forgotten when you reach the meadows.

The rest of the trail boasts fantastic views of the backcountry. You hike through meadow after meadow until you reach the junction for 3 Brothers Peak. The peak is the most challenging part of the hike, with a steep uphill to the ridge, after which you get to meander along the ridgeline to the summit. We opted to skip the summit on the way in, instead continuing all the way to camp, determined to return and hike to the top the following day.

It was my 4th time doing 3 Brothers, but it was only my second time continuing past the junction. In my opinion, some of the most scenic meadows on the trail are between the junction and Kicking Horse. The trail is fairly easy through this section and it was mostly downhill to camp, but it still took us a while to hike because we stopped so frequently for photos. We took a long break in one of the meadows before strolling into camp shortly after 6pm.

Compared to the rest of the hike, the campsite isn’t particularly scenic. The last time I camped there, there were no reservations and I ended up with a pretty terrible overflow campsite, so having the reservation helped a lot. We found a nice tent pad near one of the meadows to settle in for the evening. There is a small view of some of the surrounding mountains, but overall, most of the sites are in the trees. Buckhorn Campsite was definitely recently upgraded, but in my opinion, Kicking Horse could use a facelift. The outhouse was getting very full, but at least there was a bear cache. Unfortunately the water source isn’t great. It’s just a small creek and it gets fairly low in the summer. We were still able to get water, but the creek at Buckhorn is much nicer.

We had a fun evening hanging out and making dinner, but it was very buggy. I find the mosquitoes usually don’t like me that much and if I set up my thermacell they’ll usually leave me alone. But Amy was another case entirely. I’ve never seen someone attract so many mosquitoes as Amy. It felt like the thermacell wasn’t working at all, but whenever Amy would leave, the mosquitoes would too, so I think the lure of her blood was just so compelling that it overpowered the thermacell.

Amy and Adriana shared a tent, leaving me to sleep by myself. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but it did get very cold overnight and I could have used a second body in the tent, but Amy and Adriana were both cold too. When I camped at Kicking Horse overnight in 2018, our water froze, so I don’t think it matters what time of year you visit, it’s always cold there. We did experience a very weird phenomenon while camping here though. Overnight it seemed that all of the sound was reversed around the tents. When someone would get up, we would hear them on the opposite side of the tent to where they actually were. It was kind of freaky and we recently learned that Manning Park is supposedly haunted, so maybe this was related (ooo, spooky!).

We returned to summit 3 Brothers the following day. It was hot, so it was a bit of a slog getting back to the junction as there is limited shade along the trail and several uphill sections on the way back. But saving the summit for Sunday was a good idea. I think a lot of day hikers stay in the frontcountry sites on Friday and Saturday night and it felt much less busy on the trail on Sunday. We dumped a bunch of our gear at the junction to lighten our packs for the climb, but we made sure to take all of our food and smellies with us so as not to attract bears. A lot of people just leave their entire backpack at the junction. Please don’t do this as we don’t want to attract bears to the area.

It’s only ~1km to the summit, but it is steep and exposed, so it was a bit tiring. There’s a little bit of light scrambling through a few sections of rock, but it’s pretty easy and I would say it barely counts as scrambling. We had lunch at the summit, but the enjoyment was interrupted by the mosquitoes. Eventually Amy gave up and started hiking back down the ridge and me and Adriana were able to get a small respite.

The hike out was as enjoyable as the hike in. The sad aspect of the hike was that with the uninterrupted view of the mountains, we could see several wildfires burning nearby. I expected to see water bombers attending to the fires, but unfortunately we didn’t see any. When I got home, I looked up the fires to see where they were and determined that all of the fires that were visible were actually burning across the border in Washington State. At the time, Trump was going on about how Canada needs to control its wildfire smoke, so it was particularly galling to see so many fires being left to burn near the border. This was in mid-July and several of these fires did end up crossing the border where they burned through kilometres of Manning’s forest. It’s been heartbreaking for me to watch, especially since I love this park so much. I feel like I’ve been grieving trees all summer.

We returned to the car in the mid-afternoon and treated ourselves to burgers in Hope before returning home. Unfortunately, we hit the Sunday evening rush back to the city and sat for far too long on Highway 1, but it was always be worth it to explore the little piece of paradise that is the Heather Trail!

Hiking Hector Lake

September 26, 2026September 16, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

Considering how busy Banff National Park is throughout the summer, I couldn’t believe how empty the trail was to Hector Lake. The idea that tourists are all overcrowding the same spots holds some truth because on my long weekend trip to visit Kristine, she took me to a lot of places that were surprisingly not busy.

Hector Lake is the first lake you pass on Highway 93 (the Icefields Parkway) after you leave Lake Louise. You can see it from the highway when you drive past, but there’s no formal parking lot for the trailhead. Looking on my Gaia GPS app, I could actually see 3 trailheads for the lake that all connect along slightly different trails. They all have pull-outs where you can park and since they’re not popular, it’s not hard to find space.

Hector Lake was another hike on Kristine’s list of hikes she wanted to do this summer. After a noisy night at Preacher’s North Campsite, we packed up and drove to Nordegg to get breakfast and a slice of pie at the Miner’s Cafe, before starting the long drive back to Calgary. We planned to break up the drive with the hike to Hector Lake, which is a 5km round trip hike along mostly flat terrain.

The first part of the trail is a bit muddy, but fairly easy. You hike through the trees along a gentle downhill until you reach the Bow River. From here, my GPS showed two options, one continuing along the river and the second crossing the river. I could see the trail continuing on the other side of the river, but there is no bridge, so if you want to cross, be prepared to ford the river. It didn’t look very deep, but we hadn’t brought sandals with us, so we opted to continue along the river.

The trail along the river is a bit harder to follow and disappeared completely near the end. The river eventually turns into more of a delta and we lost the main trail, instead selecting our own path across the braided river channels. Depending on the water level, this could be a challenge and it was a bit muddy right before the foreshore, but we eventually managed to make it to the lake and had an uninterrupted view of the mountains.

It really is a very beautiful lake, but what made it more striking was that we were the only people there. We only saw two other groups on the trail while we visited, but we were alone while at the lake. It’s not a super well established trail, so I can understand why it’s not popular among tourists, who seem to favour Bow Lake and Peyto Lake. We had a nice snack and I went for a quick skinny dip in the lake to cool down. There were some beautiful wildflowers hanging around the river.

Overall, it took us just under two hours to do the full there and back again 5km hike, along with a break. Of the 3 hikes that I did during my short weekend trip to the Rockies, I think this one may have been my favourite because it was such an easy hike and it was so peaceful. The smoke was definitely rolling in while we were there, but it left the photos looking a pretty dreamy. It was a great trip to Banff National Park.

Hiking Vision Quest

September 19, 2026September 16, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

Last week I wrote about hiking Parker Ridge in Banff National Park. After spending the morning on the ridge, Kristine and I backtracked through the park to Saskatchewan Crossing, leaving Banff to explore along Highway 11. This area is mostly public use lands, I’m not sure if it has a formal name, but given that the highway travels to the small town of Nordegg, Kristine referred to the area as Nordegg too. It was my first time visiting the region and it was surprisingly uncrowded and very beautiful. A large part of the area is dominated by Abraham Lake, which people are familiar with in the winter because the surface of the lake freezes and bubbles can be seen frozen in the ice. The area is just as beautiful in the summer, but not very popular.

We followed the highway along the North Saskatchewan River to the start of the lake. We hadn’t originally planned to stay in area overnight, so we hadn’t booked any campsites. However, there is a large first-come, first-served campsite called Preacher’s North rustic camping. It’s a series of campsites along the lake. There is an outhouse, but no other facilities. We didn’t even see a water tap and the lake is too silty to take water from, so be prepared with your own water. I’ve been staying in more rec sites in BC in recent years, but a lot of those sites are small and off the beaten track. I was pleasantly surprised with this campsite. I guess things really are bigger in Alberta because the campsite was huge and we didn’t have any trouble finding a place to pitch our tent. Once settled, we decided to explore further along Highway 11. There’s a hike called Vision Quest about halfway up the lake that Kristine wanted to check out, so that’s where we headed.

To access the hike, you park at the dump and follow signs up around the dump and up through the trees. It is a little confusing at the start because the GPS track doesn’t match the new trail. There used to be an old trail that took a more direct route up the slope from the trailhead, but that area has been closed for restoration, so now you have to hike around the back of the dump instead. If you’re on the right trail, it’s easy to follow, but we started on the wrong trail and it was confusing. If you’re having trouble following, you’re on the wrong trail, go back to the parking lot to find the correct one.

It’s a steep hike that continues through the trees for approximately 1km before the view opens up. From there, you can hike another 7km along the ridge up to the Vision Quest Peak, but that’s a full day hike and our goal was only to hike high enough to get out of the trees. We didn’t quite make it to the alpine as it was very hot and steep (and a little bit smoky), but we hiked just far enough to get a full view of Abraham Lake. It only took us 45 minutes to hike up to our viewpoint, but it was a really phenomenal view for the amount of effort required to get there.

We hung out at the viewpoint for a half hour, enjoying the hazy view of the surrounding mountains and Abraham Lake, before hiking back down to the car. In my opinion, this was the most challenging part of the hike. Whoever constructed this trail wasn’t familiar with switchbacks and it’s extremely steep with a lot of loose rock, so it took me some time to crawl my way down. That might just be my bad knees though, Kristine found the downhill a lot easier. In total, including our break, it took us a little under 2 hours to hike up, but we only did 2km in total.

We returned to our campsite at Preacher’s North and decided to go for a swim and eat supper down by the water. Like I said, I was really impressed with the site. The only problem is that it’s mostly campers and RV’s and since it’s an informal campsite, there are no rules on quiet time. Most of the RV’s turned off their generators overnight, but some didn’t, which is really loud and annoying if you’re sleeping in a tent. But overall, a great option if you forgot to book a campsite in the National Park!