Click here to start with Part 1.

The rain held off all night and it wasn’t looking too bad when we got up on Day 2, so we decided to make a go at visiting Lake McArthur, which is the the second big hike in the area after the Alpine Circuit. We had breakfast and packed up our bags. But just as we were getting ready to start hiking, it started raining. It was pretty light at first, so we started walking up towards the junction to the Lake McArthur trail, but the rain got heavier as we went, so we decided to stop in Le Relais, which is a Parks Canada owned hut just before the lake (right at the junction to the Lake McArthur trail).

Le Relais is pretty cool. It’s a log cabin and they have some information on the history of the park and run a small cafe out of it during the day. It’s well known for its carrot cake, which is legendary inside and outside of the park. They notoriously sell out of the carrot cake every day, so we decided to see if we could score a piece and wait out the rain. We managed to get the very last slice! So we split it between the two of us and bought some hot chocolates.

Le Relais was pretty busy because of the rain, but it has a woodstove inside, so it’s toasty warm and has a really nice atmosphere. We decided to wait for the rain to let up, but we ended up killing 2-3 hours there with no reprieve! We made friends with some of the other people trying to wait out the rain and ate our lunch while trying to decide what to do.

The weather forecast was supposed to be better the next day, so we decided to hold off on Lake McArthur. I didn’t have any rain pants with me and I wanted to avoid getting totally soaked when the temperature was very low (around 3 degrees) and we still had another night at the campground. But we also didn’t want to just sit around all day, so we decided to do the hour long walk around Lake O’Hara instead to see Seven Veils Falls.

The rain never really stopped, but it didn’t lighten up a lot, so we had a fairly nice walk around the lake. Even in the rain, the area is still incredibly beautiful and we could see a fresh layer of snow sitting on the peaks of the Alpine Circuit. The water still looks like kool-aid, even on a rainy day, and we made the best of the rain. We stopped at Seven Veils Fall, which had a pretty steady flow coming down, before continuing around the lake. We returned to Le Relais just before it really started pouring again and killed another few hours warming up and drinking a second round of hot chocolate.

When we got a break in the rain again, we ran back to the campground to hang out for the rest of the evening. I love meeting people at the campground and I’m a busybody. I noticed one guy was wearing a knitted hat with the Labrador flag on it (and I happened to be wearing my NL home hat), so I quickly befriended him. He and his wife are from Ontario and met in Labrador when they were both working at Voisey’s Bay, so I had a great chat with them. They later broke out a crib game (which I also love), and I was joined by another camper named Lynn to play doubles against them. Not to brag, but we totally fleeced them! We won the first game and then Lynn pegged an incredible 3 triples in a row in the second game and we skunked them. So that was great fun!

We got a few more reprieves from the rain throughout the evening, and even saw a sliver of sun poking through the clouds. So we congregated outside at the campfire for awhile, but eventually the rain returned and sent us to bed early. We decided that we were going to make a try at Lake McArthur the next day (rain or shine) because even if we got soaked, at least we were going home after that.

Unfortunately things still didn’t work out as planned. It wasn’t raining too hard when we packed up our tent and gear in the morning. There’s a storage room at the campground, so we left everything we didn’t need in there and starting hiking back towards Le Relais. It was raining pretty hard and my pants were already soaked by the time we got to the turn-off. We continued on a little further to see the Elizabeth Parker hut, and then hiked as far as Shaffer Lake, which is the halfway point to Lake McArthur. When we hit Shaffer Lake, it started wet snowing on us and we had to re-assess. I was definitely not having a good time without rain pants and I was already soaked all the way to my underwear. I had a dry pair of pants in my bag, but they’re not really much use to you if they’re just going to get wet again. I think Brandon would have been okay to keep going since he had rain pants, but I had to do a bit of risk management.

It was below zero and we still had several more kilometres of uphill to get to the lake, so it just didn’t seem like a good idea to keep hiking. I was already cold and if I had to stop for any reason, I would freeze in wet pants and sub-zero temperatures. Plus I wasn’t having any fun, so we made the smart decision and turned around to go back.

There was still carrot cake at Le Relais and we stopped in for a slice each and some hot chocolate while I stood by the wood stove to dry off. We checked the bus schedule and decided to catch the next bus out. The weather might improve later in the day, but we still didn’t have anywhere to stay that night, so we decided to come back another year for McArthur.

We walked back to the campsite and changed into dry clothes to wait for the bus. It was definitely not the ideal trip to Lake O’Hara, between the smoke and the rain, but we still got to cram in most of the alpine circuit. Now we just have an excuse to come back again another time. It’s so exclusive, I’ll probably just try for permits every year until I get lucky again.

Our plan for the night had originally been to get one of the first-come, first-serve campsites at Takakkaw Falls in Yoho Park, but we really needed a hotel to warm up. We called around to every accommodation in Field town that could offer us two beds, but they were all booked, so instead we drove a half hour back to Golden where there were lots of budget options. We showered and then hit the hot tub, sauna, and pool at the hotel to relax before getting a celebratory dinner of more elk burgers (3rd of the trip) at the local pub.