A Weekend in Canmore

January 15, 2025January 15, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

I’m very much a type A personality planner, but every now and then I love going on a spontaneously planned trip. Carolyn and I seem to have gotten in the habit of taking an impulsive Fall getaway every other year (which has included a half marathon in Vegas and an impromptu trip to see a cancelled Harry Styles concert in LA). This year we set our sights a little closer to home and decided to make a quick trip out to the Rocky Mountains.

We booked a flight to Calgary two weeks before the trip, which was honestly a little more expensive than we would have liked, but we got a really good deal on the car rental and hotels. Canada needs more competition in the airline industry and a few new companies have been popping up over the years. We flew Flair, so our base fare was pretty reasonable, but they really gouge you on baggage fees. To save money, we paid for one full size carry-on between us and each took a personal item. It was a bit of a struggle, but my 34L Gossamer Gear backpack is able to fit in the personal item sizer, so I’ll definitely be taking advantage of that in the future to save money!

We made it to Calgary and after an argument at the rental agency, picked up our rental car. The company tried to force us to rent an AWD SUV when they learned we were driving to Canmore. It’s a good practice to have winter tires or minimum mud and snow tires for winter driving, but they’re not strictly required on Highway 1 to Banff (but if you’re going beyond Lake Louise, you do need them). They were adamant we had to have AWD and we continually declined. It’s a tactic I’m sure they use (successfully) on a lot of tourists to make extra money. In this case, they were sold out of the economy car we had booked and were trying to force us to pay for the AWD SUV they were going to give us anyway (with mud and snow tires). So we ended up with it at no extra charge through sheer force of will. But I thought the whole charging strategy was really scummy and the agent was pretty rude when we weren’t co-operative, so I’m definitely calling out Enterprise!

After a quick sleep at the Super 8 airport hotel, we were up early to drive to Canmore. I have a few friends that live in Calgary and we planned to meet them at Lake Minnewanka for a hike. The weather forecast looked great and was primarily sun and clouds with no precipitation, but it was really overcast and it started raining just before we got to the parking lot. The rain quickly turned to a wet snow, which wasn’t super appealing. Our friends blamed us for bringing the poor weather from “raincouver”, but I think they were just exaggerating how it’s “always sunny in Calgary” – sounds like Alberta propaganda to me!

It wasn’t the best conditions by a long shot and the clouds were really low, obscuring the view, but we went on the hike anyway. It became less about the views and more about catching up with friends. Plus, I finally got to meet my internet friend, Kristine, for the first time and the trip somehow ended with her convincing me to go on another trip with her later this year!

The snow was definitely nicer than the rain, but it made for a cold hike! We were aiming to stop for lunch at a campground, but eventually we’d had enough of the wet, cold weather, and pulled into the woods for a lunch break. After that we turned around to return to the parking lot, tracking ~8km in total.

But we wouldn’t be deterred by a bit of wet weather! We drove to Canmore and stopped in a café for hot drinks and snacks, before heading to our hotel to take advantage of the hot tub! We had a nice soak before saying goodbye to our friends, who returned to Calgary. Me and Carolyn decided to go for a nice meal at Fergus & Bix, which was easily the highlight of the trip food-wise! We had to make the most of having access to Alberta’s famous beef, so I had the most delicious blue cheese burger and Carolyn had a steak salad.

While we mostly had hiking in mind when we booked this trip, both of us were in need of a good break, so we decided to take it easy on our second day. We slept in and then walked into town for brunch, before going for a walk along the Bow River. It was a gorgeous blue sky, sunny day, though quite crisp. We had a nice long walk and spent the afternoon shopping around town. I managed to show some self restraint in Café Books, which is a great little indie bookshop, but my resolve completely crumpled in Canmore Tea Co. I’m a pretty big tea enthusiast and try to get most of my teas from local shops. Canmore and Banff Tea Co are both great and have several teas that I absolutely love! So I stocked up on my favourites and then picked out a few new ones to try. Carolyn assisted me by holding all my purchases while loudly proclaiming how crazy I was for spending so much money on tea.

Before it got dark, we decided to go for a little drive around town to some shorter viewpoints. We walked out to the Three Sisters Viewpoint, which has a great view of the iconic trio that Canmore is known for (the little, middle, and big sister mountains). We continued our drive up Spray Lakes Road to take some photos of Rundle and Ha Ling Peak, before returning to town for dinner. We ended up eating supper at Tavern 1883, which was really tasty, but definitely more pub vibes. But nothing that couldn’t be remedied with another trip to the hotel hot tub!

On our final day, we pretty much just returned to Calgary to get a noon flight back to Vancouver. So overall, it was a very short trip and it seemed like we didn’t do a whole lot, but I really enjoyed just kicking back and spending some time with Carolyn. It was nice not having a big itinerary planned and we pretty much did whatever we felt like. I’ve been to Canmore many times, but it was Carolyn’s first time, so we did a lot of the classic touristy things. Our friends recommended a lot of other great hikes to us, but given that we’d never even seen a lot of the viewpoints before, we were happy to take it easy. I love spending time in the Rocky Mountains and this was the only trip I made there in 2024, so I’m glad we were able to fit in a little getaway!

Illal Meadows Backpacking Trip

January 8, 2025December 17, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

I went on a lot of backpacking trips this summer. Some went according to plan, some didn’t. My trip to Illal Meadows did not go according to the plan.

Illal Meadows is a hike near the Coquihalla Summit Rec Area, but instead of accessing it from the Coquihalla highway, it’s accessed from the forestry roads between Hope and Tulameen. It’s not a commonly visited area, but I was somewhat familiar with it from my multi-day trip on the HBC Heritage Trail last year (there’s another trip that really didn’t go according to the plan). I’ve been wanting to visit this area for awhile and planned for a 2 night trip in late September.

We had a large group of people for this trip. It was a lot of fun, but arguably 7 people is too many to coordinate in the backcountry. We were a bit late leaving the city and started the hike in mid-afternoon. The trailhead is located off the Tulameen FSR, which you can access from the Coquihalla Highway exit by Coquihalla Lakes Lodge. I believe parts of this road were damaged in the 2021 floods, but it’s easy to access this trailhead without issue. It’s a gravel road, but you don’t need high clearance or 4WD.

Our plan was to hike up on Saturday to camp at the tarn at the base of Jim Kelly Peak and then spend Sunday exploring some variation of Jim Kelly Peak, Illal Mountain, or Coquihalla Mountain. There’s an established trail to the base of each peak, but it’s a scramble to the top. Our plan was to check out some of the peaks and climb up as far as we felt comfortable, but not necessarily summit.

There’s an old FSR that we thought we might be able to access using Brandon’s 4runner, but it was totally overgrown, so we had to hike 3km on the old road, plus 5km up to the alpine. The FSR was an easy walk. It’s mostly in the bushes, but at the end it opens up to a beautiful view of the mountains at the parking lot of the old trailhead. From there, the hike gets much steeper. It’s a pretty steady slog up through the forest, but eventually you hit the sub-alpine. There’s still more climbing, but it’s beautiful, especially in the Fall! The trees were turning orange and yellow and the shrubs were red, so it made for a very scenic hike.

The problem was that it was quite cold and windy once we hit the alpine. We were all hiking at different paces, but we had to rush through the last few kilometres because we cold and fighting the loss of the daylight from our late start. All together, it was under 4 hours of hiking, so a very reasonable day if we had started earlier. There were several other campers already set up at the tarn. On a nice day, you could set up your tent by the water, but it was super windy and exposed, so we found some clearings in the trees to pitch our tents.

There was a really nice sunset, but we mostly missed it while setting up camp and by the time we were done, it was pretty dark. We headed down to the water and sheltered in the trees along the edge to cook our dinner. Carolyn went in search of firewood and because we were on crown land and there was no fire ban, we were able to have a fire! This definitely helped with overall enjoyment as it was a cool evening. We spent the rest of the night chatting and singing around the fire before heading to bed.

It was not an easy night for sleeping. Me and Seth brought our 3 person tent because we took our dog, Sadie on the hike and like having the extra room. But it was extremely cold and windy, so the extra space in the tent maybe wasn’t the best. It was hard to sleep with the wind rocking the tent and I was worried about Sadie. She has her own sleeping pad and we had her wrapped up in Seth’s puffy jacket, but I was worried about her being cold. She seemed fine most of the night, but towards morning she started shivering because she kept sleeping off the pad and wouldn’t share my sleeping bag. We’ve since purchased a cute little puffy jacket for her for next time.

It had been a beautiful cloudless night, but when I got up to pee at 5am it was completely clouded in. Then, when I got up at 8am, there was about 10cm of snow on the ground! There hadn’t been any precipitation in the weather forecast, so it was definitely a surprise to see a consistent blanket of snow over everything. We hadn’t brought winter boots, spikes, or any real snow equipment, so it was a very quick decision to abort the trip a day early.

Everyone immediately agreed with the plan. Adriana had been really cold overnight and there wasn’t a lot to do all day in the blustery snow if we couldn’t do any summits. Carolyn cooked us all yummy breakfast sandwiches for a tent breakfast while Sadie and Jasper (Carolyn’s dog) played energetically in the snow. The snow continued to fall steadily and by the time we started our hike out, quite a bit had accumulated! All the other tents decided to head out early as well.

What surprised me was how low the snowline was. It was late September, so I wasn’t surprised to see a little bit of snow in the alpine, but there was snow almost the entire way back to the car! Eventually the snow thinned out when we got back to the trees and it was a muddy, rainy walk back to the cars. It was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to do any of the summits, but I think that cutting the trip short was definitely a wise choice. Sometimes things work out as planned, and other times you have to adjust to the circumstances. I’m definitely keen to return to this area in the future. I don’t think we went too late in the season, it was just bad luck with the weather. Either way, I still had a really good time with my friends!

Hiking Ptarmigan Ridge

January 2, 2025December 17, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

I don’t do a lot of hiking in Washington, but I make a point of trying to go there at least once every year in the Fall to hike near Mount Baker. I’ve read that North Cascades National Park is one of the lesser visited parks in America, which is a shame because it’s a really beautiful place! Mount Baker is technically outside of the park, but it is in the Snoqualmie National Forest/Mount Baker Wilderness Area. It’s approximately 2 hours from Vancouver, so it’s really accessible and it is absolutely gorgeous in the Fall!

Brandon and I go on an annual Thanksgiving Day (Canadian) hike every year and this year we decided to do the Ptarmigan Ridge hike, which leaves from the Mount Baker ski area. My first hike in this area was in 2018 and I hadn’t been back to this specific parking lot since pre-pandemic. It’s wild how much more popular the area is now than 5 years ago! The most popular trail is to Artist Point, which is a small lookout at the top of the pass. In the summer, you can drive all the way up to the parking lot at the top of the pass, and from there it’s a short hike to the summit. However, when it starts to snow, they close the gate and you have to hike an additional 3km each way to get to the parking lot.

I’ve never been to Mount Baker when the gate has been open, so it was a great surprise to arrive and discover that we could save 6km of hiking by parking at the upper lot. You do need a day pass to park here, which you can get in advance online, at the Visitor Centre, or in the parking lot (at the base of the ski hill only, for other hikes you’ll have to utilize one of the other options). It’s $5USD for the entire car, so it’s very reasonably priced.

The Ptarmigan Ridge hike starts from the upper lot (or add on 3km each way from the lower lot) and follows the ridgeline all the way to the East Portal, which is basically as far up the slope of Mount Baker as you can climb before you hit glacier travel. It’s a long trail, 25km round trip if you hike from the lower lot, and it was early October, so we had limited daylight. We weren’t planning to hike the entire trail, we just planned to hike along the ridge until we got tired or had to turn around for daylight reasons. But by skipping the trail from the lower lot, we were able to cut out a lot of elevation gain and ended up doing the entire trail!

I was with my friends Brandon and Simmer; it was a beautiful sunny day and we were all in awe of the gorgeous landscapes. The entire trail is in the alpine, so you have incredible views along the entire 19km of trail. There is a fair bit of elevation gain (~500m), but it’s a pretty gentle slope until just before the Portals, so it was a very enjoyable hike.

The trail starts from the parking lot and shares a trailhead with the Chain Lakes Loop. I did this hike with Lien and Emily a few years ago and it’s another super scenic trail. It was really busy, but I think more people were doing Chain Lakes rather than Ptarmigan Ridge. Chain Lakes is a much shorter hike and it’s a loop, so you don’t have to re-do any terrain. The Chain Lakes trail passes through the lower lot, so it’s a good one to do when the gate is closed because you have to hike the 3km between parking lots either way. If the gate is open, do Ptarmigan Ridge.

I recommend doing both of these trails in the Fall because they are both completely exposed. It’s a gorgeous hike, but I can’t imagine how hot it would be in the dead of summer because there’s very little shade on either hike.

The trails start together and cut across the bowl on the back of Table Mountain. Once you circle around the mountain, they branch and Chain Lakes continues around the rest of Table Mountain, while Ptarmigan Ridge heads towards Mount Baker. Ptarmigan Ridge starts with a downhill section, and then you spend the rest of the day climbing. Like I said, there are views the entire way, but you basically follow the ridge from point to point and there’s a few really nice places to stop along the way.

We were making good time, so we decided to just keep pushing. The closer we got to the end of the trail, the more we wanted to reach the end, but we were also getting very hungry. There’s a wilderness site called Camp Kiser just before the Portals and we decided to stop there for lunch. It’s a steep climb up to the Portals, so we weren’t intending to do that part.

Simmer hiked a huge container of homemade butter chicken up the mountain, so we shared a really nice lunch on the side of Mount Baker, admiring the glacial views along the foothills. The problem was that we were staring up at the Portals the entire time we were eating and the longer I looked at it, the more I wanted to climb it. So we decided to shorten the break and we all trekked uphill for another half hour to reach the top. I’m so glad we did because the view of the glacier was absolutely phenomenal and I felt really accomplished when we summited.

The hike back was relatively uneventful. It was 19km of hiking, so it was a pretty aggressive hike for October. We started around 10:30am and were hiking for ~7.5 hours including our lunch break. It was faster on the way back and we were ahead of the fading light, but we definitely had tired feet on the way back. I would probably have preferred to start the hike a little bit earlier. But we had the Portals viewpoint all to ourselves, so timing wise, it all worked out. There is a small lake where you can camp off trail around the three quarter point, so I’d definitely be interested to return in the future to spend the night.

I always have a great time when I go to the Mount Baker Wilderness Area and this hike was no exception! It’s a big day and I recommend the Fall season, but definitely a hike worth adding to your bucket list!