Mount Stephen Fossil Site

November 1, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

After a quick trip through Kootenay National Park, our Rocky Mountain road trip continued into Banff and Yoho National Parks. I’ve been to Banff a few times since the pandemic, so Banff was really more of a stopover on the way to Yoho, which was the highlight for the second half of our trip. Unfortunately, there aren’t as many frontcountry camping options in Yoho, and given that it was the long weekend, the only campsite we could get was in Lake Louise.

It was still cool though because the last time I camped in Banff, I stayed at the Tunnel Mountain campground, so at least I got to try something new! Camping in Banff is really unlike anywhere else I’ve ever camped. It’s so incredibly popular, not just in Canada, but all over the world, so it has some really unique campsites. I can’t think of anywhere else except the National Parks in the Rocky Mountains where there are multiple campgrounds boasting hundreds of car-camping sites. So we were able to get a site for 2 nights with minimal advance planning, which was good because even with almost 400 sites in this campground alone, it was sold out by the time the long weekend actually arrived!

The other wild thing about the campground is that it’s surrounded by an electric fence to make it completely bearproof! Even so, they still occasionally wander in, so you still have to be bear safe, but it’s a cool idea. We arrived in the late afternoon and took it easy for a few hours. Our friend, Jason, from the Rockwall Trail had finished his thru hike on his section of the GDT, so he met up with us to celebrate! We opted to check out the Station Restaurant, which is a restaurant that’s been set up in the old school Railway Station. It even has some tables in an old railway car! The food was delicious and we chowed down on our second elk burger of the trip before heading back for an early night.

We had to go to bed early because we had an early rise for our guided hike to Mount Stephen. Since I started dating Seth 12 years ago, I learned that there is an incredibly important fossil site in Yoho National Park called the Burgess Shale. Seth’s been dying to visit it for years, so when we planned a trip to Yoho, I couldn’t help but check out the guided hikes. There was still some availability, so I booked a visit, even though I had a lot of guilt over going without Seth. Bbut it was honestly so much fun, I’d be more than happy to go again with him in the future!

The Burgess Shale is a UNESCO world heritage site that is recognized around the world as one of the most well preserved, and oldest, examples of soft-bodied marine animals, dating back 508 million years to the middle Cambrian era. The entire site is protected, so the only way you can visit it is on a guided hike with either Parks Canada or the Geoscience Foundation. There’s two locations to choose from, either Walcott Quarry or Mount Stephen. Walcott Quarry is 22km round trip, while Mount Stephen is 8km. The catch is that both have over 800m of elevation, which makes Mount Stephen an incredibly steep and taxing hike, with a grade of ~20% for the majority of the hike.

I originally picked Mount Stephen because I thought Walcott Quarry was the more famous of the two sites, so I figured I’d save that one to do with Seth. Now that I have visited, I don’t think one is more famous than the other, but I think I made the right choice because I went with two other hikers, so we enjoyed the challenge of Mount Stephen.

Our tour was with Parks Canada. There was 10 people on the tour and we left from the visitor center in Field at 7am (hence the early wake-up call). Our guide seemed delighted with our group because everyone was pretty fit, so we made a really good pace on the hike. It’s honestly a top-notch tour and we learned so much historical and scientific information on the tour. The Mount Stephen site was discovered first and is credited to Charles Walcott in the early 1900’s, but we learned that Walcott is really the one who made the site famous, but didn’t really discover it.

It was likely first discovered by the local first nations groups, and then later by a surveyor for the railroad. It was just Walcott that really understood what he was looking at and drew attention to the site. Walcott collected over 65,000 fossils between the two sites and for many years, anyone could hike up to the site and take a fossil. That’s not the case now. You must be accompanied with a registered guide and if you try to sneak in otherwise, there’s several cameras that text your photo directly to the park warden, who will then come and escort you down with an automatic appearance in court. But with a guide you can enjoy the experience in peace!

It’s definitely a steep hike. It’s a slog the entire way up. You break out of the trees about 75% through the hike and we had a nice break along the ridge before continuing up another steep climb to the quarry. The quarry is a shale rock site literally located right on the side of the mountain. It has incredible views of Field and the surrounding mountains and I would have been willing to do the tour just for the views! But the fossils are really unreal. Like I said, they’re 508 million years old and incredibly well preserved. The most recognizable are the trilobites, but our group was more enamoured by the anomolocaris (replica pictured above on the left).

We had an hour to eat our lunch and freely explore in the quarry. Hundreds of thousands of fossils have been removed from the quarry and yet almost every single rock you look at has at least 1 fossil, if not dozens, on it. You can either walk through the quarry, examining larger fossils as you go, or you can sit down and get close up with all the unique little fossils. Our guide shared magnifying glasses and identification booklets and we all got lost back in time for an hour. Plus enjoy the pica that entertained me during my lunch pictured below!

We were incredibly lucky weather-wise. It was threatening rain on us all morning, which can make the fossils a bit hard to see and make the quarry quite slippery. But the rain held off until we were finally starting to pack up, and then we finished packing up in a hurry to slowly head back down. Apparently we were a bit faster than the average group, so we had a bit longer in the quarry and finished the entire hike in ~7 hours, but usually the guide allots for 8 hours to run the tour. She dropped us back at the visitor centre around 2pm.

We were all in awe the entire time and it was such a fun way to learn about natural history. I still have the guilt from going without Seth, but I can’t wait to return for Walcott Quarry. Unfortunately, it was Carolyn’s last day with us as she had to go back to work. She’d been planning to drive about halfway back to Vancouver, but with our early finish, she ending up powering the entire way back home that night. Me and Brandon enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Truffle Pig in Field instead and then returned to the Lake Louise campground to pack for our next adventure: Lake O’Hara!

Hiking Johnston Canyon

April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 / Maria / 1 Comment

Johnston Canyon is a quintessential hike if you’re visiting Banff National Park, and the great news is you can hike it all year round! I thought I’d been there once before in the summer, but after visiting on this trip, I think this was actually the first time. It’s located about halfway between Sunshine Village and Lake Louise, but it can be a bit tricky to get to.

It’s not off the main highway, but instead located on the Bow Valley Parkway, which runs parallel to Highway 1. It’s just a one-lane highway and it’s not in the best shape, so assume a much slower pace than driving on the main highway. You can enter the Parkway from just past Banff, or at the turn for Highway 93 that runs down towards the Kootneys. I’m not sure what the deal with the road is, but the exit outside of Banff isn’t always open, so even though you have to do a bit a backtracking, sometimes you have to go all the way to the second turn off to get on the Parkway (as was the case when we visited). It was disappointing because it results in a longer journey, though with the speed you can try on Highway 1 I’m not convinced it’s shorter on the Parkway. But I’ve heard the Parkway is incredibly scenic, so I’m sad we didn’t get to drive the whole thing.

In any case, Johnston Canyon is a pretty popular place to visit and it’s nice that you can hike it all year round. There will be snow in the winter, and though it’s all packed down from the frequent traffic, microspikes or cleats are definitely required, especially on some of the uphill and downhill sections. We brought our own spikes with us, but if you’re just visiting, you can rent them from any of the outdoor equipment stores in Banff. There were a few people without them, but actually most people had some kind of traction and they were all very similar, so I assume most people were using the rented cleats.

In the summer, I think you may need to get there early to secure parking, but it wasn’t a problem in the winter. Since it’s a shorter trail, there should also be a lot of turnover in the lot. The trail hikes through the forest and then along the side of the steep walls of the canyon. In many cases you go right through the canyon on grated walkways that are bolted to the side of the canyon wall. It’s a little scary in winter because the snow elevates the trail, meaning the rails only come up to about mid-thigh, so use caution when navigating some of the narrower parts of the canyon. A few times we waited for people to pass coming in the opposite direction so as not to crowd the trail.

There’s lots to see along the way and we really enjoyed all the frozen waterfalls and ice structures that form along the side of the canyon. The first big attraction is the lower falls, which you descend down to and cross a bridge before walking through a short tunnel to get an even better view of the river and the lower falls. It’s quite unique, which is how I knew I hadn’t been there before. The tunnel is cool and we hung around for a bit watching the falls. The surface of the falls looks frozen, but the river is still running underneath, so it creates this cool, half frozen pool at the base.

Some people just go as far as the lower falls and then turn back, but we decided to continue on to the upper falls. You go past several more waterfalls along the way and before you get to the upper falls, there is a path through the woods to go down to the river. At the right time of year, you can walk on the river to the upper falls. We opted not to because we could see a lot of dicey sections from the moving water along the river, but lots of people were walking on the ice, so I assume it was relatively safe. It’s a gentle uphill most of the walk to the falls and then when you finally reach the upper falls, there’s a big viewpoint looking down on them.

The upper falls were completely frozen this time of year, but we had the added benefit of getting to watch ice climbers! Turns out it’s a popular location for ice climbing and there were several groups climbing along different sides of the multiple ice faces. Ice climbing is definitely a sport that is too intense for me, but it’s really interesting to watch other people do it, so we settled down for our lunch and enjoyed watching the climbers while we ate. The trail was relatively busy, but manageable. We were able to see what we wanted to see and while there was a good number of people, it wasn’t crazy crowded. It was a weekday though, so it might be worse on the weekends and I’m sure it’s a lot busier in the summer.

All in all, the hike was approximately 5km to the upper falls and back, with about 130m in elevation. So it’s definitely a great hike for beginners and had a really interesting topography. But as always, exercise caution when going on any hike, especially in the cold season. We had a good time and I’m glad I got to cross this popular hike off my list.

Ski Resort Series: Lake Louise

March 30, 2022March 30, 2022 / Maria / 1 Comment

Lake Louise was undoubtedly the most popular of the Banff resorts when we visited. I suspect it draws the most tourists because of its association with the famous lake, as well as it also attracts a lot of locals to its open alpine skiing and back bowls. Plus, the awesome views of the surrounding mountains don’t hurt!

Lake Louise is about a 45 minute drive from Banff, so it is the furthest, though I regularly drive 2 hours to Whistler each way in a single day, so I didn’t find the drive too bad. There are some accommodations in Lake Louise if you’re just there to ski and want to stay nearby, but then I think your restaurant choices would be a lot more limited than if you stayed in Banff.

Of the three resorts, I found Lake Louise had the most confusing parking. Norquay and Sunshine have straightforward massive lots, but Lake Louise has several smaller lots and several sections of the lot are allocated specifically for VIPs or pay parking. Clearly we weren’t VIPs and we didn’t want to pay, so we ended up parking in the road parking – it wasn’t a long walk to the resort, but the longest of the 3 resorts and we were annoyed to walk past the huge empty VIP lot right next to the lodge.

Lake Louise had a pretty different set-up than Sunshine. At Sunshine, I found a lot of the lifts went to the same locations but had different bases from which to board at the bottom. Whereas at Lake Louise, a lot of the lifts left from the same central area at the bottom and went to different parts of the mountain, which I think is a bit preferable. The main difference is that the Lake Louise base is at the same elevation as the highway, whereas at Sunshine you take a gondola up to the base and at Norquay you drive several switchbacks up the mountain. As a result, I found the ski conditions at Lake Louise were unfortunately, the worst of the 3 mountains.

It’s partially because of the weather and timing of when we visited that we didn’t get any powder, but overall, I found Louise to be icier because it’s a lower elevation mountain. I also found the runs to be more confusing because it’s a lot of alpine, so there’s not really any discernible runs in a lot of locations. In some ways I really liked that because you could really ski wherever you wanted, but it also made it hard to figure out where you were and we ended up going down a few more advanced runs because we got lost. Not that big a deal, but since it was an icy day, it wasn’t the best conditions for challenging yourself.

So it was a bit of a rough start as we figured out the mountain, but we did still have a good time. We started off on Glacier chair and did a few runs on the Top of the World chair before going up Summit chair once to see the view from the highest point. I liked this area, but it’s where we kept making mistakes and ended up down a gully a few times. One of the biggest attractions at Lake Louise is the back bowls, which is pretty much just all free black run skiing. My biggest regret is that we didn’t ski the back bowl in the morning when we had fresh legs and decent visibility. We were a little bit intimidated by it and there’s so much to explore, so we decided to save it for later.

After a few runs up at the top we switched over to the Grizzly gondola and explored around some of the bottom part of the mountain. Lake Louise is deceivingly large. Sunshine Village felt large because the lifts are spread out and there’s so many different areas, whereas Lake Louise is more concentrated, but still has a lot of runs, many of which I think are longer than at Sunshine. We didn’t do as many runs in the morning, mostly because it was just taking us longer to do each run.

We had decided to buy lunch at Lake Louise, which was a good decision because packed lunches aren’t allowed in the Lodge of Ten Peaks (though you can eat them at Whiskeyjack Lodge). The nice thing about Louise was that there were several lodges, I don’t know how busy it was over at Temple Lodge, but we found Lodge of Ten Peaks to be a lot less crowded than at Sunshine.

In the afternoon we made our way over towards the backside of the mountain to get the areas we hadn’t yet explored. We did a few runs on Ptarmigan chair and a few on Larch chair. I ended up really liking the Larch area, likely because it had some easier runs, or maybe because they are more well defined. I think I would really like Lake Louise if I got to ski it more often, but because I only had one day, I wanted to get a lot a variety and in the alpine, I guess I felt like I was just skiing the same thing run after run. It’s why it’s nice to have more than one day at a ski resort, because you get to try everything on the first day, and then return to areas you liked or try things you missed on the second day.

Emily wasn’t really keen to do the back bowls at all, but like Goat Mountain at Sunshine, I still really wanted to tackle every part of the mountain, so I convinced her to do one run with me. We got to scope it out a bit more on the Paradise chair, which runs up the back of the mountain, and I think on a good powder day I would be pretty comfortable skiing in the back bowl (at least in the area under Paradise chair, which is black diamonds as opposed to double blacks). Unfortunately, our mistake was waiting too late in the day. We took the one easy run down the back bowl, but it had really bad flat light when we did it and we felt like we were skiing blind, so we weren’t inclined to try a second run, hence why I say I wish we’d done it in the morning.

Anyways, sometimes you live and learn. We still ended up having a great time at Lake Louise and surprisingly Emily liked it more than me. I can’t really pinpoint why, but of the three, Lake Louise was probably my least favourite. I may get slammed for that because not a lot of people seem to like Norquay, so I’m inclined to blame the weather on this occasion (we got some great powder at Norquay). In any case, I won’t be too quick to judge it and I would definitely return to try it again and properly ski the back bowl. Overall I think it might just be the vibe that I got from Lake Louise. It was more crowded and seemed a bit more elitist than the others, so I’d be just as happy to ski at Sunshine or Norquay as well. Either way, it’s definitely an iconic resort.