Sport climbing, back-country camping and bighorn sheep stand-offs at Banff National Park!

I actually wrote this about a month ago but never had the time to post it apparently... field work really picked up and subsequent breaks have been very busy and very mountainy. But here's what I did at some point in June?? A Banff trip!

So on my last break (which was the longest one at a whopping 6 days!!) we made the trek out to Banff and Lake Louise. Initially the plan was to sport climb at Lake Louise for a couple days and then head down to Waterton National Park for some good old back-country camping, but a slough of road closures, floods and avalanche warnings seriously hindered that plan. And since front-country camping is just getting old and is totally not as adventurous or rewarding as back-country, and Waterton is far away anyways, my climbing partner and I (aka Team Lulu) hung out in and around Banff and just sport-climbed for several days and worked in a little back-country trip as well. So this post is all about Banff National Park and the sport climbing around the area.

Lulu (official spokesferret of Team Lulu) and squirrel-friend.

First off, climbing, because that’s obviously high priority.  The sport climbing around Banff is amazing! There are tons of crags around Banff area with a wide range of grades, and tons of campsites nearby which really facilitates multi-day climbing trips. The Lake Louise area was really good, we climbed at the Back of the Lake, which is a pretty easy hike in; you get to hike a couple km around scenic Lake Louise and up a little slope to several awesome walls. It’s a pretty popular spot so the routes we did were really well maintained, and has some good height which lead to great views over the Lake (tons of people visit Lake Louise, but very few get to see it from that angle - it’s quite spectacular!). Very interesting climbs too, a bunch of different styles. My favourite was a 5.9 (I'll dig up the name at some point), which started with normal face climbing and lead to a ton of sweet sandstonesque horizontal cracks. Super fun! Overall, Lake Louise is pretty great although not very wilderness-y. But it does have some very friendly ground squirrels and Clark's nutcrackers.

The next couple days of climbing were at Tunnel Mountain, very close to Banff. Tunnel Mountain has okay access, it's a bit easier to get lost heading in to Tunnel than Lake Louise, but you do get to climb up a fun little scramble. Lots of good climbs on the Scoop, did our first 5.10a there, it’s all well bolted and mostly 5.8 to 5.11 climbs, lots of slab. The view from there is a lot of scenic forest and mountains, and a big old classy hotel. The sunset bathed the mountains in warm gold light, and we climbed right up until it got dark (around 10:30pm at this time of year!). We were still on the wall when the hotel fully lit up, and it looked pretty damn good for being a big unnatural block of civilization in the middle of the mountains. Next day was the Industrial playground, which had a lot of missing bolt and anchors, so I definitely wouldn’t recommend it.

The last day of climbing was at Heart Creek, just east of Canmore. This one was probably the best out of them all. There are something like 260 routes in Heart Creek and around 8 different crags. The first one, aptly named First Rock, is only a 15min hike in and the belay area is luxuriously flat and clear. All the routes are well bolted and have solid anchors, although some holds have been smoothed out over time since it’s such a popular spot. A lot of easier climbs here, 5.6-5.9, and a couple higher grades. A bit past is this incredible face called Jupiter Rock, which boasts a ton of 5.10 and 5.11 climbs that are nice and high (20-30+m) that are involved pockets, cracks, arêtes, and caves. Very cool spot! The only downside is that a lot of the climbs on the left side of the rock start out right at the edge of the creek so your belayer will get very wet. But still a great spot! Callipso (5.10a) is probably the most fun sport climb I’ve done yet.

We only really checked out three climbing spots around Banff, but there are tons more. Super-hot-spot for sport climbs!

Banff itself was another little adventure. First off, my predisposition was against Banff since it’s known as the most touristy and over-commercialized of all the mountain parks. The hotels, the trans-canada highways, the railway… it just never sounded as wild and remote as the other parks like Yoho and Jasper. After actually going there, I did find a lot of this to be true. The townsite is pretty crowded with people and shops, everything is paved (heck, even some of the trails were paved for the first km!), there are manicured lawns and dozens of picnic tables on the big lakes, which is really weird to see in the middle of a mountain range. Not to mention tour boats with loudspeakers. So initially I still kind of thought Banff sucked compared to the other parks. But once we got through the popular first few km of the Lake Minnewanka trail and into the back-country, you could easily forget about all civilization. It was just like any other back-country trail, remote and rugged. Actually it was a pretty easy trail, mostly flat and no real obstacles. Still very scenic though, and we even saw a herd bighorn sheep (babies included!). 

Little bighorn sheep on the Lake Minnewanka trail in Banff, Alberta.

There are a few different campsites on the trail at 8, 9, and 11km. We picked the 11km site since a) it involved the most hiking and b) we got the whole campground all to ourselves! The back-country campsites on Lake Minnewanka are top notch; they’ve got bear poles, a group fire pit and cooking area, a couple picnic tables, and lots of nice little tent pads that are just a cleared patch of ground. And they’ve all got a rocky beach right next to them for endless water supply and  endless swimming! We watched the sun set over the mountains, had a beach fire at night, and got a tent pad nice and close to the lake and surrounded by trees for wind protection. We were greeted in the morning by bighorn rams on the beach, and had a morning dip in the lake, which was surprisingly not ice cold - couldn’t be better!  Lake Minnewanka back-country camping, A+.

Sunset hitting the mountains over Lake Minnewanka. 

Sunset, mountains and a rock beach at Lake Minnewanka. 

Ending our hike with a triple rainbow over the lake!

We also did a little side trip on the way back  a few km up the mountains to a lookout over the lake, which gave a gorgeous 360 degree view of the mountains around the Lake (there are a lot of them and they all look kind of different). But after about 5 minutes of appreciating the view we totally got chased off the mountain by two very territorial and unimpressed bighorn rams (possibly the same two that were on the beach that morning??). To be fair, I maybe could have kept more of a distance or backed off, but the ambitous little wildlife photographer in me just couldn’t give up such a kick-ass photo op… until Mr Ram started pawing the ground and whatnot. Then we kind of skedaddled off into the trees to try and get back down the mountains without infuriating them more (tricky since one was standing in the middle of the path we needed to take down…). So yeah, two hikers hiding in the trees from a couple of bighorn sheep, bear spray in one hand and a knife in the other (or in my case, camera in one hand and knife in the other). Back-country adventures at their finest? Wouldn't trade it for anything in the world :) 

Bighorn ram #1 beside Aylmer Lookout on Lake Minnewanka.

Bighorn ram #2 at Aylmer Lookout on Lake Minnewanka.

 As always, thanks for reading and feel free to explore my photography page at www.elainekennedyphotography.com for the best of the best wildlife shots!

xo
Elaine