We woke up Saturday to another pretty chilly morning... good thing for hot oatmeal, many many layers of clothing, and a warm car ride to the trailhead! While Tom was cooking breakfast (and adding some zip to his coffee) I snapped a few shots of our "restful" camp-site in Lake Louise.
This was our site... surrounded by many other tents...
And backing onto the road that looped the camp-site. In the background you can see a yellow line that marks the top of the electric fence that encircled the tent/tent-trailer portion of the campground to keep bears out... and through the night you could hear the sound of trains and road traffic. VERY restful...
For this part of the hike we started from the same parking lot as the Burgess Shale hike at Takkakaw Falls but headed north along the river instead. Since we got back in rain the night before our stuff just got tossed into the back of the car, which led to us misplacing our GPS (we found it when we unpacked at home but there are unfortunately no tracks for this part of the hike... although if I get ambitious I'll scan the map).
Most of the initial hike to our camp-site at Twin Falls was along very easy trails, with only a small section of only slightly less smooth track (kind of nice with full packs on and after having already done one day of hiking).
Part way along the hike we dropped our packs to explore some lookouts along the river =o)
Resuming the hike:
The bridge to Laughing Falls (another of the back-country campsites).
Laughing Falls:
The slightly more rugged trail leading onward to Twin Falls:
This part of the river was pretty neat because there were a lot of these bowls carved out along-side the river where it was under-cutting the rock.
Our camp-site at Twin Falls! There were only a hand-full of tents around, and instead of traffic we got the pleasant sound of rapids! We stopped here long enough to pitch our tent and enjoy lunch in the sun by the side of the river...
After lunch we decided to tack on another 10 km or so loop that took us up to Twin Falls proper, across the boulder field that bordered Marpole Lake and a cliff-face, then up over the Whaleback to the very top of Twin Falls and then back down to camp for dinner! We decided to leave our packs here and just took a light bag with some water and a snack for this part.
Twin Falls at a fairly peak flow (late on a warm day = lots of glacial run-off!):
Pan from the bridge that crosses the river leading from Twin Falls to Marpole Lake. Twin Falls is on the extreme left.
Marpole Lake:
The trail through the boulder field... mostly well marked, but easy to lose if you're not paying attention!
Once we got off the Marpole Loop intersection we had to make a decision whether to back-track, head up over the Whaleback, or to head down to Laughing Falls and then retrace our steps to camp. We were a bit concerned about the time and getting back before dark because we were getting conflicting distance estimates. At one point we met a lady coming of the Whaleback and we asked her how long it had taken her from Twin Falls... she said 5 hours! ... after a bit more discussion we realized that she had gotten the falls confused and the 5 hours had been from the start back at Takkakaw Falls so we forged on ahead over the Whaleback.
At the top of the Whaleback there was this marker:
I don't think we had anything to worry about during our hike though...
A few pans from the Whaleback... unfortunately the sun didn't completely cooperate so the pictures are a bit patchy for light.
The trail down, leading towards Twin Falls. There was still snow packed around parts of the river where it would have been shaded for much of the day.
The top of Twin Falls:
From here the trail wound down the cliff in a series of switchbacks... a bit longer than we had expected, but that was probably because we were getting tired and hungry! Still made it back in time to have enough light for dinner (mmm... chili and cheese bannock), and then off to bed for a good night's sleep!
No comments:
Post a Comment