Our Volksvegan Adventure

Canada has been quite an adventure! We are still in Banff National Park, and recently went on a 6-day backpacking trip which was really incredible. The park is beautiful and we saw lots of wildlife. The best thing about Canadian National Parks is that they allow dogs in the backcountry, so Juneau got to come with us and of course he loved it, especially the snowfields and the wildlife.

Our backpacking trip began at Johnston Canyon, which has two beautiful waterfalls (and lots of tourists). Then we went through the “ink pots” which are natural cold springs that swirl and bubble up from the earth and create clear pools. Our first stop was Luellen Lake, about 19 km from the trailhead. At the campground, we met two Canadian guys, Mike and Art, who were in the midst of “coctail hour” and invited us to join. As we were chatting by the fire, I heard some rustling in the bushes across the creek. I watched for a bit and saw a huge bear! I alerted the guys and we watched as a mama grizzly appeared with her cub. We made a bunch of noise and scared her away from the campground. She and the cub walked around the far side of the lake instead, and we got to watch them the whole time. It was quite a mystical experience, especially for our first night of our backpacking trip.

The next day we hiked to Badger Pass Junction campground and did a day hike to Pulsatilla pass, which was beautiful and had a great view. The campground was full of mosquitos though, and we all got eaten alive. It definitely made us tougher though, and the bugs didn’t bother us much the rest of the trip. On day three we headed over Badger Pass. It was a beautiful but steep hike, and it was really windy at the top of the pass. We headed down the other side to make some lunch when I spotted some Bighorn Sheep across the valley. We got down to a flatter spot and suddenly the Bighorns were everwhere, all over the trail we were about to hike down! Juneau got very excited and wanted to chase them, but the sheep didn’t seem to notice us much. We watched them for a while from just above their grassy spot, maybe 30 feet away. We ate some lunch as we watched them and counted 17 big males in the herd. Then they headed down the valley and we followed them for a while down the trail. They went up the hillside as we continued our hike, and we got rained on a little bit on our hike to Block Lakes Junction campground.

At Block Lakes Junction we were once again the only people camped there, but there was trash and an illegal fire ring we had to clean up from previous campers. We set up camp and made dinner, and then the rain came back so we decided to call it an early night. The next day we continued on to Sawback Lake, past the beautiful glacier-carved (and aptly named) Sawback Range. The campground was a little ways from the lake, so we set up camp and day hiked to the beautiful lake. The lakes in Banff are all freezing cold from glacier water, so we didn’t do any swimming, although when we put our feet in they pretty much got numb right away!

On day five we hiked from Sawback Lake to Mystic Valley. We saw a few helicopters on the way but other than that the hike was pretty quiet. We stopped for lunch at a creek and when we got to the campground there was one girl camping there. She didn’t come out of her tent or say hi to us at all, so we called her the hermit. We had to dismantle another illegal fire ring (the backcountry campgrounds all have one metal fire ring that is supposed to be used communally, there was one set up in the camping area which is not a good idea because cooking near camp can attract bears). We hiked over to the gorgeous little Mystic Lake before having dinner and a fire. When we got up, the hermit was gone but she had left her trash, so we packed that out along with our own trash and the stuff we’d been cleaning up along the way. We were amazed at how many people disrespect the parks by leaving trash around!

The hike out took us over Mystic Pass, which was beautiful but steep. Our last hike was our longest, over 21 km. When we got back to Johnston Canyon we were very tired and sore, but it was a great trip and we had even made some Canadian friends! The hike was a bit over 80 km total (around 50 miles), so I feel tougher already! I will be uploading pictures as soon as I can, and I even created a photo collection on flickr for our trip, so watch there for pictures of the wildlife and beautiful scenery!

Yesterday we drove over to Lake Louise and saw the beautiful lake and the Victoria Glacier. We stopped by Moraine Lake before coming back to Banff. For now we are in the town of Banff, visiting our new friend Art who lives here, and I’m getting some work done. We plan to go to Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park for a 4-day backpacking trip. Mt. Assiniboine is called the Matterhorn of the Canadian Rockies and you have to hike into the park, so we hope to start that trip the first of August. We’re enjoying Canada, and although things are expensive, the people are really friendly and the town of Banff is really cute. We hope to see a few more parks on our way out, then go back into Montana to see our friend John at Glacier National Park before going to McCall in mid-August for my parents’ 30th anniversary party. I’m way behind on pictures, so I better get those uploaded. Stay tuned!