|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2018 22:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:17 |
|
|
I tell them to stick to city trails because there's no expectation of escaping noise pollution so they can do whatever they want. I get called an elitist bitch trying to hog nature to myself. They're welcome to go to as long as they leave their lovely noise at home where it belongs. It's amazing how difficult it is to convince someone that wilderness is best without having to hear Ed Sheeran or Chainsmokers or whatever blasting all of a sudden. Their main argument is alerting bears. They argue it works best because they've never had encounter the entire 25 hours they spent hiking in their life. Guess that supersedes my hundreds of hours of no encounters using just my voice and actually stopping to observe the landscape when in meadows or alpine areas. Tell them that and they argue studies have been done which they of course refuse to provide because this is social media so any opinion is a fact look it up yourself.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 27, 2018 01:24
|
|
|
marsisol posted:A couple friends and myself are planning a 8-9 day trip to Banff/Jasper in mid-late July and need some advice. The plan is to set up camp for 3-4 nights in each park and hike each day. After doing some preliminary reading, I'm worried that Banff is going to be too crowded and crazy. Can someone compare the two parks and recommend some good hikes in each one? Long hikes are fine as we're all experienced in the back country. Banff is definitely the busier park, it has several major world famous places and the most famous place in Jasper is right on the border between the two (Columbia Icefields/Athabasca Glacier). Pretty much all of the campsites that you can book online will fill up the day they're made available, I have much better luck booking Jasper online, but you should get on it fast. Weekends are going to be the hardest to come by. There's still many campgrounds that are first come first serve so it's not impossible to get a good site. One of my personal favourites is Wilcox Creek campground near the Athabasca Glacier. The sites are really tiny so keep that in mind. Wabasso campground in Jasper is my personal favourite for places to stay near the townsite. Good hikes that I like as a local are Banff: - Helen Lake/Dolomite Pass - almost all alpine meadow. Might see horses. - Bourgeau Lake, can be extended to the summit of Mt. Bourgeau if you're an experienced scrambler - Saddleback Pass at Lake Louise, can be extended to the summit of Mt. Fairview which is an official trail maintained by Parks Canada and a great beginner summit (not the same as Fairview Lookout but have the same trailhead) - Cory Pass, which does a loop that circumnavigates Mt. Edith - Inkpots - Starts through Johnston canyon which is super touristy but once you get past the Upper Falls the crowds disappear - Rockbound Lake which is tucked in behind Castle Mountain - Skoki region, which is near Lake Louise, if you're speedy you can get to Deception Pass and back in a day, maybe even bag a small summit, but the first 4km is on a ski hill access road. There' a backcountry campground about 7km from the trailhead if you're inspired to spend more than a dayhike there. Jasper: - Parker Ridge and Wilcox Pass are short enough and close enough to do in one day. - Skyline Trail - you don't have to do the whole thing, you can get great views just doing part of the trail starting from Maligne Lake. It is a linear backpacking trip but it's difficult to book because it's a world-famous trail - Sunwapta Lower Falls is really short and a good leg stretcher stop if you're sick of being in a car. Most people only go to the upper falls, and the lower falls are only a kilometer away - Tonquin Valley is loving gorgeous but kind of far as a day hike unless you're a machine. Be fast or look into splitting it into 2 days while staying at a backcountry site halfway there. Cavell Road is closed this summer to upgrade the day use area so you would have to go in via Maccairib Pass Trail. - Indian Ridge where the gondola is looks great, but the day I planned on doing it, it was sleeting like crazy so I haven't bagged it yet - Maligne Canyon, popular and touristy but the farther you go the more the crowds thin out. Also, Sunshine Meadows in Banff is one of my favourite places. It is possible to hike there, but it's a slog and a half, or you could just pay to take the gondola or shuttle bus. I usually start a linear backpacking trip there so I'm happy to spend a bit of money to skip that lovely start. Howard Douglas backcountry campground is only 5km from the ski lodge and as such is not commonly used because it's not hardcore enough to bother stopping there. Also also, you can check out my Canadian Rockies thread here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3763897&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 I posted a bunch of educational type stuff for people there. I did some photo essays of the parks in the Take a Photo thread too Banff Part 1: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3756620&userid=131806#post455277215 Banff Part 2: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3756620&userid=131806#post455318237 Jasper: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3756620&userid=131806#post455353996 My Jasper post was made before I spent a week there, I should do up another one. single-mode fiber posted:I didn't spend a ton of time in Jasper except to go up and see the Icefields, but also consider Yoho and Kootenay since they're right there too. All these are great too. Stanley Glacier in Kootenay is kind of like the poor man's Burgess Shale. Lots of cool fossils but you won't see the crazy cool things like at Walcott Quarry or the Stephen Trilobite beds. Which you can go to, but it's by guided hike only because of the level of protection those areas are under. Afternoon storms are 200% a thing here and I've been caught in a few at uncomfortable elevations. It might even snow. I was caught in a blizzard at Lake Agnes on the summer solstice at about 8 pm. My best advice is to start early, and always carry warm and waterproof layers if you're going more than a few km in even if it's sunny and hot when you start. My husband attempted a summit that wasn't even very high, only about 900m elevation, sunny and 25C at the trailhead, had to turn back just before the summit because it was sleeting heavily and all the rocks were covered in a sheet of ice. Trailhead was still sunny and 25 when he returned. SulfurMonoxideCute fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Feb 9, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2018 21:34
|
|
|
marsisol posted:Thank you so much for this. I'll definitely check out the other thread. Any provincial parks you absolutely recommend in the area? Assiniboine is accessible by foot or helicopter. It's just across the provincial border in BC. Mt. Robson Provincial Park is also in BC, about an hour west of Jasper townsite. It has the easiest accessible lush inland Columbian rainforest I've encountered so far bar none, but you can also experience these forests at the aforementioned Emerald Lake and Emerald Basin in Yoho. Alberta side, I love love LOVE Peter Lougheed and Spray Valley in Kananaskis Country. As much as I love Banff, I consider those parks as my home away from home. You might notice in that photo thread, my post about Kananaskis is MASSIVE. One of my personal favourite places in the whole world is where a little known place called Engadine Lodge is located. There's an unofficial trail that starts nearby that follows this tiny creek called Commonwealth Creek, and is a super easy yet quite long hike to some pretty dramatic mountains. The most common name of the trail is Birdwood Tarns. The only thing is that since it's not maintained, there's quite a few big logs you need to cross. Before last year there was only one. Now there's way way more because there were a few major avalanches that cleared brand new swaths through dense forest. They were so big they travelled up the other side of the valley. I wasn't aware of this last time I was there, assumed it was easy as always, and ended up clambering over big fallen trees in a hiking skirt. So I hiked in this:  In this terrain:  You can see my friend. Some of the logs were stacked waist high. That was on the upslope on the opposite side of the valley. But it's worth it. 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 10, 2018 03:45
|
|
|
Levitate posted:alpine lakes are the best Agreed.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2018 16:29
|
|
|
I have an opportunity to develop some local guided geology hikes. I have lots of experience, knowledge, and resources, now it's just trying to figure out what other people might actually be interested in because I'm kind of a weirdo and what I find neat might be boring to others. So some scouting missions are going to be in order once I feel well enough to get out on my feet again.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2018 21:30
|
|
|
PhantomOfTheCopier posted:You're pnw right? I might be interested and might have a friend or two. Canadian Rockies, Banff and Kananaskis area. I'd really like to share knowledge of Kananaskis because it's a real jewel not many people know about, plus I'd be based out of Canmore. There's some pretty crazy history here to talk about too aside from just natural history stuff, like Japanese internment camps and a cave carved into the side of a mountain to store documents in case the Cold War turned into a real war.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2018 02:40
|
|
|
Terrifying Effigies posted:Question for Picnic Princess - I'm looking at doing some hiking around Banff and Yono in late Aug/early Sept and was interested in checking out one of the guided fossil bed tours. If I had to pick one, would you recommend Burgess or Stephens? I've seen some comments that Stephens has a wider variety of fossils but wasn't sure how accurate those were. Glad to be of service! I admit I haven't been to the Walcott Quarry (Burgess shale proper) but I've learned so much about it and know a few people who have, so I can give some advice. Walcott has more biodiversity but from what I hear the fossils aren't abundant because it tends to be picked clean by researchers. There's a bunch they left for visitors. Stephen has a mind-blowing number of fossils, I'm talking thousands. You can't walk without stepping on a trilobite or some kind of fragment. But the number of species is small with little variety, there's trilobites and their molts which is 99% of the fossils there, anomalocaris jaws, tube worms, and a couple other small critters. Walcott has more of the really bizarro species that made the Burgess shale world famous. So if you want to see a bunch of rare and weird little Cambrian creepies, go to Walcott. If you dig trilobites and anomalocaris, do Stephen. Hike wise, Stephen is short and very steep. There's no switchbacks, you just hike straight up a lateral moraine. I have done about half of the Walcott hike when I climbed Mt. Burgess, it's less steep because it's much farther and has 52 switchbacks. My topo map just has a line drawn that says (52 switchbacks) beside it.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2018 03:32
|
|
|
Terrifying Effigies posted:Awesome, I'll probably go with Walcott then both for the uniqueness and history behind it. I am also a fan of switchbacks and other reasonable and sane trail features. I've done Assiniboine twice and it is my #1 backpack trip in Alberta. It's phenomenal. I do have a few tips from my own experience. I suggest avoiding Porcupine Campground. You need to lose like 500m of elevation then gain it all back. There's a really cool slope overlooking the valley instead that I love anyway. My first time I went all the way to Og Lake on day 1 and continued to Magog the next day and spent the afternoon circumnavigating the lake. Then I hiked all the way to Mt. Shark in one day which was okay, but the last 5km was kind of tedious because it's just old forestry road. I split that into two days the second time and stayed at Bryant Creek, and ended up only going to Howard Douglas the first night then all the way to Magog on day 2. If you already booked certain nights at certain places but decide to change your mind while on the trail, you should be fine so long as you have your permits and explain why you're in this site rather than that site. I've done that and never had an issue, and the only site that is ever close to close to full was Magog. I had Howard Douglas and Bryant Creek to myself, and Og there was only 3 other people. But Magog is super busy and they had to change it to reservation only this year due to so many people showing up and overfilling the overflow area. And of course, be prepared for snow. I hiked out in a whiteout blizzard my first time there.
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2018 21:02
|
|
|
Terrifying Effigies posted:
You should be fine without. It's usually wet, slushy and warm snow rather than icy. Graupel is common too.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2018 19:15
|
|
|
I'm in a couple Lyme support groups on Facebook and everyone is talking about how ticks are really bad all over the continent this year.
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2018 01:06
|
|
|
Flambeau posted:
Honestly, I have no idea. It is the area I've spent most of my time, but I've also been outdoorsy in Utah, and also in SE Asia, Australia, NZ, Mexico. My issues started well before I lived off the grid in Belize so it wasn't there. I don't remember ever being bit by a tick and I do check. But I have reason to believe I may have missed some times that mattered. Here's the thing: according to Alberta Health there is zero risk of Lyme here. But the most recent study was done 40 years ago. They are doing a new study this year finally and I'm pretty sure their findings are going to change. If I had to guess when I may have been bitten and not noticed, I think it was my scrambling accident back in May 2011. I was very badly injured, bleeding a lot. Sitting off trail for 2 hours in tick high season, I was surrounded by bighorn sheep at one point. I ended up on bed rest for 4 days because my body was in too much pain to do anything. My weird health problems started manifesting in 2012. If I was ever bit, I think that would have been the time.
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2018 21:30
|
|
|
Yikes, I haven't been here in ages. I need to post life updates soon because it's been a fuckin wild ride. Anyway, I'll be in Estes Park, Colorado for a couple days in early November. What are the Must Do trails that are available that time of year, and some that are possibles depending on the weather? I've never been to that park before and have no clue what to expect.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2019 01:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 12:17 |
|
|
Thanks everyone! I'll remember to bring our microspikes. I imagine one of the days we'll be pretty hung over (wedding) but it's not like I haven't done a good hike to ignore the suffering before.xzzy posted:Don't forget that BBQ place in Estes after coming down from a hike. Heavy meat feels loving goooood after hard work. I was eyeing Smokin Dave's, I don't eat meat very often but when I do it's precisely for this reason.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2019 17:30
|
|