I’ve been sleeping terribly lately so I woke up tired after tossing and turning since 5am. I don’t think the late night sun helps. Most of the camp was still sleeping or had vacated already so it was quiet in the forest. After getting my $15 worth of toilet use, I wandered down to the creek for a refreshing splash of the face to try and get the sleep out of my system. This river had nothing on my original camp from the night before. I made breakfast and set off, creeping out of camp as quietly as I could.

I got lucky this morning, there wasn’t much haze in the air so I could see the mountains and the glaciers that topped them clearly.

It had been cold enough for long pants and a jumper at camp but when I got to the Icefields Centre, the temperature was down jacket worthy. I knew it would likely be too early for anyone to provide any information, but I walked up the stairs to the big building anyway. The tour companies were setting up for the day with people milling about to collect their tickets. They offered glacier walks, a sky walk and drives on top of the Athabasca glacier which was plainly visible from the highway. None of these options cost any less than $100. No thanks. I asked at a desk if there was a general information centre and found out there was but it didn’t open until 10am. I would have to resort to the internet to suss out the best hiking.

Since there was Wifi, I updated my blog while I was at it and managed to find a couple of short hikes to do in the icefields. After about an hour of sitting in the heated building, it felt even colder outside, despite the sun shining bright. I hoped the rest of the national park wouldn’t be like this as I head south! I drove across the road to the base of Athabasca glacier and walked a short way to its base. Along the path, even along the road leading up to the glacier, were signs indicated the position of the glacier over the past 100 years. It had receded an alarming amount just since 1982. The ground was colourless loose boulders, smooth rock and dirt.

Access to the glacier was blocked off by some fierce poles, rope and many cones displaying do not enter signs. I passed a few tour groups getting ready for their glacier trek, knowing they’d be venturing beyond the rope, but I wasn’t jealous. Standing at the base, I read about the last three recue attempts for people that had wrongfully crossed the rope and fallen into hidden crevasses. None of the attempts had been successful, each person had died of hypothermia before being reached.

It was an impressive glacier, though understandably it didn’t have the blue colours of those I’d seen in Alaska, standing right at the base of such a massive volume of ice was intimidating. As I walked away, I could hear it creaking and watched a blackened section for a while as rocks and small chunks of ice broke off and rolled down into the water below. I stood, willing it to calve, but there was no such event.

Back at the car, I could hear the boring drone of a group tour leader explaining how glaciers work and why they’re receding, nothing anyone hasn’t heard before. I drove a few kilometres south to the Parker Ridge trailhead, where a dozen or so cars were parked. It was either this or the Wilson Pass and I chose Parker because it would offer a view of the Saskatchewan Glacier, instead of a different vantage point of Athabasca. I kept my downie on and carried a bottle of water with me as I started on the 2km trek up the side of the mountain.

The trail was in a healthy forest for a while but it didn’t take long to get above the treeline and into the wildflowers. I climbed switchbacks offering great views of the cluster of mountain peaks to the north and to the south I could see a great cloud covering a ridge line. The climb was steady but easy enough. I ditched my down jacket about halfway up, stashing it behind a tree so I could pick it up on the way down. I even took my beanie off towards the top since I was overheating.

I was grateful to see hikers above me waking in a straight line which meant the switchbacks ended and I got a nice steady climb over the saddle of a mountain. It took me half an hour to get to the other side of the mountain where I could see the edge of the glacier.

I walked down a side trail to get a better view and this glacier was cleaner with more of that special blue tinge. I carried on walking along the ridgeline, wanting to get a full view of the glacier. There wasn’t any specific end to the trail since you could follow it another 7km to the peak of a mountain, which I wasn’t interested in. Looking back at the glacier and the mountains it called home, I was blown away by the view. The forest was a lush green while the glacier and mountain sides were a stark grey in comparison.

I didn’t linger too long since I was without a jacket and the wind was chilly. I continued admiring the view as I walked back the way I came, happy to get another perspective on what I’d already seen. As I trudged down, the trail had become populated with a lot of tourists making the trek skywards. By the time I’d reached the bottom, my feet were sweating in my hiking boots and I was looking for morning tea. Having done only an hour or so of hiking, I felt like I’d gotten pretty good bang for my buck!

Feeling lethargic, I was happy to get in the car for the hour’s drive south to Lake Louise. The highway was pretty as it travelled through the valley of the mountain range with great cliffs on either side and glacial lakes running alongside it.

When I came to the exit of Lake Louise, I found it was an absolute hive of activity. In the main carpark, I was lucky to come across an RV pulling out of its space so I could nab it. Otherwise, I’d have been driving in circles a while. Inside the visitor’s centre, I picked up all sorts of brochures and pamphlets about Mount Revelstoke, Glacier National Park, Yoho NP and Kootenay NP. They are all closely linked together and I planned to do a circuit of them all before heading south again. I spoke with someone behind the desk for a while then went off to take a look at Lake Louise.

I packed some lunch (leftover pasta) into my bag along with all my pamphlets and hopped on a free shuttle bus that took me out to Lake Louise. I got the last seat on the bus because I was travelling alone. Winning! Five minutes later, me and forty other people disembarked and followed the crowd to the lake. Instead of being overwhelmed by the view, I was overwhelmed by the people. It was a Tuesday afternoon for crying out loud! This was insane. There were people getting family photos, couples fiddling around with selfie sticks, all while getting in everyone else’s way.

I walked around the banks until I found a spot on some rocks that was semi-away from people but you really couldn’t get a corner to yourself. I admired the place as best I could, it was beautiful but the haze had crept into the day so the lake’s edge and mountain peaks were slightly blurred. I had a planning meeting (with myself) while I ate lunch, looking over all my brochures. I found out what I needed to know and by the time I made for the shuttle bus, I’d changed my plans completely. I had thought to do a side trip out to Revelstoke & Glacier then come back to Banff, but knowing there was a long weekend coming in a few days, I wanted to be as far as Banff as possible because I was sure it would be a madhouse. It would mean entering the US further to the west but I didn’t mind that took much. I also didn’t mind that I’d be missing out on Yoho National Park.

Once I was back to the visitor’s centre, I talked to another lady behind the desk about camping in Banff with my new plans. It looked grim, so she suggested I stay at the overflow camping spot just south of Lake Louise. Initially I didn’t like the idea of that because I was done with Lake Louise, but I soon reconsidered since I was in no mood to go campground hunting in Banff if all sites were occupied. Speaking to yet another lady, she filled me in on the details of the overflow camp and what I could do to kill the afternoon. After using the Wifi in the centre to download the latest F1 race, I took her up on her advice and drove into Yoho National Park to see Takakkaw Falls.

The drive was pretty, though there were roadworks for a lot of it. After turning off the main road through Yoho, I was on a narrow road that climbed up into the mountains. When I came to a set of three switchbacks, there was a short line of traffic waiting for a bus to navigate the tight z-pattern. There was some impressive manoeuvring from the bus driver considering he had to reverse down the middle switchback! All the RVs did three point turns at each u-turn and even some cars had to do the same. The Astro only just made it. Not far beyond that, I could see the huge Takakkaw Falls. They fell from hundreds of metres up a cliff, maybe not as tall as Upper Yosemite Falls, but it would have to be close.

I parked in the crowded carpark and with a handful of dry cereal to snack on, walked towards the base. Yes it was huge, yes it was impressive, yes it was spraying freezing cold water. I didn’t even walk all the way up to the base it was so cold.

Thinking I’d take the advice of the visitor’s centre lady and so a short walk, I followed the trail by the base of the falls and started listening to “Pod Save America” as I went. It was bloody entertaining the way they talked about the republican’s health care build and I enjoyed listening as I walked. So much so, that when the trail came out on the road I’d drive up on, I wasn’t too discouraged. I walked the half km back up the road and found another carpark and wandered along a trail leading away from it. I came to a campground which had a beautiful setting with a view of the falls. Here I found a sign and discovered it was 5km to the next set of falls. Feeling too tired for a 10km walk, I strolled back to my car, finding it eventually.

I drove back down the road and switchbacks and stopped at a lookout point that described “spiral tunnels” that had been built for trains climbing the mountains. An ingenious feat of engineering, there were two huge spirals dug into the mountains where trains scaled the peaks hidden from view. At a second view point, the routes through the mountain were explained. It would have been great to see a train winding through the tunnels but no such luck.

I carried on back into Lake Louise where I parked back at the visitor’s centre to have one more go at downloading the F1 race. I’d gotten most of the way before but when the connection failed I lost patience and went on my way. I tried again but after twenty minutes the same thing happened. That’s what you get when dozens of people are sitting around checking their facebook and watching Youtube videos. Frustrated, I left to go and find this overflow camp.

It was a few kms out of town and was nothing more than a big carpark. There were already plenty of RVs and campers parked so I slotted in between a couple with a good amount of space between. A couple of hours later, there was hardly any space between cars. The wind had picked up so I stayed inside cooking dinner and watching the first 50 laps of the race. It was here that I got cut off so I entertained myself with some Spanish and reading until the sun went down. It was interesting to watch the people nearby who were in a Dodge Caravan whose set up was abysmal compared to mine (if I do say so myself).