O Canada! Lake O'Hara/Yoho National Park, 8.6.19 - 8.9.19, Part 1 of 8
***IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE VIEWING THIS ON YOUR PHONE I MIGHT SUGGEST THAT THE PHOTOS WILL BE MUCH BETTER SERVED IF YOU VIEW THEM ON A LARGER DEVICE SUCH AS YOUR COMPUTER OR AN IMAX SCREEN***
I make it no secret that alpine grandeur stirs my soul in a way nothing else can. I am always looking to go to the places that simply by the power of their indescribable majesty takes my breath away. One such place on this incredible planet of ours is called Lake O’Hara. Bridgit and I just returned from a hiking trip to this amazing area and the scenery was even more spectacular than I could have possibly imagined.
Lake O’Hara is in a part of the Canadian Rockies known as Yoho National Park. Just east of Yoho lies Banff National Park and to the north, Jasper National Park is the third national park that collectively covers the northern terminus of the Rocky Mountain chain. I first became interested in Yoho after taking the Rocky Mountaineer train trip with my father from Banff to Vancouver a year or two before he passed away. The tracks run right past Banff and Yoho National Parks. The train trip was in October and it was snowing lightly and cloudy but I could still tell these were big mountains and I knew I needed to come and see them in more detail. Soon after that train trip while researching the Canadian Rockies I came across a photo taken from the Lake O’Hara area. Further research sold me on the idea that we had to go there. So we did.
Lake O’Hara is so special that access is very limited. There are three ways you can stay there. One is to reserve a room at the small quaint lodge which costs an insane amount of money. Another is to reserve a bunk in one of two alpine huts in a meadow just above the lake. The third is to reserve a campsite and sleep in your tent. Each site has a tent pad big enough for one tent. There are only thirty tent sites and combined with the lodge and the hut they only allow a total of 300 people into the park at any given time, giving everyone plenty of space to enjoy all that Lake O’Hara has to offer. Getting a reservation is challenging to say the least. You can not even try to reserve until exactly three months to the day before you wish to arrive. Canada hasn’t gotten internet yet so you have to call in to a live person to reserve your dates which can be up to three consecutive nights maximum.
It only took one video link on YouTube for our dear friends Mike and Sandy Kent from Steamboat Springs, Colorado to climb on board. We were excited to be planning a trip together. The four of us had done an epic six day backpack trip to the Glacier Peak Wilderness back in 2005 and despite our plan to “do it more often”, it took us until now to actually plan another trip together.
Putting my nose to the grindstone, I gathered as much information as I could to ensure this trip would be successful for everyone involved. The driest average days in the summer months fall on the first two weeks of August so we decided to go August 6th through the 9th. Three months prior, on May 6th at exactly 8AM MST, Sandy, Bridgit and I all called the reservation number. We all got a busy signal. We all hit redial. We all got a busy signal. An hour and ten minutes later on my two hundredth dial-in the phone rang and I actually got through. I had read that every single day typically sells out within an hour so I felt extremely lucky to have gotten through. We reserved two tent sites for Tuesday, August 6th for three nights, coming out on Friday, August 9th. The stage had been set.
The Canadian Rockies are extremely popular in the summer months and due to having to wait to know what our Lake O’Hara dates were, we could not find any RV sites available three months out so we booked tent campsites for the night before and a couple of nights after our time in Lake O’Hara. At 4AM on Monday, August 5th, Bridgit and I hopped in the Highlander and headed north. We crossed into Canada at Sumas and took the highway to Hope, Kamloops and up to Revelstoke where the scenery really started getting good. It may have been somewhere between Golden and Field that we came around a corner and got our first holy s*#t moment. Jagged granite peaks jutted up into the blue sky and it just got us so jazzed for the upcoming adventure we could hardly stand it.
Mount Sir Donald from Highway 1
After driving through Revelstoke and Golden we basically drove right through the top of Yoho National Park and on to Lake Louise which is in Banff National Park where we had a camping reservation. Driving up the road towards our campground, Bridgit spotted a black bear on a trail right off the road. We hadn’t even set up our tent yet and we’d already seen a bear! Speaking of setting up the tent, the Canadian Rockies are known for the quantity of bears, both black and grizzly. Our campground was completely surrounded by an electric fence to protect both the bears and the campers.
11,626’ Mt. Temple rises over Lake Louise Campground
Mike and Sandy also had reservations and arrived just after we did. I couldn’t wait to go to sleep so I could wake up and go to Lake O’Hara. There is only one road leading into Lake O’Hara and it is closed to the public. Each reservation comes with a bus pass. Our reservation was to get the 10:30AM bus so we drove back up into Yoho and parked at the Lake O’Hara bus parking lot, brought our backpacks up to the staging area and hopped on the bus.
Mike and Sandy waiting for the bus
Bridgit and I had never once carried bear spray in all our years of hiking but all the websites and literature made sure to say you should not only carry it but know how to use it. Spoiler alert: We never needed our bear spray but there were definitely places we hiked where I was glad it was handy. I had been diligently studying the weather on NOOA for weeks leading up to our trip. Ten days out it looked great, three days out it called for rain the whole time and improved the day before we left so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I just prayed for clear weather.
Bridgit is so nice. This is the look she would show a charging grizzly.
We boarded the school bus for the nine mile drive up the valley on a bumpy dirt road under partially cloudy skies. A short twenty minutes later we arrived at the Lake O’Hara Campground. After our orientation we ran off into the woods (with our bear spray) and found two tent sites next to each other. Once our stuff was situated we still had hours before dinnertime so we decided to take a hike around the actual lake. I included a map of the Lake O’Hara area for anyone who cares to follow along.
Lake O’Hara map
The campground is a little less than a half mile from the lake. You can continue up the road to the lake where there is a warden’s cabin, the lodge, rental cabins and a day use shelter. We opted to drop down to a creek below our campground and follow the creek trail up to the lake. From camp to camp it is about a 2.3 mile loop hike with no elevation gain so it really was a pleasant stroll around the lake.
First view of Lake O’Hara from near the outlet
Anyone know what this bird is?
The sky was fairly dark and rain threatened a bit as we circled the lake. Along the way we came to Seven Veils Falls. There was a short, steep side trail up to the falls so we had to go check that out.
Seven Veils Falls
Mike at the falls
Team O’Hara
After circling the lake we came to the Le Relais Shelter. Other than the scenery and a large population of bears, Lake O’Hara is famous for the fresh carrot cake they offer for sale at 8:30AM and 3:30PM every day. We each got a piece and it lived up to the hype. It was some grubbin’ good cake my friends. The shelter also had hot coffee and t-shirts of which we bought both.
The Newmarks at the Le Relais Shelter
Tent pads in the campground
The campground was very bear conscious and had several things in place to keep bears and people separated. Instead of cooking all over the place there was a central area for cooking and eating as well as for food storage. Each site had been designated its own bearproof food locker big enough for all food and scented items such as toothpaste, sunscreen and Chanel #5. A bearproof storage shed had racks for people to store their backpacks, hiking poles and boots so they didn’t have to put them in their tents. Nothing was allowed to be stored outside your tent unless it was in a locker or the shed. The campground also had bathrooms, sinks with running water for doing dishes and brushing and potable water that was delicious straight out of the tap. So we weren’t really roughing it. It made camping for three nights super easy. The first night Bridgit’s air mattress sprung a leak and died but the next day we were shown a storage closet for things left behind, donated etc… which included two old sleeping bags that I used for a pad and slept well the rest of the trip.
We met people from all over. I’d say the majority were from the Calgary area but there were folks from all over the world there to see the splendor that is Lake O’Hara. The rain hit at the dinner hour but there was a break long enough for everyone to prepare their dinners and get situated for bed. During the night we had bright flashes of lightning almost immediately followed by loud cracks of thunder and driving rain. Our MSR Hubba Hubba kept us dry and by morning we woke up to completely clear sunny skies.
The central dining area. Wiwaxy Peaks tower over the campground
Stay tuned for Part 2...