Native lands of the: Plains Cree, Ktunaxa, Nakota.
Top hikes of the trip: Smutwood Peak, Pocaterra Ridge, Sentinel Pass, Peyto Lake, Emerald Lake, Bow Lake
The Canadian Rockies are an adventurer’s dream with rugged glaciated mountains, icefields, alpine meadows, turquoise lakes and thriving wildlife! It is extremely vast and well protected by countless national and provincial parks. Four of the national parks (Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Yoho) and three of the provincial parks (Hamber, Mount Assiniboine, Mount Robson) cover 24 square kilometers across Alberta and British Columbia and together are designated as a UNESCO world heritage site! Everything you see will be epic and thanks to great management and permitting systems this wild landscape is easy to access and very accommodating!
1st Trip: 10/1-10/6/2024
We finally planned a trip to Alberta in August 2024 but my wife had a bad ankle injury a week before. Thankfully we were able to push it out to October and it ended up being a blessing in disguise. Wildfires unfortunately filled the August skies. We did miss out on a few hiking permits we secured for August, mainly an overnight in Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park. That didn’t bother us as we quickly learned no matter where you are in the Canadian Rockies they always deliver!
We flew into Ontario and stayed in Canmore. Driving into the Rockies from Ontario felt a lot like driving into the Rockies from Denver but just like BC is to Washington the Canadian Rockies are twice as dramatic as its American counterpart.
We absolutely loved Canmore as a base camp! It had everything we needed, including amazing mountain views and was very laid-back.
The afternoon we arrived it was overcast and rainy but we still got out and explored some of the amazing local trails. We took the Bow River Loop and the Grassi Lakes Loop. It was cool seeing the yellow larches everywhere we went!
After the moody walks we had an excellent dinner. This trip was all about hiking and eating! Everything we ate was perfect, especially the Alberta Beef starting with a delicious pot roast.
The next morning the weather was still crummy, so we took it slow, picked up lunch and drove to the Smutwood Peak Trailhead in Spray Valley Provincial Park around noon. From Canmore it’s an hour drive along the 40-mile gravel Smith-Dorrien Trail Highway that straddles the Spray Lakes Reservoir. This area is Kananaskis Country and it’s equally as beautiful as the national parks!
Smutwood Peak is 12m with 3,050ft of elevation change and involves 2 miles of scrambling and 6 miles of walking through an active grizzly bear habitat. It is an unofficial trail due to those first and last 3 miles. At the trailhead there was a notice of a bear sighting the week prior. We hoped the recent blanket of snow sent them hibernating as we made the mistake of forgetting our bear spray in Canmore. We made a lot of noise while hiking and I had ‘Enter Sandman’ queued up on full volume to scare them away. Those first 3 miles had little elevation gain hiking through a dense forest to an alpine meadow.
The trail then goes up to Smuts Pass cutting through a beautiful larch filled forest.
From Smuts Pass we traversed to the south ridge of Smutwood passing two beautiful alpine lakes, the Birdwood Lakes, with Smutwood Peak and the fun ridge scramble in view!
From the saddle to the summit we had a 1 mile scramble up the snowy ridge taking extreme caution with each step.
We reached the summit at 4:30pm and soaked in the crazy views of Birdwood Peak, Mount Smuts and a 360-degree view of Kananaskis. We didn’t stay long as more clouds rolled in and we did not want to hike in grizzly country in the dark.
Our cup was filled up with this hike and thankfully there were no bear encounters and no rain! The next morning we took to the scenic Icefields Parkway. We secured Moraine Lake permits in Banff National Park so we started our day with a hike to Sentinel Pass. The hike is 7m with 2,300ft of elevation change. We had low expectations based on the overcast conditions.
As we got higher the clouds started to part and the Valley of Ten Peaks came into view!
The reflection of the Ten Peaks from Minnestimma Lake was mind bending!
After 15 minutes in awe clouds from the Valley of Ten Peaks rose up and block the mountains. Our timing could not have been better!
On the way down we had wild views of low clouds and towering peaks!
Back at Moraine Lake we were greeted by the iconic view of vivid turquoise water and ten mighty peaks!
The weather was turning against us but we were determined to get one more hike in. We headed to Yoho National Park and hiked the 3m trail around Emerald Lake.
That night we ate glorious steaks in Banff which was the perfect way to cap off a fun birthday! You just can’t miss with Alberta Beef!
On the following day we saw the worst weather of the trip but it held out until around 11am so in the morning we got back out on the Icefields Parkway and headed for Peyto Lake in Banff National Park. Yet another stunning glacier fed lake with an incredible mountain backdrop!
What makes these lakes so blue? Movement of the glaciers grind the rocks beneath it into a powdery silt, known as rock flour. Meltwater carries the rock flour into the lake, but it’s so lightweight that it doesn’t sink. It sits at the surface and absorbs and reflects out the shorter wavelengths of green and blue. The more rock flour the greener/bluer the water looks.
We did a short hike around the area before leaving this great vantage point.
The weather was getting worse but we made a few more lake stops before heading back to town. If the weather cooperated we would have hiked Boundary Peak or Floe Lake.
We stopped in Banff that afternoon and got some ice cream before heading back to Canmore. We are always on the go so having down time to enjoy town and relax was nice!
The next morning we got out the door early to hike Pocaterra Ridge, which is one of Alberta’s best spots for fall larch viewing! It was an hour drive to the Little Highwood Pass trailhead in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. Our hike was 7m with 3,500ft of elevation change.
It was quite cloudy again but there was enough light coming through to make everything beautiful! Every step was photo worthy which kept us pushing on through the brutal wind. Every step was also steep as we gained 1,000ft per mile. Microspikes were a must on all our hikes this trip.
The wind was a little better once surrounded by yellow needled larches!
We didn’t stay at the summit long as we are excited to redo this beautiful stretch of trail and take refuge behind some larches!
This was the cherry on top of an amazing intro to the Canadian Rocky Mountains! I say intro as we now have a packed wish list for a return trip: Northgate Spire in the Bugaboos, Nub Peak in Mount Assiniboine, Snowbird Pass in Mount Robson, Lake O’Hara in Yoho, Boundary Peak in Jasper and so much more!
Our last night was spent in Ontario before an early flight out in the morning. This place made an unforgettable impression on me. As with BC and Washington, Alberta feels like a place I could wander for the rest of my life and never need more! Until next time!
CAPPY TRAILS 