Kate Williams

The trails are uncrowded, because access to the trailheads and the lake itself is at the end of a 20 minute bus ride (which you need tickets for), or a 11 km hike in on the access road (which you can’t bike). The All Souls Route will place you on a trail just above O’Hara, where you could hike back down to the day shelter and the bus stop. There are several ways to stay overnight in the Lake O’Hara area: the campground, the lodge, or booking an Alpine Club of Canada hut. While Abbot Pass Hut is currently closed due to slope erosion and dangerous conditions, the Elizabeth Parker Hut is a short walk from Lake O’Hara.

If you write down the ideal times you’d like to do the trips, you’ll be able to know exactly what you’re aiming for when you go to book. If you are hoping for a hiking trip on a long weekend, or hoping to do a well trafficked trail in the middle of the most popular time of year, you’ll have way more competition for backcountry reservations. If you’ve been really aching to do one specific backpacking trip, then plan it on a range of weekdays when you are more likely to get availability- if you can book outside of weekends, you’ll have way more opportunity to get the trips you really want to go on. If the only time you have available is considered a “hot” time (most weekends during the summer months, and especially long weekends and holidays), figure out when reservations are opening, and be ready to be on the phone or online as soon as it happens.

Forks Campground also marks the turn off for Turbine Canyon Campground that you’ll be coming back down on the last day. Three Isle Lake Campground to Turbine Canyon Campground (or Beatty Lake) Start This part of the trail, from Beatty Lake Campground onwards, is not very well defined and is where map-reading and route finding skills become necessary on the trail. We had taken the viewpoint trail, then spotted the route below us, and had to backtrack and bail out down a gully to access the base of Mt. Beatty, where the trail led us in a circuitous route around the mountain.

This year was different than the others- an ankle injury kept me down for most of the summer season, and I suffered a bout of seasonal affective disorder last winter that really affected how I saw myself. I did get out on some incredible adventures this year, and I’m looking forward to taking what I learned and experienced in 2019 to move forward into 2020 with a fresh perspective. Caves aren’t my favourite thing- as cool as they are, I’m a little claustrophobic. It wasn’t long ago that we took a little backcountry trip to the patrol cabin in Elbow Valley.