March 15, 2020, Hector Lake area
Distance: varies
Elevation gain: 90 m
On Sunday, March 15, Fred and I drove all the way to the Icefields Parkway for our “weekly” mountain time. Of course, it has been two weeks since we have ventured into the Rockies for a snowshoe. Weather, avalanche ratings, and oh yeah, the Covid-19 pandemic were deterrents to getting out the weekend of March 7. I was in desperate need for mountain therapy – to get away from being bombarded with pandemic information and the insane level of stress I was feeling due to the numerous pandemic impacts on our lives. The weather forecast promised blue skies and plenty of sunshine, even between Lake Louise and Jasper. In an effort to be as socially responsible as possible, Fred and I chose to explore the Hector Lake area on snowshoes. There is no official trail down to the lake, the area around the lake is wide open so even if we came upon other people, there was plenty of space to maintain a two meter distance from them, and most likely, very few people would be driving the 3 hours from Calgary to get to this area.
As usual, we rose early, grabbed our bags, and were out the door by 6:15 am. We witnessed a beautiful sunrise behind us as we drove Highway 1 west. I could feel my body relax and my breathing deepen already, which is exactly what I needed. By the time we reached Banff, the sun was kissing many mountain tops. Because we were so early, we took a small detour in Banff and visited Two Jack Lake, Lake Minnewanka and Vermilion Lakes. Looking at my pictures, I can understand the term “blue hour.” I found the peaks of Cascade Mountain breathtaking.
Once back on the highway, we made a last minute decision to take Highway 1A from Castle Mountain to Lake Louise in case we got lucky and saw Split Lip or the Boss 😮. Split Lip had been sighted by the train tracks in the Banff area end of February – pretty darn early for this big grizzly to be up and about for the spring-summer season. While we did not have any animal sightings, we did walk the Bow River shore for a bit to get pictures of Castle Mountain and we did have stunning views of the various mountains in the Lake Louise area from Morant’s Curve.
Once on the Icefields Parkway, we drove only a short distance before we parked our car on the side of the road, geared up and headed right into the forest toward Hector Lake. There was one other car parked at the side of the road and likely belonged to a backcountry skier. The great news was Fred and I had ski tracks that were making a trail to follow. Once we broke through the forest the views opened up. We had no issues crossing the river to reach the lake. Everywhere we looked there were stunning snow-covered mountains and pillows after pillows of untouched snow. Fred and I explored the lake shoreline and took a ridiculous number of pictures before we reluctantly made our way back to road. Not wanting the day to end, Fred and I drove the 1A home, stopping periodically to explore small areas and take more pictures.
