Thursday 22nd August 2013, day 42 - Banff to Rampart Creek

Moose Tour part 2 - The Rockies

Day 7: Banff to Rampart Creek

Five of us from the group of the past two days were picked up at 8am from the hostel in Banff by a new guide and were joined by six others. The rest we had spent the journey from Vancouver with were on a shorter trip and would continue staright to Jasper. We drove for about ten minutes out of town to Two Jack Lake, at one end of Lake Minnewanka ("Water of the Spirits") for introductions and even better mirror photos than at Emerald Lake. The dreadlocked hippy guide, Ryan, said we would all be preparing and eating meals together, instead of each person going off and getting a sandwich somewhere, which was nice. So we were split into Lunch Team and Dinner Team, and returned to Banff and the supermarket where each team bought supplies for the respective meals for the next two days.

Next stop Lake Louise! The most photographed lake in the Rockies. It is pretty spectacular, and other groups hike to a viewpoint overlooking it and have lunch there, but our guide wasn't a fan of really touristy spots so we stayed a few minutes for photos then hiked up the mountain for about forty-five minutes to Mirror Lake (not very mirror-like) at the base of the Big Beehive mountain. From there we continued up again for fifteen minutes to Agnes Lake, where we had lunch and a much-needed rest on the rocks next to the water. There's a teahouse there so there were still tourists but not as many as down by the shore of Louise – it's not the easiest hike up. Lunch Team had bought tortilla wraps and lots to put in them, so it was easy and tasty. We had to keep chasing the ground squirrels away though.

After an hour there we spent another hour making our way back down to Lake Louise. Most of the trail was through the trees but there were a couple of places where it opened up and we could see quite far. So after three hours and seven kilometres we left, continuing to Moraine Lake where we climbed the pile of rocks at one end for a good view overlooking it. Unlike Lake Louise, which to my surprise was a pale, milky blue colour, this was the brilliant turquoise that's usually seen in photos of mountain lakes and rivers.

The bright blueness is caused by rock flour, basically the mountain equivalent of sawdust – created by moving glaciers eroding rock. It gets transported in meltwater during spring and summer, and the particles are so fine that they stay suspended in the water instead of sinking to the bottom. Water absorbs the long wave colours of the light spectrum, and the rock flour absorbs most of the shortest light waves, and the remaining light (green and blue) is reflected back to our eyes.

Again, a few people went for a swim at Moraine Lake. Well, a dunk. They didn't swim, and only stayed in for a moment before coming out cursing. The rest of us sat on fallen tree trunks and tentatively dipped our feet in, taking them straight out again. The water temperature was only a few degrees above freezing, after all.

We made a rest/snack/supply stop in Lake Louise Village where a couple of lucky people got the last of the elk stew in a cafe there. Then we headed onto the Icefields Parkway, one of the most scenic mountain drives in the world. Our last stop before the hostel was at Bow Lake, from which we could see the Crows Foot Glacier – so named because in the early 20^th century it had three 'toes', only two of which now remain. Getting back on the bus, we drove for a few minutes before Ryan suddenly burst out with "Holy s***, there’s a wolf!"

A wolf! A lone grey wolf! Right on the roadside, trotting along. Gladly we were the only vehicle around so there wasn't lots of stopped traffic trying to get a photo. Nevertheless we only caught a glimpse: by the time the guide turned the bus around to try to see it again it had gone.

Our accommodation for the night was at Rampart Creek hostel. It's a Wilderness Hostel, meaning no TV, Wi-Fi or phone service, the electricity is solar-powered and there’s no running water. It was really nice :) There’s even a sauna, which a couple of people went in for a while before cooling off with a jump in the river it was next to. The only other people staying there were a friendly group of five Albertan teachers, on a cycling holiday before the start of the new school year. They told us wolves are rarely seen so we were very lucky. Dinner was curry, cooked by a few people in our group. They put brown rice to cook in the same pot as white rice, so it took a long time and we didn't eat until gone 9pm, but it was tasty. We had s'mores around the campfire afterwards!