Peyto Lake

Day 3 in Banff found me at Peyto Lake trailhead at the southern end of the Icefields Parkway.  Last night was a cold one, it dipped below freezing, so pulling myself out of my cocoon of a sleeping bag was a chore.  But I made it to the trail by 8 under partly cloudy skies.  Well, actually the sun was shining in the valley, it was only when I began my hike that I hiked up into the clouds. 

Peyto Lake is one of those glacial fed lakes that you see on postcards.  The ones that are a turquoise blue and in the backgrounds is forested mountains with snow on top.  Yea, you know what Im talking about.  Well don’t buy any of those post cards.  You can just copy and paste my images for yourself.  But seriously, truly beautiful stuff.  And something you only get to see where glaciers are present…so not very many places these days.  

Peyto Lake

Peyto Lake

The hike along the marked trail was nice.  It took you to a lookout of the lake.  Ok, that’s all well and good.  But I still wanted more.  I took a trail that headed up higher on the mountain into the treeless alpine, into the clouds.  The trail quickly disappeared as I reached the snow.  I continued anyway, trudging through deep snow like the day before, and one point slipping through up to my hips.  But I avoided the snow as much as possible, as the steep slopes are prone to avalanches in early spring, and I didn’t want to mess with mother nature like that.

A long, steep drop to the bottom.  Worked every muscle in my legs on this hike

I got somewhat lost in the clouds and had to wait for them to clear before I could march/slide down the mountain to the base of Peyto Lake.  The sliding down part was fun.  Hopping down boulder to boulder, sliding down on loose rock and snow til I reached the bottom.  Unfortunately what goes down must go up, and the hike back had me sweating bullets, stopping every 50m or so to catch my breath.  Am I out of shape?  Could be, I haven’t done much running as of late.  Im retired, don’t you know. 

SPRUCE GROUSE!  This is a bird I've only seen once before 6 or so years ago.  I've been wanting to see another ever since.  This is the male, and the female's in the back.  He was showing off for his girl.

Me, PBJ, and clouds on the top of a mountain