by Brian Patton | May 1, 2021 | Banff National Park, COVID-19, Home page News, Lake Louise
Banff National Park is responding to continuing health restrictions and the backcountry invasion by pandemic-weary hikers with a number of new policies. These policies affect access to the park’s most popular day hikes—trails in the Lake Louise-Moraine Lake...
by Brian Patton | Feb 27, 2021 | backpacking, Home page News, Kootenay National Park
Sometimes moving through landscape can become art. In the mid-1970s, David (aka Dale) Zieroth was working as a park naturalist in Kootenay National Park when he hiked on an overnight to Floe Lake with some of his Parks Canada colleagues. The poem that came out of that...
by Brian Patton | Dec 26, 2020 | Banff National Park, canadian rockies trail guide, hiking, Home page News
The original Guide to Hiking Trails in the vicinity of Storm Mountain Lodge was published in 1978. The text and design was created by then lodge co-owner Jim Thorsell. After the lodge changed ownership, the book was out of print for three decades. Many things changed...
by Brian Patton | Nov 22, 2020 | backpacking, Home page News
Jim Thorsell began charting a route for the Great Divide Trail while completing a trail use survey for Banff and Yoho Parks in 1967. After tweaking the original route, he published the Provisional Trail Guide and Map for the Proposed Great Divide Trail in 1970. The...
by Brian Patton | Nov 4, 2020 | banff, Banff National Park, Home page News
Stoney Squaw, Tunnel Mountain, Mount Eisenhower, Chinaman’s Peak. Some of the most popular short-hike destinations in the Bow Valley that experienced name changes over the past 40 years or may do so soon. I can’t remember the first time I hiked the 2-km...
by Brian Patton | Oct 9, 2020 | Home page News, Kootenay National Park
As Kootenay National Park celebrates its centennial year, it seems an appropriate time to republish Ron Ede’s account of a long-ago summer working on the park’s trails. I first read “Cutting trail in Kootenay Park—1940” in the “The...
