by Brian Patton | Sep 19, 2021 | backpacking, Banff National Park, Home page News
More and more backpackers are exploring Banff National Park’s Front Ranges every year. Mostly they enter the region on the Red Deer River, either from the headwaters at Red Deer Lakes or from the park’s eastern boundary at Ya Ha Tinda Ranch. But...
by Brian Patton | Sep 6, 2021 | Home page News, Lake Louise, Lake O'Hara, National Parks, Yoho National Park
Most of the day hikes in the Canadian Rockies are one way, up-and-back. But there’s no doubt hikers prefer loop trips, or circuits, that don’t require retracing their steps. Here are a few of the best. One of my favourite guidebooks is the...
by Brian Patton | Jul 31, 2021 | canadian rockies trail guide, hiking, Home page News, Kootenay National Park, Wildfire
Climate change has replaced cloudy skies and rainy days with forest fire smoke. The summer of 2021 is no exception. One of the problems in the early days of the Canadian Rockies Trail Guide was cloudy conditions and showers. Thanks to these unsettled conditions, it...
by Brian Patton | Jun 14, 2021 | Banff National Park, Home page News, Jasper National Park, Kootenay National Park, Mt Robson Provincial Park, Waterfalls, Yoho National Park
June and early-July is the unofficial start of the hiking season in the Mountain National Parks. With streams flowing high with spring runoff, It’s a prime time to visit some of the parks’ most spectacular and sublime waterfalls. Most of the trails to...
by Brian Patton | May 1, 2021 | Banff National Park, COVID-19, Home page News, Lake Louise
Update September 3, 2021: Parks Canada reopened the eastern 17 kms of the Bow Valley Parkway between Fireside and Johnston Canyon to vehicles on September 1st. This section of the Parkway was closed to vehicles and used primarily by cyclists from June 1st. Banff...
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...
