CR2013: Play Dates, Karst Spring, and Field

At breakfast we could see that the musicians were leaving Mount Engadine Lodge today, as were we.

The rain from yesterday had frozen overnight.

A bull moose was departing the frosty mud slough after an early visit.

Our traveling pigs, Danny and Pigtail (right in the photo) enjoyed a post-breakfast playdate with singer-songwriter Cara Luft and her traveling companions.

They posed for a farewell photo.

The monkey became overexcited, and leapt onto the lamp.

We said our goodbyes and then set off for an easier, nearby day hike at Karst Spring. This would leave us plenty of time to drive to Field, our staging point to catch the early morning Lake O'Hara bus tomorrow.

The Karst Spring trail is a spur off a major route used winter and summer. The main trail can take you to Bryant Creek Shelter and deeper, to Assiniboine Lodge, Wonder Pass, and other backcountry destinations.

The first part is an old logging road, crisscrossed by cross-country ski trails, and mostly uninteresting except for occasional views to the north.

After about 3.7km (2.3 miles) Joan and I took the signed spur heading south, past Watridge Lake. Soon you must cross a marshy area on a boardwalk, where sometimes we have spotted fabulous orchids. Further on, a narrower boardwalk spans a damp stretch.

The trail begins to rise, slowly at first, steeply at the end. The creek is tumbling down from the spring in full roar.

The energetic form of Nature's artistry was all around us.

A final curve with a railing conceals the spring, and the sound of the water is almost deafening.

The source is a deceptively modest-looking upwelling in the flank of the mountain.

In winter the scene would be much different!

On the way back we were alerted by other hikers that there was a creature at the far edge of the large marsh.

It's a moose, browsing!

After returning it was time to drive on, through Canmore and past Banff, Lake Louise, and the border of British Columbia. We would spent the night in Field, at the Kicking Horse Lodge, before heading to Lake O'Hara the next day.

Checking in was an adventure. At first they wanted to give us one of the basement rooms, which are poorly ventilated and are situated next to where people hang out to smoke. We had encountered this before, and Joan had asked how to avoid this, and the reply had been that rooms are handed out in order of reservations made, basement rooms last. Joan made it clear that we had made our reservations in January and this was the last day of August and just what did we have to do to get a non-basement room?! The check-in guy consulted his computer and then gave us room #14, in the main section.

But the adventure was not over. Joan was in the shower and I was in my bathrobe when the door started rattling. Somebody was trying to enter the room! Fortunately we had thrown the dead bolt. I peeked out, saw a couple, cautiously opened the door -- and discovered two German tourists who had just been given keys to #14. They were as astonished as we were. The man returned to check-in and apparently another room was found, as after several minutes neither of them was lingering outside our door. I stood down from my watch duty and finally got my shower.

Sheesh.

One has to take pictures of the trains in Field. It's a rail yard and switching point for the Canadian Pacific Railroad. If train noise bothers you, definitely bring earplugs.

We had dinner at the Truffle Pigs Café, part of the lodge building, and returned to our room. Nobody else had moved in while we were gone.

More Kananaskis Hiking

After Black Prince, our next day's hike was to Chester Lake and the adjacent Three Lakes valley, which, depending on the time of year, may have two to four lakes as you hike up to the head of the valley. An easy hike from the road, Chester is a favorite among families and fishermen. The bears also enjoy it in the springtime for the glacier lilies (they dig up the below-ground bits) and ground squirrels (ditto).

The link at the beginning of this post has a great aerial view of how you hop over a slight ridge to the Three Lakes Valley, and how it's all laid out. Here's a July 2008 view from near the top of the valley:

This upper valley is fertile ground for fossils -- corals and crinoids:

The next day was a big hike, Tent Ridge, directly across from Mount Engadine Lodge. We prefer the Tryst Lake route; see the lake in the lower right? You follow an unofficial but well-used trail to the lake, and then make your own way cross-country up the ridge to the saddle:

but it should be noted that Tryst Lake is a great destination in itself, with somewhat less arduous hiking available on the ridge south, rather than Tent Ridge:

Others take a route that starts out, near the Mount Shark helipad, in a maze of cross-country ski trails, and eventually climbs a scree slope:

It was a Saturday -- the first good-weather Saturday in July, in fact -- and we had company climbing from the saddle to the ridge. Two years earlier, we had gone to the old communications station on the south knob,

but this time we followed two hiking groups to the north height:

And the view for lunch was pretty darn good:

The next day was our final Kananaskis hike. After checking out of the lodge, we visited Karst Spring. The route to the Spring starts out on boring forest-road/cross-country-ski trails, but then you take a boardwalk across a marshy border of a small lake, where you can spot carnivorous butterwort plants, and then a hike up to the spring. There's a lot of limestone in the area (karst topography) with subterranean waters that burst out of the side of the mountain at this most dramatic spot (low-res video):