Mount St. Piran

This was my attempt to squeeze in one last hike before the hiking season “officially” ended. There had been a lot of snowfall in parts of Kananaskis but barely any in Lake Louise. Asking around resulted in various conflicting reports of avalanche and winter conditions. We decided to head out to the Lake Louise area and check the conditions out for ourselves. There was probably a foot of snow at higher elevations, but everything was otherwise very hikeable. Parts of the lower trails leading up to the teahouse were extremely icy but a pair of microspikes easily solved that problem. We only saw one other group on the Mount St. Piran trail. It seemed like everyone stuck to the teahouse/beehives hikes and did not venture any further from that. The day was windy but not too chilly - our footprints were covered by wind-blown snow less than half an hour after we made them. There were still lots of golden larches out so I was happy!

Date: 2019-10-05

Location: Banff

Friends: Kat, Ken, Lendl

Trailhead: Lake Louise parking lot

Fluffy or fat? A Clark’s Nutcracker.