Up to the sub alpine to visit a couple of pristine alpine lakes.
Fish Creek Parking Lot (Lake Louise) to Baker Lake Campground – Baker Lake Campground to Fish Creek Parking Lot (Lake Louise), July 26 – July 27 2020.
Hiking in the Canadian Rockies is a spectacular adventure. But there can be long stretches of hiking in heavily forested valley bottoms. The trip to Baker Lake bucks the trend scoring high marks for amazing alpine views in just a 14km hike.
Laura and I had did not do a backpacking trip in 2019 so I really wanted to pick a hike that had views along the way and was not all about the destination. Luckily I had visitsited Baker lake on the four day trip I completed through the Sawback Range in 2019. Immediately upon arriving at the Baker Lake Campground I knew I wanted to bring Laura to Baker Lake.
With both the dogs getting older I decided that the dogs would not join us on this trip. This would be the first time Laura had gone backpacking without Links. The Wednesday before we were planning on leaving Links suffered a major medical emergency. Quick treatment at the vet appeared to have Links on the road to recovery but we decided that it would not be prudent to hiking and leave Links only a few days later.
Our trip was planned for a Sunday/Monday and I was able to re-book the exact trip two weeks later.
Our plan was to get an early start (for us) so leave Canmore at 8:00 am and hit the trail just after 9:00am. Since it was a short trip we made sure we had lots of extras. Dinner was to be dried tortellini I had prepared at home, and desert was chocolate biscuits and wine lakeside.
As the weather forecast was clear I carried my full sized tripod and my Irix 15mm F2.4 lens that I use for astrophotography, if the night was clear I was hoping for excellent views of the stars over the lake, I was not disappointed.
What We Learned
- home prepared dried dinners are a great way to get a taste of home in the backcountry