Taylor Lake

On the last Saturday of September, we were expecting more than 30cm of snow in Southern Alberta. While everybody was complaining about it in Calgary, I was super excited. If there is one thing I didn’t want to miss was a big snow dump in the Rockies where more than a meter of snow was expected. But when we woke up on Saturday, only a few centimeters so far in Calgary. We still made our way to Banff and while the road was bad near the foothills, we were surprised to see no snow on the ground in the Park. We settled on Taylor Lake for the day as there are quite a few larch trees around the lake and late September is usually the peak of the golden larch tree season.

There were only two other cars in the parking lot and once on the other side of the animal fence, we started our hike on a flat but muddy trail.

It didn’t take long for the trail to gain some elevation. And I was really happy to see a little bit of snow on the ground at this point. It was exactly 0°C but the perpetual uphill trail kept us warm.

Isn’t it gorgeous? Nothing quite beautiful like a bunch of snow on top of coniferous trees!

The trail was slippery at places and it would’ve been nice to have our hiking poles (my bad, I forgot to bring them). Soon enough the trail opened up and we could see some larch trees high up on the surrounding mountains. They are usually a bright yellow color before turning orange. Perhaps we were a week too late? But the orange color made the scenery spectacular anyway.

Here they are!

It was so peaceful. We had Taylor Lake for ourselves. The parking lot is usually full on the weekend as this is an easy day hike only a few kilometers past the town of Banff. But I can’t express enough how enjoyable it is to be alone in the wilderness. I can’t stand being surrounded by dozens of people in such a vast environment.

Taylor Lake

I had brought my Thermarest folding pad with the intention of enjoying the view and have a cup of tea. And that’s exactly what we did. The wind wasn’t that bad and with a few extra layers, it was hard to notice that the temperature was now below freezing. We sat there for more than an hour just to enjoy the view.

It’s Pumpkin Spice Tea season at Tim’s!

I realized that there was a campground at Taylor Lake. This would make a perfect winter camping trip in a few months!

Going back down to the trailhead got a little tricky with a few icy spots. But we made it without falling!

The clouds were moving in and when you can’t see the top of Castle Mountain, you know the weather is about to turn for the worst.

We left Banff just in time as the storm was following us on the road. Mount Rundle was about to get covered in snow.

It really got bad when we reached Canmore. We saw a few cars in the ditch along the road. We drove home through a whiteout storm and from then, it snowed until the Monday afternoon for a total of 40cm in Calgary. Winter is coming, and I CAN’T WAIT!