Backpacking Banff NP, 2024

This was originally planned to be a 50 mile, 4 night hike on Jasper national park’s Brazzeau Loop until wildfires put a quick end to that. Luckily, Chuck was able to secure a 3 night permit for the 32 mile Molar Mountain loop in Banff National Park.

We managed to turn this into a 2 night, 20 mile out and back to Fish Lake and we’re all too glad to do so due to “reasons”.

The most daunting was perhaps a 1.5 mile slog through reported (from a reliable source) thigh deep water and willows just to find our third nights campsite. None of us wanted any part of that.

Second, the rain was relentless for the most part, especially at night. Packing up wet tents and damp sleeping bags before putting on wet or damp shoes isn’t ideal. We hiked out our last 6~ miles in a constant rain-which would’ve been the day of our river walk. We might have done this 10 years ago but we were all glad to have skipped that day.

Predictably, the highlight was the North Molar Pass environs. Beautiful meadows, streams and views for days, easily a top 3 view for me.

A word about the backcountry campsites. Each site consisted of multiple tent “pads” (which were not really pads at all, just a general area), fire pit, food pole and privy. Pretty standard for national parks. The best feature, however were small picnic tables scattered about the food prep area. These came in quite handy and eliminated the need to grovel in the mud just to cook dinner.