Lake O’Hara – the trail to Mordor

Panorama of the Lake O’Hara area, taken at Wilwaxy Pass

The trail to Mordor – looking at the Lake Oesa basin from near Wilwaxy Pass.  Route barely visible.

Kristen on the way out of the Lake Oesa basin

Jeff nearing the Opabin Plateau area

Panorama of the Lake O’Hara area, taken at All Souls

Lake O’Hara is, simply put, the best hiking I have ever done.  It is also easily in Kristen’s all-time top 5 (she has a lot more experience than me).

The lake itself is situated in a glacial basin about 10-15 miles Northwest of Lake Louise, just across the British Columbia border into Yoho National Park.  Access to the lake basin is severely restricted, in order to keep the area as pristine as possible.  A bus runs a few times a day from the parking area near the highway, up the 11km dirt road, to a small and rustic day hut at the base of the lake (named Le Relais, but called Le Creuset by Kristen because she couldn’t remember the proper name).  Bus reservations are taken exactly three months in advance, and fill up within minutes.  You are not allowed to drive your car up the road, and not allowed to ride a mountain bike up the road.  You either take the bus, or you walk (which almost nobody does).

We had not heard about Lake O’Hara when we planned this part of the trip.  Kristen read a few snippets about it the day we arrived in Banff, buried somewhere in our Canadian Rockies guidebook.  The book said it was the best hiking in all of the Canadian Rockies, but good luck getting there.  So of course, we had to do it.  But we didn’t have bus reservations.  Information on the internet was spotty, but we read that it might be possible to get next-day reservations by going to the visitor center in nearby Field, BC at 7:30am the day before you wanted to hike.  So we woke up at 6 on our rainy day in Banff and did the 1 hour drive to Field.  No dice, doesn’t work that way, no spots.  They told us if we showed up at the Lake O’Hara parking lot at 7:30am the day we wanted to hike, we would have a good shot at a standby/cancellation spot on the 8:30am bus.  It was seeming pretty iffy at this point, but we said screw it and woke up at 6am again.  We got to the parking lot at 7:30am as instructed, and we were the sixth group in the standby line!  People had arrived at 6am to secure their spots.  Crap.  We didn’t get a spot on the bus.

It was walk up or go home.  We walked up.

The roughly 6.5 miles and 1000 vertical feet took only a little over 2 hours to cover, and we were feeling pretty good when we arrived at the day hut.  Even better, the area looked spectacular.  We asked for advice on hikes in the area, and the girl working the counter at the day hut told us we had to take the ‘Alpine Circuit’ route.

Apparently the Alpine Club of Canada built a ridiculous trail around the walls of the basin.  Lake O’Hara is walled in maybe 200-250 degrees around by sheer peaks, with various terraced lakes, benches, passes, and hanging valleys above it.  The ‘Alpine Circuit’ begins at one end of the wall, goes straight up (steepest trail I’ve ever been on), stays up, traveling across scree fields on the sheer mountainsides, visits two lake basins on its way around, then finally drops down back to the valley floor most of the way to the other end.  It’s only 12km in total distance, but is tough going.  There is barely a trail in many sections.  However, the views are totally worth it.  The trail is above treeline for 95% of the hike, so your entire field of view is filled with peaks and glaciers all day.

We were so excited to begin, we absolutely bombed up the initial hillside (~1500ft elevation gain over 1 mile, yikes) to get to Wilwaxy Pass, the first major lookout point of the hike.  From there, we traveled to Lake Oesa.  This was our favorite part of the hike.  It felt like walking the trail to Mordor.  A narrow trail on a mountainside, loose rocks, 500ft drops, and giant, imposing layer-cake mountains in all colors, in all directions.  It was the most fantastic place I’ve ever been.  We ate lunch at Lake Oesa, which is the top in a series of terraced lakes and waterfalls that drop down to Lake O’Hara.  From there it was more rock scrambling and non-stop views on the way to the Opabin Plateau (called the O’Pabst Blue Ribbon Plateau by me all day because I couldn’t remember the proper name), a lush bench with many small lakes and a series of trails criss-crossing them.  We spent a bit of time on the plateau, and then made our way up the absolutely terrifying ascent to All Souls lookout point (the high point on the far side of the trail) for the best panorama of the area.  And from there it was finally down back to the day hut.  I was absolutely destroyed by the end of the hike, but Kristen was somehow feeling good.  We caught the bus back down the access road (no reservations required) and returned back to our campsite Banff, exhausted.

We’re pretty glad Lake O’Hara is a ‘best kept secret.’  Almost everyone we met up there had been before, and were fairly serious hiking enthusiasts.  It’s less than an hour away from Banff, yet totally unspoiled.  We will be back – our first discussion after coming out of the area was regarding who we should tell first about the area, and which friends we should bring up there next summer.