Visiting Banff
Banff is one of the most beautiful and sought after destinations in all of Canada. And would you believe that as soon as I entered Banff I came across this massive Big Horn sheep! This was actually the very first photo I took during my winter visit.
Even though I spent half a week in Banff, I didn’t go to most of the famous areas of the park. No worries though, I’ll be sure to return! For this trip however, my focus was ice climbing and I was able to visit three different places. One of them required a hike through deep snow to a place called Heffner creek.
Along the way we saw this giant bear print in the snow. A local told me it was a mountain lion, which seemed absolutely impossible because of the size. After comparing prints online, it most definitely seems to belong to a black bear. Black bears have their claws in a slight curve that you can see above, where as grizzly’s are more of a straight line. And it looks nothing like a mountain lion print…
My motivation to ice climb was to prepare for some highly technical mountaineering. Post Everest, I have some ambitious goals with peaks that aren’t high altitude but much more demanding in technical skills. The photo of a fellow ice climber is on one of the routes that we did, all up to WI4. WI4 is relatively easy, but at my current skill was a good challenge. My long term goal is to be able to follow WI5.
I wish I took more photos of the entire area, but I did at least go behind one of the frozen waterfalls. This waterfall above is pretty massive, and had some interesting colors as the light shined through it. Where the ice isn’t covering the rocks, we found a small bird’s nest, which I assume is abandoned for the winter.
The hardest climbs I did on this trip were in Heffner creek. The most beautiful were without a doubt along Johnson Canyon. My friend Jesse who I met 10 years ago and hadn’t seen him until this trip took me for a day of climbing. The hike along Johnson creek alone was worth it, taking you past dramatic cliffs and frozen rivers.
My favorite scenery from this trip was definitely the waterfalls at Johnson Creek. The colorful pool above and the frozen Upper Falls below were perhaps the most beautiful frozen waterfalls I’d ever seen. Banff is an enormous area though, and there is an endless amount of experiences and place I have yet to see.
