After breakfast, checking-out, and picking up sandwichs at a local grocery store, we drove an hour, 70.4 km (44 miles) up to Lake O'Hara Parking for 10:30 Bus:
As I discovered in 2021, the road is blocked for "private vehicles" - the only way to get up to the Lake (at the end of the road), is to make reservations for the bus that drives you up from the parking lot just off the highway. I made that reservation this past March, so here we are today! I want to see Lake O'Hara primarily because John Singer Sargent painted it back in 1916 (the Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA):
I visited this Parking Lot again in 2024 (read that blog here). I didn't have a bus reservation, but maybe there was an open spot. There wasn't. So I hiked up (7 miles), did the "Alpine Route" (5.7 miles), then hiked back down. It was so beautiful that I certainly wanted to share this with Wendy someday. Well, TODAY is that day! So here we are, up at Lake O'Hara, ready for THE HIKE:
The plan was to hike around The Lake for a while, then up some switchbacks, then one long stretch follwed by another long stretch back to The Overlook. All the maps are different, but this one is the most accurate - but even it is missing the switchbacks (should be in the yellow circle):
This is the picture I took July 13, 2024 - I wanted Wendy to see this view!
Wendy posted a fun picture of me-taking-my-picture:
Hiking up next to an unnamed stream:
Stopping for lunch:
Three more turns up the trail, we decided to say "That's enough." This is the view I had when I turned around:
It turns out that I had made a mistake: Instead of a 3-mile-roundtrip, it would have been 3 miles one-way, for an overall hike of 6 miles. That really is TOO FAR for us hiking together (sorry). Red is my 2024 hike, and yellow is our hike today:
At least we got a great bunch of pictures!
After The Hike, we waited for the 2:30 bus back to our car. We then drove up Icefields Parkway to Jasper:
At 6 PM we checked into the Chateau Jasper in Jasper, Canada. Thank you God for this wonderful CANADA Adventure Day!
Music for today:
Hotel Room:
Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark, 1974 album, last heard 6/27/2024:
Joni Mitchell - Ladies Of The Canyon, 1970 album, last heard in a blog 8/14/2026:
Time to hit The Road:
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here, 1975 album, last heard 8/26/2025:
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell, 1994 album, last heard 5/31/2024:
Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine/New York:
hyperlink: dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/
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