Mount Temple (Alberta)

After my exciting visit to the east coast of Canada, it was off to the west (best) coast to return to (one of my favorite places in the world) the beautiful Rocky Mountains and reconvene with my mountaineering friends (Andrew & Karly) to do some fun hikes and scrambles! The plan was to climb Mount Temple in Banff National Park, which, at 3544m, makes it the tallest mountain in Alberta that is a non-technical climb.

Picking things up from the end of my Maritimes road trip…

Day 8 (continued) – Travel to Alberta

After getting everything I needed for the weekend at home (I only took my 30L pack as a carry-on plus my laptop bag), I took off for the office which is located close to the airport. Luckily was able to avoid paying for an overpriced taxi/Uber as my boss graciously gave me a lift to the airport. My flight was very late in the evening again, so I had plenty of time to relax.

While looking for the Premium Lounge at Terminal 3 (it is pricey but it is all you can eat/drink for 2 hours) I bumped into one of my old friends (also called Andre) from undergrad who I hadn’t seen in close to a decade. Andre was in Windsor visiting family, but lives in the UAE now and works as a pilot. Pretty neat I could catch up with him. After exchanging numbers on Whatsapp, I headed over to the lounge but it was full. Thus, I settled on a veggie burger at the Irish pub. The first of many veggie burgers on this trip…

The flight was pretty uneventful, but it did leave on time and actually arrived in Calgary early! I had a window seat on the flight, and luckily there was an empty aisle seat, so the girl beside me moved to the aisle and we had plenty of space. I tried out using my sleeping bag liner on the plane and it was extremely comfy – I was able to get a bit of sleep in. After landing, I grabbed a shuttle to my hotel and it was off to bed at 2am (4am EDT).

Day 9 – Back to Canmore

After a short nights sleep, I had breakfast at the hotel before heading back to the airport to pick up my rental car. I waited for quite a while to pick it up, but was finally on the road at around 10:30am. When presented with several options, I asked for the vehicle that was easiest on gas, and ended up with a Volvo V60. Very interesting car – it was very long with a low profile; my head touched the ceiling while seated (I’m average height).

I got to Canmore by around noon, and met up with Andrew not long after. The plan originally was to do a quick half day hike in the afternoon before checking in to our accommodations and being joined by Karly. Since we had both arrived in Canmore a little late, plus the realization that it would be a very early start the next morning to hike Mount Temple, we opted to take it easy that afternoon. We had lunch at Rocky Mountain Bagel Company – the food was extremely good – and wandered around Canmore checking out some of the art stores and the outdoor gear shop. The art was quite impressive – of note were Serge Dubé’s acrylic paintings at Fallen Leaf Art Gallery as well as Brandon T. Brown’s amazing wilderness photography.

At the gear shop (Valhalla Pure Outfitters), I was hoping to try and get a hold of some spare safety tabs for my bear spray cans, but they unfortunately had none in stock. We left quickly so as to avoid being tempted into buying more outdoor gear and walked around on some local trails before heading over to Harvie Heights, a hamlet just northwest of Canmore, to check in to our accommodations. Pretty nice place – it was a two storey condo style property with a nice view of the Mount Rundle massif.

I ended up returning to Canmore briefly to go back to Valhalla to grab some thicker gloves and an emergency blanket for our hike the next day as I learned that it would be quite chilly up in the mountains, and I didn’t have my puffy jacket with me. Around 8pm, Karly arrived after driving down from Edmonton, and we went out to dinner in Canmore – we went to The Wood, which offered $5 off most items after 9pm. Sounds kind of dangerous since that applies to alcohol as well! I had a veggie burger for the second night in a row.

After dinner, it was back to the condo to quickly get ready for our big hike at Mount Temple the next day. The plan was to wake up at 1:15am in order to leave by 1:30am – the parking fills up super quickly in the morning.

Day 10 – Mount Temple

After what felt like no time at all (Andrew didn’t sleep at all – was too amped for the hike), we woke up at around 1:15am, and quickly packed our things into the Volvo and took off down the road towards Banff National Park. We had the Keurig working overtime right until we left – I think we ended up chain pumping out 8-9 large coffees worth to get caffeinated before the hike. By 2:30am we were at the Lake Moraine parking lot, and were relieved to find there was ample parking. We quickly found Karly’s friends who would be joining us on the climb up Mount Temple – Luca (not the same as the Luca who we did the mountaineering course with), Ray (his name is actually Raymond but since it’s an “old man’s” name, he goes by the shortened version), and Mar.

It was a clear, cloudless night with a full moon, perfect conditions for a night hike. We all had headlamps, which made seeing the trail (and avoiding obstacles like rocks and tree roots) easier. We quickly made work of the Larch Valley trail in roughly 80 mins which composed the first ~4.5 kilometers of the hike and took us up to Minnestima Lake (where hikers earlier in the week apparently ran into a couple of grizzlies enjoying their breakfast). No bears this time thankfully (a few of us had spray), and we began traversing a steeper incline up the Sentinel Pass trail, which involved a number of switchbacks up the face separating Pinnacle Mountain and Mount Temple. Upon reaching the col after around 40 more minutes, the trail got even steeper as it began snaking its way up Mount Temple. It was here we donned our helmets as the risk of rockfall became significant. The climb wasn’t too difficult technically with some minor scrambling through scree interspersed with some rocky obstacles with moderate exposure. The crux of the climb was at the second rock band, with a couple decently-sized steps to climb over. This part had made me a bit worried about doing this hike in the dead of night, but with headlamps on, many people around, and going slowly, it wasn’t too bad. From there, the biggest challenge was negotiating the thinner air – I definitely noticed breathing became a bit harder and I really slowed down once up over 3000m or so.

As we approached the final summit ridge, the sun was just starting to peek out over the horizon, making for some spectacular sunrise views of the summit ahead, along with the surrounding peaks. Despite the soreness in my legs and feet and breathing heavily, I had the biggest grin (/grimace?) on my face as I knew the summit was just ahead, and forged onwards, and was finally at the summit just before 7:30am after 4 hours and 25 mins of hiking. It was the highest point I have ever stood at 3544m above sea level. Andrew was just ahead and we were absolutely stoked to have made it to the top. We immediately started taking photos and congratulating the rest of our party as they made their way up to join us. Summitting at sunrise was truly the most exhilarating experience of my life – what a beautiful view!

It was quite cold at the top (even with a base layer, hiking shirt, soft shell, fleece and hard shell on, I was still quite chilly), so I was glad to begin the descent after about 90 mins at the summit. The descent was very slow and deliberate as I did not have trekking poles (could not bring as carry-on) and the terrain was quite loose. Karly lent me one of her poles after a little while, and it was absolutely a godsend, it helped a lot in keeping my balance. It was at this point that it actually became quite warm on the slopes, and I gradually removed layers. Also, we somehow lost the trail right at the first grey rock band, and several of us, including Karly, Luca, and a couple other guys we were climbing with, took a wrong turn and descended a precarious scree slope (which took over an hour). This area is noted by Parks Canada to avoid due to rockfall hazards – I was careful to not follow the people ahead of me too closely for that reason. Super tough section and very fortunate no one got injured.

Eventually, we made it back to the trail and to little surprise, we were the last in our group to make it down to Minnestima Lake as everyone else had taken the proper route down. We relaxed for a bit here, wading into the lake (being from Ontario, way too cold for me!) and refueling on snacks and water, before continuing our descent via the Larch Valley trail. Pretty uneventful and we finished the hike back at Moraine Lake after 10 hours and 15 minutes (including breaks) and 17.66km of hiking. It was really hard to believe that it was only 1:15pm when we finished; due to the very early start time it felt like 6pm! Karly, Andrew and I agreed that this was the biggest accomplishment of the day – getting a parking spot.

The six of us went out for celebratory lunch/dinner in Lake Louise at Bill Peyto’s Cafe. I (once again) had a veggie burger. Not the best place I’ve eaten at in Alberta but after that hike, I didn’t care! After lunch we parted ways and returned to our rental property. I spent some time trying to sync my GPS watch, then gave up and took a nap. At 9:30pm, we woke up and went for dinner, once again at the Wood, where I had ANOTHER burger, though this time it was salmon. It was most excellent. I would highly recommend this restaurant if you ever visit Canmore. Andrew also wanted to drop by the cannabis store, and the girl at the counter had an actual lizard (bearded dragon) on her shoulder chilling out. What a thing to see on my first visit ever to a cannabis store!

Day 11 – Return to Climbing

As you might expect, we all had a great nights sleep the day after Temple. In the morning Karly and I left fairly quickly as we were going rock climbing at Grotto Canyon with Luca, Ray and Mar. Initially I had planned to do a shorter hike, and while I definitely could have done one, I was pretty sore from Temple so opted to do something a bit different! I’ve also been leaning towards getting back into climbing so this seemed like a good way to kickstart that. Andrew took his time departing as he was heading back to Lethbridge (roughly 2 hours south of Calgary), so Karly and I left first (I had to go to rent equipment beforehand).

Overall, pretty good value on renting shoes, helmet and harness at Gear Up Canmore – it came to under $30 for the day. While I was there I asked if they had any spare bear spray safety clips. While they had none lying around, the guy gave me an excellent suggestion which I’m surprised I didn’t think of – simply drop by the waste disposal yard in Canmore (where you are supposed to drop off expired bear spray cans) and snag a few there. So, on my way to Grotto Canyon, I swung by and was able to find a box with 9 or 10 expired cans, 5 of which had clips that were easily removable (zip tied). This was also a reminder to use a zip tie to secure the clip to the can so it doesn’t get lost.

After that, it was a quick drive to the Grotto Canyon trailhead, where there is a fairly short hike up the canyon to a waterfall. Grotto Mountain is located close by (its trailhead is bit up the road), which is another excellent scramble and is on my list for future trips. I was able to find the group pretty easily, and it looked pretty daunting seeing them climb the walls of the canyon. I had not been rock climbing since early 2020, and never outdoors, so it was a bit of a learning curve to re-familiarize myself. These guys were all very experienced and were mostly doing lead climbing, but they were more than happy to let me work in and do top rope (I learned that generally for outdoors spots like this, people primarily do lead as there are no fixed ropes).

I was able to complete a couple 5.8s on top rope, though I did get a lot of help (suggestions on holds) from Ray who was belaying me, and also attempted a 5.9 but it was very challenging as the crux of the route was at the very beginning and the holds were quite sticky. Pretty fun re-introduction to climbing and I’m definitely going to keep at it over the winter indoors at my local gym. Also got some great action photos courtesy of Luca and Karly.

After saying goodbye to everyone, it was off to Cochrane to stay with one of my prior AirBNB hosts, Mari. I checked in, took a shower, then walked over to Half Hitch (the same restaurant as last time). I wanted to NOT have a veggie burger this time as I was kind of getting tired of them (eaten every day on my Alberta trip), but unfortunately that meant having the only other pescetarian option on the menu – fish tacos, which is what I had last time I was at that restaurant! Still a good meal though. After walking back to the AirBNB I relaxed in the evening before going to bed.

Day 12 – Back to Toronto

It’s always hard leaving the mountains! Last day of the trip was fairly uneventful – I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and both my flights (I had a connecting flight in Montréal) departed on time and with no issues. Thank you Air Transat (although they do get a thumbs down for providing no complimentary snacks).

Overall, a really great vacation (both east and west legs)! Had some minor setbacks while on Cape Breton Island, and also didn’t get as much hiking done as I wanted while out west, but Temple was absolutely incredible and was 100% worth flying out to do. It was also super awesome getting to hang out with Andrew and Karly again, and also meeting Karly’s friends. Hopefully our paths will cross in the future!

That’ll be it for 2022 in terms of longer trips but I do plan on doing several weekend/long weekend trips in the coming months (including some more Adirondack adventures), so I’m looking forward to that!