![]() Here, the wildflowers are less showy – but it’s a good area to watch for marmots. We paused here to take a couple of longer-exposure waterfall photographs and then continued along the trail through the upper meadow. ![]() The safest/easiest one is the most upstream. There are a few obvious options for crossing the creek. It’s better to create your photographic wildflower bouquet on the hike down – and it’s better to wait until afternoon to photograph Dolomite Peak, too.Ībout 1.5 km on, Wildflower Way ends at a waterfall where the trail crosses Helen Creek. Morning sun makes it tough to come away with good wildflower photographs here. This is some of the most impressive wildflower terrain we’ve seen, especially with Dolomite Peak as a backdrop on your right.Įven in late August, we spotted scarlet and fuchsia paintbrush, leafy asters, yarrow, heart-leaved arnica, yellow stonecrop, elephanthead and more. Wildflower Way to WaterfallĮmerging from the forest, the long stretch of relatively flat trail to the waterfall runs through meadows of wildflowers. At this point, you’re just about at what I think of as Wildflower Way. The trail passes by the site of a small wildfire several years back and the dead, burned trees standing in new growth can also be interesting to photograph.Ībout 90 minutes from the parking lot, you’ll catch your first glimpse of Dolomite Peak between the trees. Our experience is that morning light is better than afternoon light for photographing the glacier, so pause on the way up the trail if you like to photograph your hiking experiences. The next thing of note is an avalanche chute (circa 2017/18, we believe) that provides a pretty good view of Crowfoot Glacier across the valley. These were easy to jump or rock-hop across (thanks to the hikers who moved the rocks into place). When we hiked the trail in late August, there were 6 small creek crossings in the first 1.5 km. And we’ve suddenly got the same thing happening to the spruce trees in our Canmore yard – anyone know what this is? The trail is relatively wide, but protruding roots require at least some attention to avoid tripping.įor the first time this year, we noticed a lot of yellow branches on the spruce trees. The forested front end of the trail climbs steadily from the parking lot. There were maybe 10 vehicles in the parking lot when we arrived a few minutes before 8 am. It’s roughly 33 km north of the TransCanada-Highway 1 and Icefields Parkway junction (north of Lake Louise) and is clearly signed. The Helen Lake trail head parking lot along the Icefields Parkway, opposite the Crowfoot Glacier viewpoint. So when we talked through possible hikes to celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary, we decided that another attempt to summit Cirque Peak was a fine example of the perseverance required to nurture a positive, long-term relationship. Then we hiked to the lake again with relatively inexperienced hiking friends. The next time, Cirque Peak was covered in snow. The first time we hiked to Helen Lake was with our kids.
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