Hiking in Banff?

[V]

I didn't notice you said easy. Buller isn't technically hard, it's just a long walk with a lot of elevation. Anyone can do it.

But if you want easy technically and fitness-wise, try MT. Baldy. It's actually really fun, is the closest scramble to the city, and you can probably get up and down in less than 4 hours. Just take HWY 1 to HWY 40, and then Mt. Baldy is the first mountain on your left. You'll see at the base that there's a little parking lot and a small trail that dissapears into the trees. That's your entrance. It's maybe 500m before you hit the wishing well or so. Really neat climb, and you can choose to take the easy scree slope, or if you like you can take more of a climbing type route. It's a lot of fun to take the climbing type route.

[V]

Sorry for bumping the old thread, but I climbed Heart Mountain today. Nice climb, a lot of straight up. Did you do the whole loop that heads over to the other two mountain peaks and goes all the way around, with a 5 km or so hike parallel with the highway?? Holy smokes, that almost killed me. The downclimb is always the hardest for me, and that long way around was absolutely brutal. If you did do the loop I can guarantee you that Baldy will be easier than heart. If you just went straight up and straight down, it's pretty comparable to Baldy in a lot of ways, I think.

[Phanuthier]

Nope, almost did that one, but did the straight down. Thank god I did the straight down, I guess.

I'm looking forward to doing Baldy. Out of your list, I'll probably do Baldy, Ribbon Falls and Mount Indefatigable in K. Do you think those 3 would be appropriate for bringing a girlfriend who hasn't done any intense hiking or anything? I'd also like to do Heart again (when tick season is over, of coarse) with her, but I think that might be just a step above what she can handle.

[V]

Did you go all the way to the real summit?? I got a bit of a chuckle when I saw the cairn at the false summit.

Ribbon Falls you can for sure go up to the chains. There's a spot where you have to climb up chains to get up a cliff, and my wife didn't want to try it. It's still a very nice hike up to that point. I did that hike years ago, and only once, so the details are a little foggy.

I took my wife up Baldy, and it's nice because once you get out of the tree line you can choose to either go up the scree slope, or the more direct climbing type route. My wife took the scree slope, I took the direct route. If you take the direct route the climb is very similar to Heart. It's a lot easier to take the scree, though, just a little slower. One thing about Baldy, though, just when you get out of the treeline there's a piece that's a little scary. It's section that's about 4 feet wide and 20 feet long with at least 200m drops on both sides. You can get a pretty mean crosswind out there, as you're pretty exposed. Just crawl across it and you'll be fine. I almost fell off it once, just because the wind took off with my hat, and just by instinct I threw my arm out to catch it. Totally threw off my balance, but I managed to stay up there. Might be a good idea to put your hats in your bag before you do this piece.

I would definitely take her up Indefatiguable, although you probably won't make it all the way up to the summit. That's fine, though, the way the climb works. You spend a lot of time climbing along a ridge, and there's a great view all the way up. Then you duck more into the interior of the mountain through the trees and get to a bench at what's called the 'end of trail'. From there you can keep going up through the trees and you'll find yourself into a really nice 'bowl' or meadow. From there you can see three different peaks, one straight ahead (the second tallest), one to the right (the tallest) and then one to the right of that one (the shortest). If you head to the shortest one you'll have a really nice walk through the meadow, and then catch a great view down the creek. The problem with taking someone that's inexperienced and probably a little hesitant with climbing is that once you're at that smaller peak you can head over to the tallest peak, but it's very steep and very exposed. I've done a lot of scrambles, and I was a little unsure of myself on the way up there. I might have picked a bad route, though, because I saw a family with some kids going up after me. Could be doable, I suppose.

It's probably apparent that Indy's my favourite. Even the climb to the first peak is fantastic, and I would highly recommend it. Best view I've seen from a mountaintop.

One little quick one you might want to try if you're camping out in K-country and only have an hour or so to kill, try the Mt. Everest Expedition Trail in Peter Lougheed Park. It's not a mountain, but it does have some pretty decent elevation gain, and there's a nice view from the top. I did it with my grandparents, so obviously it isn't incredibly hard, but I thought it was pretty nice.

[Skyceman]

Originally Posted by habernac

not all of them. Mid june is usually a safe bet. And watch out for the bears! A friend of mine snapped this photo last night outside Jasper:

Nice pic. How far away was he? Taking a pic of a Grizz would be close to the bottom of my to do list at this moment.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by Skyceman

Nice pic. How far away was he? Taking a pic of a Grizz would be close to the bottom of my to do list at this moment.

100 feet or so I believe. It was a pretty quick click, he didn't want to hang around for any length of time. 100 feet is pretty close.

[Hakan]

I would do temple mountain. That's the best hike in the park for beginner's to advanced.