We drove from Calgary to Banff yesterday to hiking at Lake Minnewanka. The drive is less than 90 minutes if you are doing around the speed limit and depending where in Calgary you are. We went in the middle of the day so only went for a few hours. The park is just minutes from Banff so if you want to go there as well for lunch before or dinner afterwards it is very close. If you are going to spend some money on a meal I suggest go there or bring food. There is a canteen there but it very expensive for what you get. I should have expected that when I approached it and there were no prices listed anywhere. It cost us over $15.00 for a hot dog and a small veggie burrito and a coffee. Hrmff!
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| Lake Minnewanka |
All the trail guides that I read said there was no elevation increase – maybe I was reading the wrong ones but if you walk the trail on the north side of the lake there is an elevation increase of at least 300-400 feet. It is pretty easy walking though. One section of the woods was pretty muddy – there has been a lot of rain this year.
After the park at the bottom, once you get onto the trail you are going to be in the woods for at least half an hour depending on how fast you walk. It is not closed in like some hikes so is pleasant.
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| Lake Minnewanka |
You can go as long or short as you want on this trail. Start early in the day and you can go the length of the lake. That will have to be a different day for us. We just walked out about an hour and a half or so – we may have gotten close to the entrance to the Aylmer Pass entrance but that was closed anyway.
I took a lot of photographs. I like working with black and white but many of these I could not choose between color and black and white – both ways communicated the beauty well. I took a lot more that I have put here but I hope to show you a sampling of the beauty of the hike. Hopefully, I have not left out some of the better ones.
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Lake Minnewanka |
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| Mountain Sheep |
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| Mountain Sheep |
These fellows were on the road foraging with many others when drove around to Two Jacks and Johnson Lake. Very pretty drive. And there is a walk around Johnson Lake that we did not do but if you want more of a pretty walk than a ‘hike’ looks like a nice one.
