On the morning of 7-22-13, the 13th day of Lupe’s 2013 Dingo Vacation, Lupe and SPHP explored the trail up Paradise Valley in Banff National Park to Lake Annette and the Giant Steps. The Paradise Valley trailhead is 2.5 km south along the road to Moraine Lake from the road to Lake Louise from Lake Louise Village. At the trailhead, Lupe and SPHP met and were joined by a couple from Maryland who both work for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They were Nema (mechanical engineer) and Danielle (international relations). Nema and Danielle both had the same objectives in mind.
The first part of the trip the trail climbed through a forest with no views. However, fairly early on, there was a moose wandering through the forest, which was pretty cool. Eventually the trail started coming to stream crossings over Paradise Creek. Fortunately there were good wooden bridges. At the Paradise Creek crossings, the views opened up somewhat. Unfortunately, the day was overcast, with sprinkles of rain now and then. The views weren’t what they might have been under better conditions.
Lupe reached Lake Annette 6.7 km from the Paradise Creek trailhead. Lake Annette was a very pretty turquoise blue-green color. It is nestled at the base of Mt. Temple (11,614 ft.), the highest mountain in the Lake Louise vicinity.
Mosquitoes at Lake Annette encouraged Lupe and everyone else to keep moving right along. The trail went back into the forest for a while, but eventually leveled out and came to an open area of loose rocks. It was really a shame the sky wasn’t clear, because from here there would have been some great views of Paradise Valley and Mt. Hungabee (11,450 ft.) at the head of the valley with remnants of the Horseshoe glacier at its base.
The trail went back into the forest and soon reached a junction 2.6 km beyond Lake Annette. One way the trail went 2.4 km up to Sentinel Pass. On the other side of Sentinel Pass it continued on to Moraine Lake and the Valley of Tens Peaks. (SPHP suddenly realized that it would have been a lot more fun if one of the vehicles had been left at Moraine Lake, so Lupe and her new friends could have continued on over Sentinel Pass after visiting the Giant Steps. Everyone agreed this would have been the thing to do.)
Lupe and the rest of the group took the other branch of the trail that led 1.5 km down into Paradise Valley to the Giant Steps. There was a campground near the Giant Steps, but it was closed due to frequent grizzly bear activity.
SPHP was disappointed that there wasn’t any trail continuing upstream from the Giant Steps towards Mt. Hungabee and the remnants of the Horseshoe glacier.
Since SPHP hadn’t realized at the beginning that it would have been better to have one of the vehicles at parked at Moraine Lake so a trip over Sentinel Pass would have made sense, once Lupe was done at the Giant Steps her entire party had to retrace the whole 10+ km route back past Lake Annette all the way to the Paradise Creek trailhead. The return trip was uneventful, except that Nema saw a black bear. Lupe, Danielle and SPHP never saw it, although SPHP did briefly hear something crashing through the forest.
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