{"id":1468,"date":"2015-08-17T08:10:06","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T14:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/?p=1468"},"modified":"2019-03-16T10:56:51","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T16:56:51","slug":"paradise-valley-lake-annette-the-giant-steps-banff-national-park-canada-7-22-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/?p=1468","title":{"rendered":"Paradise Valley – Lake Annette & The Giant Steps, Banff National Park, Canada (7-22-13)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the morning of 7-22-13, the 13th day of Lupe’s 2013 Dingo Vacation, Lupe and SPHP\u00a0explored the trail up Paradise Valley in Banff National Park\u00a0to Lake Annette and the Giant\u00a0Steps.\u00a0\u00a0The Paradise Valley trailhead is 2.5 km south along the road to Moraine Lake from the road to Lake Louise from Lake Louise Village.\u00a0 At the trailhead, Lupe\u00a0and SPHP met and were joined by a couple from Maryland who both work for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.\u00a0 They were Nema (mechanical engineer) and Danielle (international relations).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nema and Danielle both had the same objectives in mind.<\/p>\n

The first part of the trip\u00a0the trail climbed\u00a0through a forest with no views.\u00a0 However, fairly early on, there was a moose wandering through the forest, which was pretty cool.\u00a0 Eventually the trail started coming to stream crossings over Paradise Creek.\u00a0 Fortunately there were good wooden bridges.\u00a0 At the Paradise Creek crossings, the views opened up somewhat.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the day was overcast, with sprinkles of rain now and then.\u00a0 The views weren’t what they might have been under better conditions.<\/p>\n

Lupe reached Lake Annette 6.7 km from the Paradise Creek trailhead.\u00a0 Lake Annette was a very pretty turquoise blue-green color.\u00a0 It is nestled at the base of Mt. Temple<\/a><\/span> (11,614 ft.)<\/span><\/strong>, the highest mountain in the Lake Louise vicinity.<\/p>\n

\"Lupe<\/a>
Lupe and Danielle at Lake Annette in Paradise Valley.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mt.<\/a>
Looking S across Lake Annette at Mt. Temple.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mosquitoes at Lake Annette encouraged Lupe and everyone else to keep moving right along.\u00a0 The trail went back into the forest for a while, but eventually leveled out and came to an open area of loose rocks.\u00a0 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<\/a><\/span><\/strong> (11,450 ft.)<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0at the head of the valley with remnants of the Horseshoe glacier at its base.<\/p>\n

\"Nema<\/a>
Nema and Danielle in the open rocky area on the Paradise Valley trail. Mt. Hungabee (11,450 ft.) with remnants of the Horseshoe glacier is at the head of the valley (just L of center).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Paradise<\/a>
Paradise Valley. The Giant Steps\u00a0area on Paradise Creek is\u00a0visible toward the lower left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The trail went back into the\u00a0forest and soon\u00a0reached a junction 2.6 km beyond Lake Annette.\u00a0 One way the trail went 2.4 km up\u00a0to Sentinel Pass.\u00a0 On the other side of Sentinel Pass it continued on to\u00a0Moraine Lake and the Valley of Tens Peaks.\u00a0 (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.\u00a0 Everyone agreed this would have been the thing to do.)<\/p>\n

Lupe and the rest of the group took the\u00a0other branch of the trail that led 1.5 km down into Paradise Valley to the Giant Steps.\u00a0 There was a campground near the Giant Steps, but it was closed due to frequent grizzly bear activity.<\/p>\n

\"Lupe<\/a>
Lupe reaches the Giant Steps on Paradise Creek.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Looking<\/a>
Looking downstream at the Giant Steps.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Danielle<\/a>
Danielle and Nema on Paradise Creek. Sentinel Pass gap in the mountains is visible beyond the forest behind them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Since SPHP hadn’t realized at the beginning that it would have been better to have one of the vehicles at parked at\u00a0Moraine Lake so a trip over Sentinel Pass would have made sense, once Lupe was done at the Giant Steps\u00a0her entire party\u00a0had to retrace the\u00a0whole 10+ km route back past Lake Annette all the way to the Paradise Creek trailhead.\u00a0 The return trip was uneventful, except that Nema saw a black bear.\u00a0 Lupe, Danielle and SPHP never saw it, although SPHP did briefly hear something crashing through the forest.<\/p>\n

\"Danielle<\/a>
Danielle at the Giant Steps with Mt. Temple in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Links:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Next Adventure\u00a0<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Prior Adventure<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Want more Lupe adventures?\u00a0\u00a0Choose\u00a0from\u00a0Lupe’s 2013 Beartooths & Canadian Rockies Adventure Index<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0Dingo Vacations Adventure Index<\/strong><\/span> <\/a>or Master Adventure Index<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Or subscribe free\u00a0to\u00a0new Lupe adventures<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the morning of 7-22-13, the 13th day of Lupe’s 2013 Dingo Vacation, Lupe and SPHP\u00a0explored the trail up Paradise Valley in Banff National Park\u00a0to Lake Annette and the Giant\u00a0Steps.\u00a0\u00a0The Paradise Valley trailhead is 2.5 km south along the road to Moraine Lake from the road to Lake Louise from Lake Louise Village.\u00a0 At the … Continue reading Paradise Valley – Lake Annette & The Giant Steps, Banff National Park, Canada (7-22-13)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[105,32,30,31,106,26,229,226,104,227,228,224,225],"class_list":["post-1468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2013-beartoothscanadian-rockies","tag-american-dingo","tag-banff-national-park","tag-canada","tag-canadian-rockies","tag-carolina-dog","tag-dingo-vacations","tag-horseshoe-glacier","tag-lake-annette","tag-lupe","tag-mt-hungabee","tag-mt-temple","tag-paradise-valley","tag-the-giant-steps"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adventuresoflupe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/P1050030.jpg?fit=1651%2C1238&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1468"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20786,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468\/revisions\/20786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresoflupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}